Backyard Birthday Fun!!

We did a combined birthday party for the boys this year in our backyard water park!

some of our very favorite people came to help us celebrate!

Jacob went for a sports theme and Nathan went for Monster trucks!  Their cakes fit their personalities to a t!

we had pizza

and lots of fun playing in the pools/slides

speaking of personalities- these two shots capture them again.  Jacob was embarrassed by all the attention and became very shy.  Nathan tried to kill a little boy who got too close for comfort!

Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you!!

Beach with Nana!

In July we headed back down to the beach for a few days with my mom!  We did this last year, too and it is such a great time.  The kids love their Nana and getting to spend extra time with her is a treat!  Mommy loves it too because she (Nana) is so helpful, is an amazing cook, and we always watch lots of girlie movies at night once the kids are in bed!

This time the ocean was really rough and filled with seaweed, so we spent most of our time at the pool and on the bay/sound side.

There are tons of hermit crabs on this side and they all love to wade in the shallow water and find them.

This time we also found a new (to us) and exciting thing to do- jumping off the dock.

I grew up on a lake with a boat and this brought back such fun memories of when I was a child.

They loved it!

I love Jacob's arms in all the pictures and the way Abby has her legs tucked under makes her look like she's 12 feet off the ground!

Even Nathan joined in the fun and for those of you who also have a 2 or 3 year old, you know what I mean when I say he insisted on doing it "all by himself!"

back in the condo we had to get cleaned up...

Thanks again, Nana!  We're already looking forward to next year!!

Snaggle tooth!!

Lost her two front teeth recently!!

Atlanta!

We headed off with Jay's parents for a super fun weekend in Atlanta.

Friday night we went to the kids' first Braves game.

one of the biggest treats of the whole night, besides the hot dogs, french fries, and dippin dots of course, was Uncle Shaun coming!  The kids we were thrilled to see him!

thankfully, he's a really good sport when it comes to being pinched and poked by a certain two year old!

Jacob was so excited to get to go.  I don't think he really had any concept of what to expect, he just knows he LOVES him some baseball!  Needless to say, he was not disappointed.

Uncle Shaun treated the kids to baseball caps and tomahawks!

Saturday morning we got up and headed back to Northpointe Mall.  Abby and Mimi wanted some time together at the American Girl store to look around.  The boys rode the train and carousel, and found some cool lawn mowers at Sears!  After a quick lunch in the food court, we headed out to our next stop...

The Georgia Aquarium!!

It really is a beautiful place with a lot of fun and exciting things to see.

apparently on Saturdays, there are TONS of people who want to see the whales and sharks!

It was extremely crowded (if you ever go buy your tickets online beforehand- the wait for tickets was over an hour long!)  But the kids really enjoyed seeing all the animals (and Uncle Shaun again!)

this fish swam over for a kiss!

Thank you Mimi and Gramps!  We had a great time!!

Abby's Seven! (on July 16!!)

It is truly amazing how much difference a year can make.. Just look at my sweet little girl on the beach last summer...

and now...

( I like to call this one seven and sassy!)

now don't get me wrong... she is still precious.  In many ways, even more precious than the year before.  She is thoughtful and helpful, and for the most part, very encouraging to her brothers.  She is so very social, loves her friends, her daddy, and loves loves loves to read.  The Boxcar Children and American Girl books are her favorites right now.

 But she is definitely growing up- she's not into princesses any more and for so many years, those were her favorites.  It is a pretty big rite of passage in a little girl's life to outgrow the disney princessess.. sniff, sniff.  In the past 2 weeks she has lost both of her front teeth, and she has the longest legs I have ever seen!!  I think because she is my first and only girl, I mourn some of her growing up differently because I know I won't see it again.  Anyway, we had a great time celebrating her on her actual birthday.  You'll remember (you massive number of readers!) that we went with her friends to American Girl in Atlanta back in May and that was really her birthday celebration and she also received her doll that day too.  But on her birthday, we did invite a few of our friends to the park to have cupcakes and play.

this tree is a kid-magnet!

The boys played pirates most of the time. 

I asked them to give me their best salty ole' pirate faces...

Happy Birthday, Abby, our little princess forever!!

Super Saturday Scavenger Hunt

Several Saturdays ago we were looking for something different to do and my super fun and creative husband came up with a scavenger hunt for the kids.  He gave them verbal clues (since Abby is the only reader we didn't want her to be the only one who would have a chance to figure them out) and they had to tell him where to drive.  All of these are places the kids have been before, but several places it had been a really long time so some of them were not easy!  Needless to say, they had a BLAST!!

Clue #1 took us to the foot bridge at Jemison Park

they really enjoyed trying to hop all the way across without falling in.

clue #2 took us to Samford

This is one of the only clues I remember and it was "sipping slurpees with Mr. Beeson"

They quickly figured the icee part out, but Mr. Beeson took a while!

We spent some time just walking around the campus and can I just say that it makes me a little nostalgic to go back there.  I LOVED college and it is strange to be there, but not belong...

Our third stop was Ed's Pet World (for those of you who are unfamiliar, it's an exotic pet store where several of the creatures just roam freely...)

That place gives me the heeby-jeebies.  I took a pic right before we went in to document that we went there, but once inside I paid close attention to where I was walking and what my children were touching.

Lucky for them they got to see a snake catch and eat a mouse and several other yucky sights!

Stop number 4 was Salsaritas.  It is a yummy and family friendly Mexican place (that we happen to have great coupons to) but it is just not convenient to us, so we rarely eat there.

Last stop (and probably the kids' favorite) was to the zoo to feed the lorikeets.  I deprive my children when I take them by myself because I am not a fan of having those birds land on me and when I have all 3 by myself it is a little hard to manage. Lucky for them, their daddy loves to feed the birds and have them crawl all over him, so off we went!