Lola's 1st Birthday

Last week Taylor brought over a birthday invitation she had made for Princess.  Lola, Taylor's dog was going to be turning ONE!  So Taylor organized and planned a party for her.  It was adorable and Kristine did a great job making yummy treats for the people AND the puppies!  Princess loved all the yummy birthday food.  Let's just say the bar has been set high!!!  My kids are expecting an extravagant birthday party for Princess in October.  LOL!!!  Thanks a lot Kristine! :)  It really was cute and we all had a great time!   

Taylor had the cutest little post-it's to greet her guests

"birthday-cum-with-the-dog-at-700:-PM"

 the birthday girl

 Princess wore her party skirt!

 Kristine made cupcakes for the doggies!  They are the ones on the paper plate in front.  They had honey and peanut butter!  so cute!

 Rosie enjoying a doggie cookie treat

 Party Hat!!!

 Callan and Taylor

 Jack & Harrison

 Shaun & Addison

 singing Happy Birthday

 Lola ate her cupcake in ONE bite!

 cupcake time!

 yum, yum!

 Raj & Holly

 I enjoyed a nice yummy 'people' cupcake!

 Jackson & Danny

 icing lips

 Barbara

 the proud parents of Lola, Kristine & Mike

 Radha & Buster

 me & my man

 Addison showing off her present to Lola, some doggie treats! :)

 Balou

time to go home!  Princess was worn out tonight too, she was asleep on the floor in no time!

Happy Birthday Lola!  You are a good doggie and a good doggie friend to Princess!

Beach Day 2012

Today was our annual day trip to the beach! What a fun day! Laura, Rachel and I planned to head to the beach a few weeks ago. We all were super busy this weekend so we really didn't take the time to bother checking with the weather. As I was driving to Rachel's this morning and the rain was starting to get more steady I began to wonder of we were going to be driving for 2 hours just to have a car full of disappointed kids! 
We decided to press on and knew the aquarium was always available to us should we need it. We stopped at a Chickfila about 15 minutes from Kure Beach and ate lunch. As the rain came pouring down we started checking and rechecking the weather on our phones and preparing mentally for an aquarium visit rather than a beach day. 
We finished up lunch, drove the 15 minutes to Fort Fisher and as we pulled in to the parking lot it was clear the rain seemed to be finishing up. We decided to brave the weather, set up our beach chairs and hope for the best! God was so good to us and so good to our kids! It never rained again while we were at the beach. The sun even came out after a while! Kids were thrilled to get their beach day! It wasn't as relaxing as we had hoped, the surf was strong and we spent a lot of time making sure our children were not swept out to sea, but it was a FUN day! And another reminder that God had been good to us! He was and is good either way.  We would have had fun at the aquarium too, but I choose to see no rain when there should be rain GOOD! What a sweet reminder to our kids that He cares for them. 
Would you believe it poured almost the entire drive home?! It was hard to believe we had been sitting on the beach just a short time before. :)

A stop at the Famous Britt's Donuts was the perfect ending to our day! 

Love these kids and love their momma's too! 

Pool Party at Aunt Janet's

Who doesn't love a pool party??? and what's better than a pool party with your cousins???  Aunt Janet and Uncle Neal threw a "School's Out" pool party and we were so excited to be able to be in town for all the fun!  Lots of yummy food was eaten and tons of fun was had by all!  Here are a few picutres... 

 trampoline fun!

 Uncle Neal grilled some yummy hamburgers and hotdogs

 Baylee

 Austin

 oops!  foot is stuck!

 I was not as confident as Anthony that the tree branch would hold him!  thankfully it DID!

 Michael

 Jackson LOVED playing Volleyball!  I didn't get any pictures of the "big" boys...highschoolers...but they were great to let him play with them.  He loved every minute of it!

 jammed finger. :(

 The Jackson boys were able to come over for a bit!

 Emma

 mom!  why do you have to keep taking pictures!

after we were finished swimming, we headed back to Aunt Grace's.  Grant and Brandon came along to watch Star Wars movie and to spend the night.  It was a perfect way to start the summer off with a bang!  We always love being in VA with the cousins!  Thankful it's such a close trip!