Friday Five

1. One of my favorite childhood memories was "playing" guitar and singing with my dad. He would change chords and we would strum while we sang our Wee Sing song of choice. I may have teared up a little the other night when I found Matt and Avery doing the same thing.

2. I started planning our back-to-school children's ministry event today, and I'm so excited about it! We're doing a family night at the Mercy Me concert/Ranger game; what a great way to end the summer! (Even if it is with every other church group in North Texas. Seriously, it'll be packed.)

3. I read the first Harry Potter book for my adolescent lit class in college, and I enjoyed it, really I did. However, I've never been a fan of anything of the sci-fi or fantasy genre, so I had no desire to read the rest of the series. I tried to watch the movies (less time commitment and all), but I fell asleep during the first one and gave up. So I cannot for the life of me understand the big deal about seeing HP7.2 (or whatever it's called) at midnight and spending so much emotional energy obsessing over it. I mean, I get the attachment to an extent, but it seems to me that some people need to engage more real life rather than living their lives through a fictional character. Call me crazy or flame me all you want, but I just don't. get it.

4. I know it's a little early to be looking forward to it, but Matt and I are getting a much-needed date night on Monday (yay for summer break)! Avery's getting a sleepover at Grandma and Granddaddy's, so we're going to the drive in! My mom is taking Avery to the new Winnie the Pooh movie on Tuesday (while we take a carload of preteens to camp!), so the timing works out pretty perfectly. Now we just have to decide on which two movies to see (guess which one we won't be seeing, haha)...

Photo courtesy of Ask Miss A

5. I've thought it was Saturday all day, so now I feel like I have a bonus weekend! Tomorrow I'm going to my friend Kati's Shaklee party and then we have a Sunday School pool party that evening, and on Sunday we're having a little get together with our small group. Who knows what we'll do tonight, but happy weekend everybody!

Happy Birthday to Avery and America!

We have just had the best two days around here!

{Avery's Birthday Celebration}

We're having a small family party next weekend, but we wanted to do something fun for Avery's actual birthday. I love birthdays and really want to make them memorable and special for our kids.

Since her birthday fell on a Sunday this year, she got to wear a special birthday skirt to church (complete with cupcake bow!). She even got to sing "Beautiful One" into the microphone on stage during worship team practice. Everybody was wishing her a happy birthday all morning, and her little Sunday School class even sang to her. I don't think she minded the attention one bit.

We came home for a delicious lunch of sausage, diced sweet potatoes, and (A's favorite) green beans. We'll do a cake at her party, so her birthday treat was No Bake Oreo Bars. The girl loves dessert (um, that might be my fault). But she's allowed to love dessert because she also loves fruits and veggies. See, I'm not such a bad mom. :)

After stuffing her face with chewy Oreo goodness, Avery got to open her birthday present from us, a Leapfrog Tag Reading System with a Disney princess book. (We decided to go with the Tag instead of Tag Junior because you can still use the Junior books with the Tag, and since the Junior system is a little more limited, we thought we'd get more years of use out of a regular Tag system.) She LOVED it (like gasped when she pulled it out of the bag). Point for Mommy and Daddy!

We snuggled on her bed for awhile with her new book and then she got a great nap. Yippee! Good naps make late nights bearable.

Our good friends Kendra and Carlos joined us for the rest of the evening, which consisted of Cotton Patch, fountains, and our town's fireworks show.

If I had known she would actually play IN the fountain this time, I would've brought her swimsuit. Good thing I had extra clothes!

Every time a firework went off, Avery would yell, "They hit a home run!" Um, someone has been to too many Ranger games.

Lauren and Brian joined us for the fireworks!

{4th of July}

Our town had a 4th of July parade, so Allison got up "early" to meet us at the house to go with us, and Kendra and Carlos met us out there. Um, the "parade" lasted maybe five minutes and was completely lame. 

Oh well. So we went over to my parents' (who are still in Europe-- come back already!!) to eat pizza and swim next door. 

We headed home for Avery to nap (she fell asleep in the car like two minutes after we left-- we wore the girl out this weekend!), and then we got our stuff together for the Talleys' annual 4th of July celebration. 

We just love the Talleys (Kendra's parents), and every year they invite over whoever from the church wants to come and watch the Duncanville fireworks from their front yard. They fire up the grill, and everybody just eats and hangs out until the show starts at dark. Avery loved playing with her friend Lily (and all of her other favorite people), and Landon was definitely not lacking in snuggles! The fireworks were awesome, and it was a nice, low-key way to spend the evening.

After a couple of busy days and late nights, I'm looking forward to a "normal" day tomorrow. Goodnight, everybody! Hope your holiday weekend was as fantastic as ours. :)

Last Week in Review

Oh, there are so many things to catch up on in this post. We'll start where we left off last week (eek! a whole week between posts??)...

{Monday}

I got to go see my cousin Amy on Monday afternoon for a massage (she's a massage therapist and she's fantastic), and I left feeling human again! My back had been killing me, and I'm so thankful Matt had the idea for me to get it taken care of.

After dinner, Mom and Dad came over to see Avery and Landon before leaving Wednesday morning for their European extravaganza.

{Tuesday}

We went looking at minivans. We found one we loved. I'll have a separate post about embracing my inner soccer mom.

We stopped at Chick-fil-a afterward so we could feed Avery and Landon and avoid hungry meltdowns since we needed to go to the grocery store before heading home. We all survived.

{Wednesday}

Amy came over for the day to play with Avery and Landon. I was so thankful that she offered to do this because it gave me a chance to get a lot done around the house. And I don't think Amy minded all the baby snuggles one bit. :) 

Matt took my parents and our pastor and his wife (their traveling buddies) to the airport. They don't come back until July 8, and it's so weird not to be able to call my mom. I talk to her so stinkin' much during the day, so I think I'm going through withdrawals. Weird.

Ral, Sam, and Maddie came over for dinner and Wii competition on Wednesday night. We just love them! And Avery is still talking about playing with "Mr. Ral and Maddie and Sam."

{Thursday}

I had a chance to run up to the church to get a couple things done, but the majority of my day was spent running errands while Matt had both kids at home. (I'm so thankful that Landon will take a bottle of pumped milk since it gives me a little more freedom for when I need to be gone longer than a couple hours.)

Tiff, Ross, and Macyn got here late Thursday night, right after Landon spit up threw up all. over. me.

{Friday}

After breakfast, we went to pick up our new minivan! It took a little longer to get out the door, and then we had to get a cashier's check at the bank, so by the time we finally had the keys and could leave, both kids were screaming because it was well past lunch time.

Naturally we all went to Chick-fil-a. It was super crowded though!

Avery refused to take a nap, so she played in demolished her room for two hours before we had to get her up to get ready to go to Landon's (and Macyn's!) first Rangers game!

We tried so hard to make it early to the game to see Dirk throw out the first pitch, but between 4 adults and 3 kids (all of whom fit into our new ride!!), we didn't make it to our seats until the end of the first inning. Landon slept most of the time, Avery had a major meltdown in the bathroom about halfway through the game, and it was miserably hot in our section since there wasn't any breeze, but we still had lots of fun. We left before the fireworks show, but we got to see them from our car. They're much louder outside the ballpark!

{Saturday}

The Melancons left in the morning, and during our errands run, Avery fell fast asleep in the car. Not wanting to relive the previous day's naplessness, we didn't even wake her up to eat. The girl slept for two hours and would've slept longer if we hadn't woken her up because Sam was there to babysit.

We usually don't have to find babysitters because my parents live 10 minutes away and love to keep Avery when they can, but since they're in stinking Europe, Sam came over to hang out with Avery while we went to my friend Caty's wedding.

Weddings are kinda awkward when you don't know anybody there. I mean, I obviously knew the bride (we used to teach together), and I knew one bridesmaid, but other than that? No one. The ceremony was gorgeous and I cried (yes, I am a huge sap, even more so now that I have kids). The reception was equally beautiful, but then came the awkward part. We got to the reception a little late because I had to feed Landon, so we just sat at a table by ourselves. No big deal. Until the popular table beside us was out of chairs and people kept coming to take them from ours. We were officially the loser table, and since we needed to get home anyway, we decided to jet after saying hello to the bride and groom. I made Matt walk with me over to the cake table so we could at least look at the cakes, and it just so happened to be cake time, so we stayed long enough to join another loser table (they didn't know anybody there either) and devour some chocolate cake. Yum. Anyway, besides feeling like a lame-o, we really did enjoy seeing this sweet couple tie the knot; I just love their story! So congrats, Caty! You were gorgeous and I can't wait to see what God has next for you two. :)

{Sunday}

Matt had to be at church early, so I had my first test in getting two kids out the door by myself. I passed! I was just a little late. :) Avery slept in, so that gave me a chance to get Landon dressed and all of our stuff together. She woke up just as I was about to go get her, so after she was dressed, I fed Landon while she ate breakfast and we eventually made it out the door.

We usually don't make it to Sunday School because of our other church commitments, but we went to lunch at Sam's Pizza with our Sunday School class anyway.

Avery once again refused to nap. Lovely. I'm really hoping this is just a phase and she gets back to her normal napping self.

We went to the monthly prayer gathering at church that evening. Matt was leading worship and I didn't get anybody to cover childcare, so I decided to just go and do it myself. Our kids were the only ones there anyway, so Avery hung out and ate our dinner at church.

A napless day = a stressful bedtime. There was much screaming involved. Oh dear Jesus, please let this just be a phase!

{Currently...}

And now. I woke up at a decent hour this morning and got quite a bit done around the house and even got to play with Avery while Landon napped with his daddy. Avery is still awake in her room. I'm still praying she naps.   It is so. very. hot this week. I don't even want to leave the house. Maybe I'll at least shower today. We'll probably go swimming at some point this week or something. Something. I think Avery's getting bored, so I really need to be more intentional about what we do at home during the day. Anyway, this catches up the week at least; now I just need to finish a few other posts (i.e. VBS, minivan, Avery's 2 year old post, etc.). Now about that shower...