Wedding Weekend

Sometimes I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.  Or in this case, and entire week.  Last weekend, my family descended into my neck of the woods, to celebrate my cousin getting married in town.  Sheets were washed.  Babysitters were booked.  Groceries were bought.  We rehearsal-dinnered at Pappadeaux on Friday night (child-free steak dinner with family?  Yes, please!), then Saturday morning I FINALLY got to meet baby Parker.

And I didn't put her down until sometime after lunch on Sunday.  And then only because she had to leave to go back home.  I am so thankful that our siblings keep having cute babies for me to hold.  Saturday got underway with a requesite Cousin Picture at the park.

Some cousins were more excited about the picture than others.

And I'm slightly frightened that Aidan is now a "big cousin" and finds himself in charge of baby-wrangling.

How prolific are our families?  Harper has 6 cousins YOUNGER than her.

Lindy, Andy and the girls:

We played at the park for a few minutes after pictures, then I attempted to get a cute picture of just my four.

There's always one who wants to do exactly her own thing...

After pictures, we changed clothes and headed out to the snowcone stand before going to my aunt and uncle's house for munchies and chatting.  Yes, we stopped and got snowcones on the way becuase my precious stand closes on Halloween so we are seizing the day, so to speak.  Making every moment count, if you will.  Supporting our local snowcone economy.  And then we stopped by my aunt and uncle's house.  After several hours of the chatting and grazing, my aunt loaded me up with a bag of lefovers (including about 30 hot dogs and a gallon-size bag of rolls) we headed home to get cleaned up for the wedding, and left two unsuspecting babysitters with seven kids for the evening. 

The wedding iteself was beautiful, at one of those pretty outside-venue locations a mere 10 minutes from my house that I didn't even know existed.  Perfect weather, good music, baby-holding, giant trees with those twinkly lights, and good company made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening.  And Brandon wore a suit without us having to go to a funeral.  And look how pretty the six of us look all dressed up.

Please excuse my awkward jazz hands.  

GG, Brandy, and John...

Me and my cousin Gretchen...

Me and Brandon...

We may have run out of gas on the way home, nothing a cooperative babysitter with a garage-gas can can't handle.  :)

Sunday morning we eventually got ourselves out of the house in time to meet Pappy for donuts before church.  We celebrated Pappy's birthday by letting him buy us all donuts and then sticking him at the kids' table.

After church, the birthday celebration continued back at my house, with the girls blowing out candles on Pappy's half-eaten chocolate pie.

My brother and mom got the munchies and had to sample the chocolate pie before we got donuts.  Are you sensing a theme here?  Snowcones before munchies.  Pie before donuts.  My people are fans of eating sweets at inappropriate times.  We are not deterred if it happens to be someone else's birthday pie.  We WILL eat it before breakfast. 

Eventually everyone got in their cars and went back home on Sunday, and Brandon and I (okay, maybe just me) curled up on the couch and stared at a football game for a few minutes and (unsuccessfully) tried to not eat leftover chocolate birthday pie for dinner.  Congratulations, Josh and Meredith!  Thanks for getting married so I could see my family!

Baby Parker

A couple of weeks after Labor Day, this happened:

My baby seester Lindy and her husband Andy had another leetle girl (for those keeping track, this is four new nieces in 19 months.  It's called a TV in the bedroom, people.)

And yes, this is what she looks like mere seconds after having a baby.  Of course.  

Baby Parker Jean could not be more perfect, and I cannot wait to FINALLY meet her in just 5 short days.

 And I can't wait to spend a little time with Parker's big sister, for that matter, either!

One Last Hurrah...Kind Of...

Two days.  School starts in TWO DAYS.  We are frantically trying to cram as much summer fun into these next two days before it vanishes for another nine months.  We've had a high-low week this past week.  Awesome high points, and really crappy low points.  REALLY CRAPPY.

So I'll start with the awesome.  Tuesday we loaded up the van and the kids one more time and headed slightly west, young man, to see Brandon's sisters and their families for a couple of days in the Austin area.  We decided to swing by the Blue Bell factory in Brenham just in case they weren't too crowded and could get our little family in for a quick tour and a scoop of ice cream.  

We were in luck.  We walked in at 11:40, and were touring at 11:50.  Nice.

After the tour, we each picked out our scoop of ice cream (mine was Strawberry Summer Pie, in case you were wondering) and chowed down on our pre-lunch snack.

Aidan got rainbow sherbet.

Harper finished her rainbow sherbet in record time, then proceeded to mooch ice cream off of everyone else.

Harper's fortunate to have such sweet brothers and sister.

By this point they were a little "over" smiling for pictures, and we were all ready to head out for some late lunch.

Brandon got a recommendation from one of the Blue Bell employees, and we headed off the the little airport in Brenham to eat at the Southern Flyer.

Aidan found what he wanted for his birthday parked in the parking lot right outside the door at the restaurant.

The Southern Flyer did not disappoint.  We sat on their outdoor patio, which was screened in on all sides, sitting right next to one of the 4 giant air conditioners that were on the patio.  Perfect :)

Harper and Emmy read an airplane magazine with their Daddy

While Dane read a Wimpy Kid book while he waited for his food.

Every now and then my kids are really, really sweet to one another, and this was one of those days.

Emerson was reunited with her beloved gravy at the Southern Flyer, and dipped every single piece of her food in the gravy before eating it.

Last Thanksgiving, we were driving back home from my parents' house, and stopped by a Texas Burger for lunch.  Emerson ended up with a chicken finger basket with gravy.  It did not occur to me that she may have never had gravy before that day.  She dipped her first little french fry in the gravy, ate it, and her world has never been the same since.  She immediately tapped me on the arm in that Texas Burger, leaned over to me and proclaimed, "Mom.  I found my dip."  She found her dip.  And I had no idea we had been looking for it.  But gravy is her dip.

We got to Aunt Val and Uncle Izzy's house Tuesday night, and had a wonderful reunion with all of the cousins.  The boys fell right into a wrestling match/football game combo, in between climbing this awesome climbing tree in the backyard.

It was all well and good and awesome until about 8:50 Wednesday morning, when Dane fell out of the awesome climbing tree and broke his left arm.  Yup.  Broke his left arm.  He ran into the house, cradling his bent-at-an-unnatural-angle left arm.  I loaded him up and headed to the ER.  After lots of morphine, some Ketamine sedation, and a talented ER doctor straightened his arm out, we loaded up a very sleepy Dane, ("this broken arm was better than the last broken arm because I had a better dream with the sleeping medicine this time.  I was a baby bumblebee, just flying around...") and headed back for a few more hours with the cousins.  I FINALLY got to meet baby Juliana and snuggle the sweet, sleepy baby.  When everyone was awake, fed, and in relatively good moods, we got all the kids dressed and went to a park for cousin pictures.  Sorry you broke your arm 4 hours ago, Dane, but it doesn't get you out of cousin pictures.

Please excuse the hospital arm bands on Dane's wrist.  I forgot to take them off.  Being that the chief baby-holder had one arm out of commission, Juliana wisely stayed in her carseat.  And it's a little spooky how much Aidan looks like Laurel.

We cut our trip a little short, and headed home after dinner Wednesday night.  We missed church and bowling Wednesday night, but figured we needed to get Dane-o back home so we could load him up on codeine and build him a pillow-fort in his bed to protect him from rolling bed-sharing brothers.  Yup.  The REALLY CRAPPY part of our summer.  :(  I'm trying to look for a bright side, at least Dane broke his arm at the end of a summer filled with fun and swimming and backyard football.  He will just be in a cast for the next 6-8 weeks, and out of PE for a couple of months past that, thanks to our uber-conservative crazy orthopedic.

And we're T-minus 2 days.

The Newest Niece

One of the highlights of our summer was welcoming our newest niece into the world last month.  Jeremy and Adrienne and big sister Laurel welcomed Juliana Elise on July ...

This picture was taken at Jeremy and Adrienne's house 45 minutes before Juliana made her grand entrance.  45 minutes.  Adrienne blogged that story here.

I have a feeling this little one will be full of surprises and keeping her parents on their toes for a long time.  After all, she hid quietly for almost half a pregnancy before anyone knew she was there.

A couple of days later, Brandon took the kids to meet their newest little cousin.  I already had a shift scheduled to work, so I didn't make the traveling squad :(  Hopefully I will get to meet Juliana soon!

Baby girl has TONS of dark hair.

Dane loves, loves holding babies.

My Aidan and his newest baby cousin

I had to work early this morning, so Brandon got the kids ready to go.  I gave him careful instructions to please don't let the kids look homeless when they meet Juliana, because I knew pictures would be taken.  I think he did a pretty good job!

Harper was not too eager to hold the new baby, but Grammy helped a little with the introductions.

The kids were very intrigued by Juliana's umbilical cord.  Harper declared the cord to be "VERY yucky."

Harper girl, I helped you clean your playroom the other day, and you handed me a pink knit cap, saying "Stinky turkey!"  When I looked in the cap, I found several pieces of turkey lunchmeat intermingled with legos and a barbie dress.  Sadly, I had no idea when the package of turkey went missing from the fridge.  All that to say, Harper, people who live in lunchmeat houses need not be throwing yucky rocks.

Congratulations, Jeremy, Adrienne, and big sister Laurel!  Juliana is beautiful and I can't wait to meet her!