Fun with Friends

This month there's a lot of random pictures, so i'm just grouping them up.  Here's some of the kids hanging out with their friends. 

Auntie Megan and Benjamin came to visit us for the day.  We haven't seen Benjamin since he was 6 weeks...now he's 14 months.  We gotta do better! 

We've gotten a lot of new neighbors in the past few months.  That's been great for the kids.  We meet up on the evenings and let the kids overrun the culdesac. 

 

With the slightly cooler temps this past weekend/week, this preggo mom took advantage and went to a different park every day :) The nature center has a new park outside, which has turned into our new favorite park to go to.  When we get to hot, we just go inside and look at the animals for a while to cool off.  Our neighbors Riley, Rory and Kayla (mom) joined us on this day.  

Sweet Sickies

I've not been very good at getting Davis to his well-baby appointments on time...we get there...just 3-6 months late :) So i finally had made an appt for him and 4 weeks later on the morning of our appt, Davis wakes up with a fever and diarrhea.  I don' t think he's been sick once since this past winter.  So of course our well-baby appt turned into a sick baby appt...and i'm even MORE behind.  

he took a few days to really recover and over a week to eat normally again, but that first day of sickies however was so very pitiful...but i haven't had snuggles like that in forever.  I captured the day with tons of pictures...your shocked, i'm sure. 

 hugging his drink

I did it.

i updated the picture site.  gasp.  it's only been over a year since i've done it.  so parents...enjoy :) click HERE for the link in case you lost it.

AND...
i started posting old videos again.  the uploading process has gotten a lot easier since i was last doing it, which is great! ...there's a lot to do to catch up on but as of today i posted 60.  Click HERE for the link.  Enjoy :)

First Family 5K

The kids did their first 5K this weekend for Daddy.  That's 3.1 miles for you non-runners. Mike has started taking them on small runs around the house/neighborhood lately and he thought he'd give this race a try.  It was very family friendly, there were kids and adults of all ages, kids on bikes trying to keep up with parents, moms impressively running with four kids in tow, parents jogging slowly encouraging their kiddos and even 4-legged runners on leashes. 

We knew they'd walk a lot, but i really didn't expect Nora to do the whole thing.  She's never proven to have much stamina (like giving out at the zoo and other long outings).  Still, she was walking when they showed back up at the track for the final lap and i was so impressed! 

They finished around 49 mins.  Mike said both had a few tears at some point, but they worked through it, didn't give up and finished with smiles on their faces and ready for some pancakes!  This race is done monthly, and as the weather starts to cool hopefully we'll make it to a few more this fall :)

Start

 Finish

j.u.l.y ~ SUMMER ~ j.u.l.y

here's your dose of monthly randoms. 

Davis wanted to be like the twins, so he got a floaty too.  He's still technically too small for it to be safe, but try explaining that to a 1.5 yr old. 

  Mr. found my makeup.  At least he got the mascara on the right body part!

 Holden built me a flower garden on the rainy/tropical storm day at the beach. 

Our sweet neighbors took care of our animals while we were away at the beach.  The twins made cards to say thank you.  I had to take pictures of their artwork.  

Linus (our turtle) and LuLu (love how LuLu looks like a mouse)

 Lotsa CFA visits this summer. D hearts the cow!

 mowing the pool.  pretty serious business

 Play date with the Luchetta's.  Gavin is missing because he fell off the play set in the first ten minutes and had to go get staples.  Ava, Brayden and Emma stayed with us and had a fun morning. 

 these two are about 2 weeks apart in age and were really funny together. 

 full-a-hands on this morning 

Davis is always stealing my breakfast, but how can i say 'no' to this face?

 playing can be exhausting

Smiles at Breakfast...they get this from their Daddy :)

We meet Daddy for lunch about once a week.  Elizabeth's Pizza is one of our faves.  D likes to wear parts of Mike's uniform when he can get his hands on it :)

Our Sweet Mini Paratrooper

sweet moment of stillness from my littlest  

 this baby loves pickles just like mommy!

Mommy, Daddy and Davis had Sat. lunch at Blue Moon while the twins went to watch Fire and Rescue with Nana and Poppy.  We had a fun afternoon watching the trains, motorcycles and doggies go by. 

 after lunch (which took an incredibly LONG TIME) we treated Davis to cupcakes at the bakery downtown. 

Later that day mom and I took Nora to her first pedicure...topped off with a Starbucks lemonade.  She thought she was hot stuff! 

  

caption says it all

528 STB Ball

Oh Army Ball's... this is our 5th.  I've been preggers for 3 :) Thankfully this year the dress i bought before getting pregnant still fit (barely)...i wasn't so lucky with with the twins :)

This ball was held at the old Officer's Club on base.  The building is now used just for special occasions and events.  It's very "Old Army".  So old in fact...that the air conditioning stopped working the day before the event and there was no hurry on getting it fixed...yep, what else would we expect from the good ol' ARMY.  So us ladies in charge of decor and centerpieces spent two very HOT days sweating to death getting ready for this ball. The centerpieces did turn out pretty beautiful, yes? 

Good news is we are a support batallion.  Our soldiers are trained to get whatever is needed all over the world even in the most remote of places...so getting AC to a ballroom??? No big deal.  Hours before the ball, soldiers were taking out windows, replacing them with duct tape, cardboard and huge tubes pushing cool air from trucks/generators parked outside.  The whole thing was kind of funny considering the theme was "Southern Elegance".  Nothing says southern elegance more than cardboard and duct tape yes?  and all those hours spent worrying about decor... all thrown out the window (literally) for some cool air :)  

It was a fun night, we've built some good relationships now and ball's are always most fun with friends, as opposed to the last one when we had just moved to NC and hardly knew anyone. 

some of the coffee group ladies

 the Warrants 

 There was also a photo booth...which got a lot of use!  There should be one of these at every ball. 

how many women can you squeeze into a little bitty booth? 

it was especially funny to watch the boys loosen up and have fun...

 who knows what was really going on here!

  As with all balls i've attended while pregnant, we were not able to hang as long as we would have liked. With the twins i was in the throws of the first trimester and spent most of the night sick, with Davis i was 38 weeks and literally ready to pop--dancing and socializing were of no interest to me! This time my back was killing me after a long day of decorating and then celebrating and my dress was most certainly cutting off air to both me and baby! By about 10 and that dress had to go.  

All in all, a very fun ball! Looking forward to next year's already!

OKI 2014

We had a great time at the beach over the 4th.  The weather was pretty great, minus a tropical storm which gave us a full day of rain--but occasionally days like that can be fun too :)

perfect summer mornings

There was some sand play...like Daddy would work really hard on sand castles and then the kids would destroy them :)

flying kites

The buckets were still a big hit this year...Nora now had a partner to hang out in the buckets with her.  

 This girl LOVED the beach and water this year.  She wanted to spend every second of her time down there. We tried our best to oblige. 

 the twins played real hard...

 and Davis joined in whenever he could

 Daddy dug out pools most days for the kids to play in 

 D really liked to take a chair down to the surf and sit.  That's also my favorite thing to do, so we spent a lot of time doing that. 

Nora did so well body boarding with Daddy this year, we took her to get her own board.  She was so excited and proud of herself. 

 

 Clean Up Time

  reading with brother while waiting to go down to the beach

 Mike's super huge 4th of July Burger

We're very thankful to Pop Pop and Grandma for another fun beach trip.  

On our way home we like to stop at Prov Co to get some yummy food...its my favorite place (and lots of other people's fave place too, considering the line that had formed when we were leaving)

 bird on Prov Co's pier....waiting for a table too?

 Boiled Shrimp, Crab Cakes and Cucumber Salad....ahhhh