A Shower for Baby Micah

My good friend Tara threw me a baby shower for little Micah this weekend. It was so cute and Tara made the most amazing cupcakes that I have ever eaten! Homemade cream cheese icing: need I say more! I think I ate 3... and I really wanted to eat more! 

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All of my favorite people were there! Linda the mother-in-law, Cassi, and Rachael the baby sister.

Amie, and some friends from work: Nicol and Lisa, my mom and me.
Hey, Look! I'm in a photo and I'm pregnant. That doesn't happen to often!

Amanda and Sara the middle sister. 

Evelyn, Andrea and Laura. (Andrea is due in late December and Laura is due in November.)

A few other people were hiding from the camera: Lynn, Melissa, Rebekah, Sheri, Celeste, and Tara.

Here's Noodle (Tara's #1) and Kelsie, my niece who even wore her beautiful party clothes that I got for her!

And one more time... did I mention the cupcakes were AMAZING??? I'm gonna have dreams about those cupcakes!

A Birthday Party for Jeremy!

The hard part of having a birthday in the middle of the summer is that everyone is out of town. So we had to wait almost a month to have a party. Every year when we throw a party it rains. Every. Year. But surely having a party a month late meant that we would be exempt this time... right? Well, we started the party out at home with some homemade pizza and cake. Sounds great right? Yeah, I thought so too until the power went out as we were cooking the pizzas. We were able to finish cooking them on the gas grill. 

A friend of mine mentioned recently that dark photos with lots of people look better in black and white... so here you go: 

 Thank you to Tara for decorating Jeremy's cake! It looks beautiful! And he was so excited about his gator cake!

 Oh, and the power came on just in time to blow out the candles on the cake! Yeah!

 So, the rest of the party was spent at Fun Station playing laser tag, mini golf and bumper boats! I think everyone had a great time!  Here are the men and kids going in for their first game!

The only way to play mini golf with 8 kids is to let them play however they want to! For example: Hopers played shovel-golf where you just shovel the ball right into the hole.  And Jeremy, Matthew and Jake a played speed golf where you hit it quickly before the ball ever stops moving and eventually kick it into the hole. Although, Noodle played the correct way and kept score her self so that she knows how awesome she did... although it probably irritated her that no one else would take it seriously. Some how the kids managed to play 2 full rounds of golf in under 45 minutes. But, they were happy! 

 I completely forgot that the kids would get soaked on the bumper boats and I wasn't prepared for bringing home 9 drenched kiddos.

 Yeah for Jeremy's Birthday!

First Day of Summer Break 2012

Hi everyone, I'm still here! Although I guess you are used to my long periods of absence! So, today is the first official day of summer break and we had the best day! It started off a family trip to Krispy Kreme for National Donut Day. How could summer be boring when it begins with a donut!

Next stop of the day was blueberry picking with friends. We are so fortunate to have several blueberry farms in our area. Although I think Green Meadow Farms is one of my favorite. The people there are so nice and really want to share their love of plants and growing organic food with people.  I also love their cookbook that has so many recipes. 

So we picked and picked and picked. I gathered about 2 lbs of delicious blueberries!

We kept picking until some of us were too tired to walk! 

Then we went to Nanny and Papa's house for some swimming! If you know much about Jeremy then you know he isn't the worlds best eater. But I was so clad that he gave some watermelon a try and decided that he did in fact like it... even if he did only take three or four bites.  So, that was enough for me to call it a successful day! 

Summer Fun!

We spent the day at one of the local pools with the Blessing girls and some of there friends. It was a really fun day! The weather was beautiful and there was NO ONE at the pool which was weird but nice. They even had the full attention of one of the lifeguards who played with them. They aren't allowed to have swim masks and we didn't have any other toys, so I handed the kids my water camera and told them to go play. So these photos are the result of the day:

Blue Springs

Calling these days "dog days" is quite the understatement the past few weeks! It has been well over 100 degrees for days and incredibly humid to boot! We got together with some friends to have a cookout in Marianna at the springs thinking that we would be able to cool down. Who knew that the water was going to be so cold that it was painful to get your big toe wet!

And did I mention the gnats? Yeah, wow.

So, all the adults stood near the water trying to get the smallest of breezes off the water while the kids did kid things...

The highlight for the kids was the diving board which jutted out over the mouth of the springs. So here are the action shots. Barrett was fearless as ever!

Faith wasn't in the jumping mood.

Jeremy wasn't thrilled with how cold the water was... but did I mention how incredibly HOT it is!Hunter was cautious, but I don't blame him! It was COLD!Danni's next: Hopers turn: