Flashback

My mom kept Elaina while we were in Atlanta and she texted me this photo of her in the back yard. 

It totally made me flashback to a time in my life when I spent most of the summer in a bucket:) 

MLB 2012

We made our yearly trek down to the ATL for some baseball over the Memorial Day holiday. Being on the heels of Cade's birthday bash it turned out to be a pretty fantastic weekend for him! We passed Lanie off to mom and dad and headed down for a Sunday night and Monday day game. 

As always, the boys were thrilled to get a hug and an autograph from their favorite MLB player. Watching baseball is so much more fun when you have a friend hitting homers! Grant challenged him with, "Hey, Daniel, I've got something for ya. If you hit a homerun then I'll give you five bucks. If you DON'T hit one then you owe ME five bucks. How 'bout it?" Daniel said he'd take that deal all day long. I'm glad he signed a big buck contract though because he now owes Grant ten bucks. Surely he's good for it! 

Watching professional baseball players take bp is a little boy's dream.....

or is it more for the big boy?? I think we all know the answer to that one! 

The boys filled their hats with autographs this time. We're now running out of room. Cade finally decided that it's time to retire his hat to the bookshelf so the signatures don't fade off. He's finally understanding this stuff :) We were lucky to get Michael Borne and Martin Prado to come over. 

Tyler Pastornicky found a space on the bill for his name. Too bad he's been sent back to AAA :(

Cade got up close with teenage phenom Bryce Harper. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that he's 19 and playing in the major leagues. 

Sunday night's tickets had us sitting behind the Braves Dugout. Pretty good seats if there weren't a big, big man in a red shirt for me to have to look through :/ 

Midway through the game I noticed Rhett was using his ice cream collector's cap as a real cap. Goof ball. 

We all decked out in our Brave's gear for Monday's game. A nice old man stopped and asked if he could take our picture and I'm quite surprised that he actually got us all in the frame! It's always funny to see people try to use my camera. The results are usually a disaster! 

We caught up with Brandon Beachy to round out autographs on our hats. He was nice, heading down a very, very long line of people wanting his autograph. 

We got tickets further up under the overhang so we weren't frying for Monday's game. It was quite nice up there with a cool breeze and we didn't need sweat bands and sunscreen. What I DID need was a box of tissues! Turner Field had a special Memorial Day presentation and I nearly almost had an emotional breakdown. The kicker was when a soldier father was reunited with his family (without them knowing that he was there). It was truly awesome to see. I hope my boys will remember this part of the game as well. I hate that it takes some years under your belt and quite a bit of maturity to appreciate the price of our freedom. 

It was another great family weekend at Turner Field. We can't wait to get back! 

10th Birthday PartyPalooza!

Ten years. TEN. I can't believe my firstborn has hit double digits. I think I surely must have just been 13......14 at most when I became his mother :) It's true that years pass by in the blink of an eye. 

Cade requested an all day partypalooza again this year and Bobby and I were happy to oblige. He has a great group of friends and other than the expected rowdiness of boys being boys, having them here all day is no big deal. We started off with a water balloon fight like last year, only with about quadruple the amount of balloons. That being said, Bobby's hour and a half fill up session allowed this match to continue for all of 7 minutes. Team one:

 vs. Team two.

There was quite a bit of trash talk

but TONS of laughing, too.

After some fun outside the boys ate lunch and were ready for some sweetness. Cade's one request was a chocolate cake made by his Grandma. Thankfully, she agreed and whipped one up just before she went out of town. Nothing beats her homemade chocolate cake! 

We had a weak rendering of the birthday song (my singing voice unfit for public ears mixed in with a group of pre-pubescent boys is, well, somethin' else).

There were plenty of snacks to go around. If you're going to invite 7 boys over you'd better be prepared. Good thing I had some buffalo flavored popcorn. It was a hit! 

After lunch there was the ceremonial opening of the presents. Cade racked in the cash and gift cards this year along with some water grenades, a football, a lego set, pool toys, and a hershey bar. Good amount of loot! 

A little R&R was in store so we stuck them all in the movie room and let them watch Hugo. They all seemed to like it and Bobby and I were appreciative of the 2 hours of quiet that accompanied the show! 

We loaded up in the cars to head to Jonathan's Grille for dinner. Bobby's car was rockin' out to the latest pop tunes on XM, hands all waving around acting crazy,  while my car was well behaved and calmly sang along with the Christian hits on WayFM. I guess that's the difference riding in dad's cool black car or mom's family-mobile.  Dinner was pretty uneventful with the exception of boys all elbowing each other when our early twenty-something hostess turned around and had a diamond shaped cutout in the back of her dress. Dear me. Are we already noticing things like that???? Lord help us. 

Of course when we got home it was time for Mr. Bobby to pull of some fireworks out of his bag-o-tricks. 

We did some sparklers and no one's hair caught on fire so I believe that qualifies as a win. 

 Then they went around and blew up a bunch of crawdad holes. There were multiple families in the crawdad community that thought for certain crawdad apocalypse was in full force. What's a party if you don't get to blow up something? (I'd say that's Bobby's motto.)

The party rounded out with a game of wiffle ball well into the darkness. I think Cade and his buds had a great time. I'm so thankful for the boys that Cade has in his life right now. I couldn't ask for a better crew for him to spend the day with. Here's to life-long memories and double digits. Happy Birthday, Cade! 

Another Year Down

Today marks the end of another great year at Longview Elementary. We are super ready for summer! Bring on the swimming!

 Cade had a year of straight A's in Mrs. Farner's class!

 Grant fell in love (again) with the best second grade teacher we've ever had. He excelled in Ms. Vilag's class. He loved second grade so much that he shed some tears over it being the end :(

 Grant finished out his kinder year with Mrs. Emmitte who filled in for Jessica while she had her baby. 

 And, lucky for us, Mrs. Cole came back to the end of the year party to pass out their Kinder certificates and hug all of her friends before they headed off to first grade. Best.Kinder.Teacher.EVER. 

Watch out summertime! Here come the Morgan boys! 

(Not So) Tee-Tiny Turns Two!

One second your baby is a baby and then the next thing you know she's two and telling you what shoes she wants to wear. We're still not out of the baby woods yet being that she's wearing a diaper and taking a pacifier at night. Two things I'd like to get rid of but then the truth would be evident.....my baby's growing up :(

I had her a very special birthday tutu made by my neighbor, Ashley, and Elaina stared at that thing for 2 weeks before her official party day. She LOVED wearing that thing! 

She was getting all prissy and didn't want her picture taken. That's when her mean side was released and she ripped her hairbow out. Whatever, it's not my hair that's hanging in my eyeballs. 

I did my own little bit of party decor recycling the tissue balls from last year and hanging Danielle's wonderful, reusable birthday banner. Elaina liked all the cutesies.....or she just really liked standing on the table. That's highly likely. 

My little party area.

I tried and tried to get a good one of Lanie and her little friends but of course no one would smile at the same time. We all know Elaina wears her poker face most of the day so I don't know what I was expecting! 

This one cracked me up with Cruz and the gun and Carris' face. Then there's Elaina. Still bored to tears. 

"Cruzie, do NOT point guns at people!" 

One place she was all smiles was in the bounce house. She was scared of it the last time we got it out but this time she was all about it! 

It was also an opportune time for me to catch a picture of her birthday bloomers! 

There was swinging with her bff also. 

I somehow missed the token blowing-out-the-candles picture. I think I video taped it instead. I thought cake pops would be a great idea for the little people this year. Less mess! They were a hit! 

Before the cake pops even came out everyone had discovered that I had put m&m's in little jars for the kiddos to take home. Most of the jars were plundered and Lanie was shoving them in her mouth every time she thought I wasn't looking. 

This is her "you did NOT see me eating that.....no, I didn't do it" face. 

I loved this pic of Logan climbing the slide stairs. 

Elaina didn't want to slow down for even a second to have her picture made with me. Yer dern skippy I made it happen though!! 

Present time! Elaina got lots of sparkly things and tons of goodies to keep her occupied!

One of her favorites was the sunglasses from Carris. 

So precious! I love her little hands clasped under her chin:)

Happy, Happy second birthday to the prettiest pink gift I've ever received! We love you LanieBug!