Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Summer Week 7 - Camp Nana/Gran & Out of Town

Last week, I was in Chattanooga for work and Jake spent the week at my parents. Hollon split her time between our house/daycare with Dad and then when he had to travel for work, she stayed at Mimi & Granddad's while not at daycare.

Our office is on the riverfront now, so I stay downtown when I come into the office. One evening, during my jog (who am I kidding?!? it was a walk), I went by the hotel that we had our wedding reception in. 

Meanwhile, Jake was having an absolute blast at Nana & Gran's. He got to swim with his cousins....


...attend an 80's bowling party....

...engage in some epic (his words) gun battles....

...and make smores. 
Jake said it was the best week of his life :)

Hollon would have been devastated to know that brother was doing all of the above, while she got stuck having to go to daycare. She was invited to camp Nana/Gran, but we are paying a nice hunk of change for this daycare, so I hated for her to miss an entire week. She assumed that Jake was at camp, so we just went with it. The first 2 days (when not at daycare), she got in some good Daddy/Daughter time. Rob had to leave Wednesday for a business trip, so she spent the remaining 2 days with Mimi & Granddad. So at least she got in a little bit of fun grandparent time! (Mimi is so good about spending me pictures each morning!)



I got back into town Thursday evening, got Hollon and then Robbie got in later that night. On Friday, I let Hollon miss daycare and we headed down to get Jake. Finally, all reunited!

I only took 1 picture over the weekend, and that was Sunday night. Our friends gave Hollon this talking Doc McStuffins doll and accessories and Hollon has been in love.
Of course, 10 minutes after taking this picture, we hear Hollon laughing saying Doc's swimming. 😲
She had taken off Doc's clothes and put Doc in the water table. 😔
Needless to say, Doc no longer sings and Hollon is devastated. 

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Summer Week 6 - Oak Mt Camp and Slime

Hollon's daycare had a "patriotic wear" theme day. They ended up using this picture of Hollon & some of her classmates as their cover photo on their Facebook page. 

Jake was back at camp at Oak Mountain

Cornhole tournament. His team didn't make it out of the first round :(
 Camp friends and neighborhood friends!

Jake was picked as a camp of the week

I've been seeing slime recipes all over the internet, and decided to try one out with the kids




Excuse Hollon's hair-do... I was trying to keep it out of the slime


Hollon used hers to cook with


I bought Hollon a tacky gouty Elsa nightgown to try to bribe her into going to sleep & staying in her big girl bed. (Spoiler alert... it kind of worked) Saturday morning, she got into my old makeup I gave her to play with. Lipstick is on point. (If you are the Joker)



Saturday night, we hung out at our neighbors house. Hollon loves going to their house, because they have Barbies and a Barbie swimming pool.




 I've given up on Sunday morning pictures. They are always a failure. Evidence below...


Monday, July 10, 2017

4th of July

Saturday morning, of the 4th of July weekend, we headed to Chattanooga. Since the 4th was on a Tuesday, both Robbie's company and mine were also closed on the 3rd. Since we had a 4 day weekend, we headed up to Chattanooga to hang out with our old friends from when we lived there.

Saturday night, we headed to the square for dinner

After dinner, we let the kids run around the grass area. Hollon was the "bad guy" chasing the older 3.

She looks very scary and intimidating, doesn't she?


And we enjoyed ice cream cones afterwards

Then Zach brought out the laser tags guns.
C...R...A...Z...Y
The kids were all on the upstairs balcony and the parents (well, Zach, Kimberly & Robbie, I was taking pictures) had home base downstairs.  
Hollon used a wand, instead of a gun



Jake was running around so much, he was pouring sweat




You can't really see anything in this video, but you can get an idea of how loud it was. (All of the lights were off in the house. It looks bright in the pictures above, because of my camera flash [which I kept getting yelled out by everyone].) What surprised me though, is that Hollon didn't freak out. (I think she just liked that she could scream and not get in trouble.) You can hear her laughing in the video.


On Sunday, Kimberly & I went shopping and left the dads in charge of the kids. And then we get sent this picture.
That is green paint. All over Hollon's hands & arms.
The kids were upstairs playing in the bonus room. The older 3 were playing video games and everyone thought Hollon was playing with Addie's huge tote of Barbie dolls. Evidently she slipped away and found the finger paint at the art easel. (Which, a little in her defense, it is the same easel that they have at school, so I guess she just felt comfortable.) She somehow got the top off and was happily painting when the big kids noticed and alerted the dads. Remarkably, she didn't get any on the carpet. She got a smudge on her face and a few dots on her shirt. But for the most part, she kept it on the easel and her hands.

That afternoon, she and Addie decorated cupcakes for the get-together that night.


A bunch of our old friends came over that night and we grilled out and hung out. There were tons of laser tag fights.

The 2 smallest girls (Isabella & Hollon) wanted nothing to do with the guns








Isabella is exactly 1 year older than Hollon. But she kept wanting to pick her up, like Hollon was the baby. It was hilarious. 

Then the dads brought out the smoke bombs

They played with some sparklers





I'm hoping there is some parenting manual out there that says hovering over the smoke from a smoke bomb is completely safe and highly recommended for kids. And if you let your kids do that, you are doing some great parenting.

The dads started shooting off some of the smaller fireworks and the boys all hugged up on each other acting (?) like they were scared


Hollon's face! 
Then the boys went further out and shot off some of the bigger fireworks










After a while, Hollon found it boring and wanted to go inside and put on her pajamas. Isabella followed and they spent the rest of the evening watching princess videos.

Monday, the boys went for a bike ride and it was mine & Kimberly's turn to watch the kids. (Thankfully no finger paint was gotten into) But there was some Princess/Star Wars cross dressing. 
Bahahaha - Hollon's face!

We headed to the square to get ice cream after lunch (but their machines were broken😩)











We went back home, rested a little and then packed up for the symphony and fireworks in the park that evening. We tried the ice cream again and thankfully this time, the machines had been fixed.

We played a little in the grassy area



Our original plan was to have dinner from the food trucks at the park and hang out until the concert and fireworks. But a rain shower was forecast to come through, so we decided to waste some time and then just eat dinner at a restaurant in the square.

Walking to dinner

Thankfully, it was the right choice. There was a quick downpour and then it was out.

 After dinner, the kids did more racing



Then we headed to the park. It was still drizzling a little off and on, and the field was a muddy mess. But we made the best of it.


Tons of strawberries were consumed


The boys were throwing the football and playing chase and each of them at different times fell in the mud.

Listening to the symphony

And then we watched the fireworks
At first, Hollon was unsure. But by the end, she was enjoying it.


And she fell asleep on the way to the car

It was such an awesome weekend. We got to see and hang out with so many of our old friends. This group will always have a special place in our hearts. We were all pregnant with our first child within a year of each other (5 boys/1 girl born in a 1 year time span!) So many of my favorite Chattanooga memories, include people from this group. And I'm so glad that 6 years later, even though we are no longer in Chattanooga, we are still making memories with them. Here is our last group picture together before we left Chattanooga in January 2011.
These kids are all 7 & 8 now!
Tuesday morning, we headed back to Birmingham. Our neighbors had made BBQ, so we ate with them and let the kids play with sparklers.




They shot off a few small fireworks, and Hollon wanted to watch from inside

Silly girls! (They had been playing in the water table and were soaked)

It was a fabulous 4th of July!