Lori's Bridal Shower

I like order and schedules (as if y'all didn't know). I like to have things done in order and on time. The past few weeks Lori Anne, my beloved sister, has ruined that for me. First, she is proposed to. Says no. Changes her mind. Gets "engaged." And takes FOREVER to choose wedding colors. As to the quotation marks around engaged, she was not officially asked, AGAIN. Despite that small detail of not being really engaged, Lisa and I held a bridal shower for her at my house. 

We decorated in her, finally selected, wedding colors - blue, white and yellow. 

I chose food to make sure we weren't eating squirrel food. We had 7 layer bean dip, cookies, (and for Lori) pineapple and strawberries. 

(We finally finished our chairs, so I had to included those.)

 

And what is a bridal shower if you don't have a few silly games to play. Lori and Zach had to answer questions to see how well they knew each other. Zach had answered all but two answers correctly. Lori, well, each answer she got wrong she had to add another piece of bubble gum. Check out the wad.

After the silly and fun games, Lori opened her gifts. Makes me want to get married again. All my gifts are getting worn out after 8 years of marriage. I think that every 10 years you should get another reception/bridal shower.

And after the bridal shower for the unengaged bride, there was a surprise. Zach was waiting for Lori and made the engagement official.

 It was a fun day. One month and we will get to celebrate with them again. Weddings are fun.

Georgia Visit - Week 3

Week 3:
Three weeks on a vacation is a long time. On vacation you kind of check out of life. You forget what day of the week it is. You have no schedule. You do what you want when you want. And we did plenty of that.

While we were there Topher greatly improved his swimming skills. By the time we left he swam across the deep side of the pool! (I have to add a disclaimer, he wore is underwear swimming due to chaffing!) And because video takes up way too much data space for the blog I took pictures of his first attempt. Though I do have video if you ever come to visit and wish to see :)

 Topher wasn't the only one who enjoyed the pool. Caroline was a lot of fun, but a little stressful due to a lack of self preservation that God forgot to put in human babies natural instincts.

 Maddie Mae enjoyed the pool when I wasn't trying to get her to swim with me.

Katie and I enjoyed the pool and throughly made ourselves look dumb.

 After a day of play the kids usually enjoyed watching a movie while the big people made dinner. Occasionally Papa would join them.

 On our last full day there we finally had a dry night and I let the kids stay up to catch fireflies one last time.

Caroline, lacking the cordination and patience to catch the bugs, decided to relieve Mimi's plants of their blooms.

 After catching at least 30 of the blinking bugs we went into the house and released them in the kids room for bed time.

We left the next afternoon. Topher wore his goggles through the airport and on the plane to help fly the plane. Mimi and Papa were able to help us get to the gate, which may have saved my sanity. 

It was a fun three weeks. In that time Mimi and Papa were able to get to know the kids and their personalites. 

Topher

Spent much of his time following Papa around and constantly moving. He avoided shopping at all cost. He and Mimi and Papa could get along.

Maddie Mae

Maddie Mae went shopping with every chance.

Maddie Mae told me that "Papa is my favorite person in the whole world, [pause] because he buys me things." Papa believes is Lori Anne to the 10th Power. (Heaven help me.)

Mimi, in order to calm Maddie down in the car, asked Maddie to help her remember to buy gas. To which Maddie responded, "I only remember fun things and that is not fun."

 Caroline

She warmed up to Papa and gave everyone lots of sweet little hugs. 

She is a complete ham, whenever the camera comes out she runs over and smiles. 

Mimi helped her learn lots of words (Paci, eat, up, down, more) but she never did say Mimi. She would call Mimi - Papa or Mom. 

It was a lot of fun.