Julia's 3rd Birthday!

Julia's birthday fell on Easter this year.  This was a blessing because all of her Hall-side cousins would be in town for Leadership Training for Christ.  Blake's girls, Maddie and Macie, could also make it this year because Blake was battling a kidney stone and they did not travel out of town for Easter.  So, lots of family this year!  By the way, Julia fell a few days before this and her face crashed into the edge of a door.  I think the images have been edited a bit to reduce the bruising!

We ended the party with a couple who walked up to the house and wanted to see inside.  I guess they thought we were having an open house!  They took a tour and met all of my family while the party was going on!  Too funny!

The theme was Hoppy Birthday, combining the celebration with Easter.  Had yummy vegan cupcakes from Spiral Diner.

Mimi and Audrey.

My beautiful Nana at age 94.

The birthday girl with Poppy.

 Opening presents.  Audrey has my phone in case we got a call for a showing of the house.

Just look at how gorgeous Meredith's profile is here!

That's excitement there!

 We should have called this a My Little Pony party because nearly every gift was a My Little Pony!

The tough task of blowing out THREE candles!

A picture of the man that passed a kidney stone during the party.

A picture of a woman about ready to give birth!

Very, Very Delayed Julia's 2nd Birthday

Julia turned 2 over a year ago!  I better document the party a bit before posting her 3rd birthday party!

Julia had a very simple family party of just her grandparents, my grandmother Nana, and my aunt Sasa. It was an owl-themed party and I did my best to make the party vegan.  It was my first go at vegan party food, and it wasn't bad.  It could have been much better though!  We had cupcakes that, together, formed an owl.  I stole these pictures off my dad's facebook page.  I don't know if he has a picture of the food or not.  But she had fun and we entered the wonderful age of two!

Shamu and Splashtown

I finally got my pictures developed that were on our disposable and waterproof camera. The pictures of Shamu were not great. That makes me sad that I was so cautious with the real camera. Oh well. I'll know in the future just how high the water goes if we go again. All I know is that there was water on the floor where we were sitting and I wanted to be careful with my new camera.

If you remember, we decided to save some green and go to Splashtown on Saturday instead of swimming at Sea World. I think we made the right decision. The girls just wanted to be in the water. I stayed with Julia as she took a nap in the minivan that we rented for the trip. If we had gone to Sea World, I probably wouldn't have let Julia sleep. Sea World is just too big to try to find someone, even with cell phones. It turned out great for all.

Independence Day 2011

Nearly every 4th of July of my life has been spent with the families of friends my mom went to high school with. We cook out and swim all day. It is fun to have my girls do the same things I did while growing up.

Julia, Macie, Audrey, and Maddie

Julia and me with Annabelle and Melody. The girls are a couple of weeks apart.

Audrey swimming all by herself.

Julia really does like the water.

Sea World

After celebrating MaMaw's birthday Thursday night in San Antonio, we stayed to do Sea World. I had planned out our two days there: rides and shows on Friday and swimming on Saturday. We got to a slow start on Friday because we visited with family during breakfast for a long time. I let go of my type-A self and decided just to go with the flow. We did get to see 2 shows on Friday, Shamu (or as Audrey says, Shampoo) and the Sea Lion one. No pictures of Shamu because I had no idea if we'd get wet, so I used my water-proof camera and I haven't developed those pictures yet. Then on Saturday, we decided to save some cash and do Splash Town instead. We visited my brother, Brett, on Saturday night too.

We lucked out with 92 degree weather, but that was still very, very hot.

I think I got sun block on the lens on the picture above.

The girls watching Elmo and gang.

Sea World was a lot of fun! There may be a post soon about Sea World and Splash Town after those pictures are developed.

MaMaw's 80th Birthday

Last Thursday, we packed up and headed to San Antonio to celebrate Michael's grandmother's 80th birthday. MaMaw has a lot of children and grandchildren and most were able to travel to the party. Even cousins from Paris and Berlin came!

MaMaw is something else, one of a kind, special. When her Sunday school class learned of her party, they created a "Flat Jean" (like a Flat Stanley) and took pictures of her all over town. It was the funniest thing I've seen in a while. People were kissing her, she was popping out of bushes, and lots of other funny things. Perfect for her and her personality.

Happy 80th, MaMaw!

Some Flat Jean pictures. (She's in black)

Audrey

Cake. Her favorite color is purple. We were encouraged to wear purple and the decorations were purple too.

Julia

Averys, Halls, and us. Burrows were not able to come.

Us

MaMaw looking at the gift we got her.

Happy 4th!

HAPPY 4TH Y'ALL!