Tea Party

Aunt Blake and family gave CeCe a tea set for her birthday. She LOVES it! We have had a tea party every day since she opened the set. This morning she sat at the table after eating breakfast pretending to serve tea for 20 minutes!

The first afternoon we had a fancy tea party (never mind that that CeCe doesn't have pants on or that Bryce doesn't have a shirt on. It was fancy because of our hats and shoes!)

So excited!
Of course she had to invite a baby too, this time baby Amy joined us.

My mom has saved all of our old dance costumes. CeCe helped me pick this hat out!

Papaw Ruff put on a coat and fancy shoes! Bryce was the cool dude in his shades.

CeCe's favorite part is getting 'sugars' for everyone. I'm afraid she is going to take after her daddy (he puts 3 tablespoons of sugar in each cup of coffee he drinks!)

Cousins

Bryce, Jude, CeCe and Jasper have such a fun time playing together. They get W-I-L-D!! The days they were here were so wild that I didn't get my camera out much at all! Here is CeCe introducing Jasper to mix mix.
He loved it!

She loves her Jude Ruffi and Jaspa

Jude washing his bike

I can't believe I don't have any pictures of Bryce and Jude playing. They would just be blurs though. They ran around giggling non stop! I wish we lived closer to them so they could play more often.

Old Friends

We have so many friends that live in Memphis and look forward to seeing everyone each time we visit my parents. One of my best friends Ashley and her family don't live here anymore but she and her kids happened to be in town visiting her family the first week we were here. She brought Wynn and Samuel over to play one morning and it was so great to see her and catch up. I don't know why I didn't get my camera out, but I didn't! Blakeley and her boys were here for a couple of days and on Saturday we hosted a cookout and pool party. We invited all of our close friends that live here and had a great turn out. It is so much fun to see all of my friends from high school and college (and one family from Pensacola-Anthony's old boss, they live here now!) and their kids and families. I love watching all of our kids play together!

Party on the diving board!

Bryce has been practicing his dive....he's doing way better than this now!

Blakeley's friend Julia made delicious cupcakes and CeCe was thrilled!

Last night the Hesser family invited us and some other friends over to swim and eat pizza. We left CeCe with my parents since it was sure to be a late night and took Bryce with us. It was so fun to sit and talk while the kids swam. My friend Holly has a 5 month old and we all took turns cuddling with baby Brooks!

Gardening Memories

The kids and I are in our happy place....Olive Branch at Cappy and Papaw Ruff's house! We got here Sunday afternoon after spending Sat. night in Montgomery for a wonderful wedding shower for my cousin Adrian and her future husband Eli. Monday morning Papaw Ruff took Bryce, CeCe and I to the zoo and we had a fun, hot time! That afternoon we were playing a game with Bryce when Cappy's phone rang and she got horrible news.....my Grandpa (her dad) passed away. His health has been declining quickly the last 2 or 3 months so we knew this was coming but it is still horrible. It is like dejavu from when Grandmother died in February. We were here in Olive Branch and it was a Monday afternoon at the exact. same. time. We leave today for Montgomery. His funeral is Thursday afternoon. Please keep my mom in your prayers.....she lost her mother in Feb. her dad in July and her only brother is very sick with cancer.

Today we cut into a big ole watermelon for snack! And Bryce has been a swimming machine already this week!

One of my favorite memories from when I was little was helping my Grandpa in his Garden. He had a HUGE backyard garden and would take Blakeley and I out there and tell us about this veggie, that plant or that earthworm. And he always let us get our hands dirty by helping out with whatever needed to be picked. My favorite was digging for potatoes! I've been trying to get my parents to grow potatoes for my kids to dig up, but they haven't tried that yet. They do have a beautiful garden in the backyard though, just no potatoes! Yesterday there was some harvesting to do so Cappy took the kids down there.

CeCe putting some squash in the bucket

Bryce carried the bucket for us

The beautiful haul!

CeCe carried around these two sunflower blooms all afternoon. She wanted to show them to Papaw Ruff and I thought it would make a great photo-op. I said CeCe show me your flowers, she did, but she also stuck her foot up to show the camera her new favorite shoes.....high heeled light up Cinderella tippy tappy shoes! She loves them, as you can tell since she is wearing them outside with her swim suit!

A Fun Fourth

We had a fun July 4th! We didn't have anything planned but stayed busy all day. Of course the kids had on their red, white and blue!

Yet another dinosaur, Herrerasaurus I think

There was a festival/celebration downtown that started at 11. We got there just as it started and the kids had fun on the (free!) inflatables.

Bryce also had a blast on the bungee trampoline! It was cloudy when we got there with a breeze that really felt nice but around noon the sun came out and we decided to leave then. We stopped and ate our picnic lunch in the shade on the way out and then drove home.

While CeCe was napping Anthony and Bryce went to Bayview park to play tennis. They played for over 45 minutes in the miserable heat but both had a blast! When she woke up from nap, CeCe and I went in the backyard to mix mix and stayed out there for almost 2 hours! It was such calm and sweet play for the first hour when it was just us. We had a tea party with 2 of her babies and she made cupcakes and cookies and was so busy. The second hour went more like this......

They had a crazy fun time playing in the water/soap with each other!! I still love just sitting and watching them play and act crazy together. They are actually sitting under a blanket fort right now watching Princess and the Frog. Maybe it is the fort that is calming them down? Or maybe it was the hour at the park this morning and the 2 hours running around the house before lunch? Almost time for CeCe's nap and then we head to tennis this afternoon. At 3:30. Can you say HOT?

Happy Birthday Birdie!

CeCe is 2!!!

Wow! Only 2 years? And not in a bad way at all......it seems like she's always been here, our family is so complete with her in it. She's such a good girl. She listens well, loves to help out, is a sweet friend, sleeps great, eats great and is so smart. She is talking in complete sentences but still refers to herself in the 3rd person, which is super cute to me! She knows all of her colors, can count to 12, can recognize some letters and can sing most of the ABC song. She is so loving to her baby dolls. She feeds, bathes, sings, rocks, gives bottles and puts them to bed multiple times a day. She still loves books and will 'read' to herself (points to the text and mumbles) if no one can sit down with her to read. She is a little pickier with her food, but is still overall a great eater. I love listening to Bryce and CeCe play and laugh together. It fills my heart with joy! They are still the best of friends.

We try to make birthdays pretty special and even though her party was last weekend today is a day to celebrate too! She got to pick her breakfast (cottage cheese and a banana) and she got to pick our morning outing.....THE BEACH! She's been asking to go a lot lately so I wasn't surprised at all when she said that. She found her favorite bathing suit and cover up and grabbed her new bag of sand toys before I had even told her that yes, we were going to the beach!

The weather was perfect when we got there (a storm came out of nowhere about an hour after we got there that sent us home early)

She had fun finding and throwing shells

Bryce got a new dinosaur book yesterday and has been a new dinosaur every 10 minutes

Had to do a little mix mixing!

We had a great time, the water was SO CLEAR and the waves were just right.

Last night we had dinner with some newish friends (the dad and daughter are in our playgroup but we hadn't all gotten together before). He is a wonderful cook and we enjoyed getting to know them better and watching the kids play. CeCe and Colette had a dance party right before we left that was so cute, I wish I had taken my camera for that moment! Pierre's birthday was earlier this week and they had leftover ice cream cake. Well, CeCe was in HEAVEN! She ate a huge piece and was talking about it as soon as she woke up today.

This afternoon we are going to a birthday party for my childhood best friend's little boy. Carrie and I were like CeCe and Kate, always together and if we weren't we were asking when we could see each other again! We sort of lost touch in middle/high school (she lived in Daphne, AL and we moved to Memphis) but never totally and now she lives in Pensacola!!! I can't wait to see her parents, they were like second parents to me when I was little.

15 questions for CeCe on her birthday

1. How old are you? 2

2. What is your favorite color? Pink

3. Who is your best friend? Kate

4. What is your favorite thing to eat? Pink cupcakes

5. What is your favorite thing to drink? Juice box

6. What is your favorite toy? Babies/Baby dolls

7. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Mix Mix

8. What is your bedtime? 7:15

9. What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Baby Einstein

10. Where is your favorite place to go? Kellykate's house

11. What is your favorite song? Twinkle twinkle

12. What is your favorite book? Baby talk and Zoo Zoo

13. How much do you weigh? 26lbs

14. How tall are you? 33.5 inches

15. What size shoe do you wear? 5.5 or 6