Phil was on a trip the night of the performance and family night, so Mimi got to come along.....and help me keep the younger two entertained in the sanctuary for over an hour. Whew! That was tiring.
VBS was a great activity for Chase last week, as summer is always hard to find enough things to fill the days with these active young ones sometimes. We've enjoyed a week at our own pace this week though.
Phil had been working tirelessly on all the broken things in our house for two weeks when Father's Day rolled around. Needless to say, we couldn't buy him enough presents to show him how much we appreciate and love him!
This is the card that Chase made for him.
And this is JuJu's.
The kids got him a pack of three flashlights (since we had just dealt with all of those power outages and fix-it projects in dark places). He immediately lost two to the older two to keep in their rooms, in case the power goes out.
A new grill for the grill?? Not sure what you call those things. He also got a grill cover.
And the Vasque low-top hiking type, waterproof shoes that he has wanted for a while.
Daddy and all kids.
We thought it was funny that Parker was screaming for all the pictures.
We had a wedding to attend last weekend of a co-worker of mine. She happens to live here in Collierville and attend the church were we go to Bible Study. That's also where the wedding was. It was a great date night for us!
Love this guy!
And now let me have a picture with our photographer. I love this guy too! He took some pretty good shots!
I had a Groupon to use by the end of June for Redbird tickets and they happened to have a rare day game on a day of the week that Phil also happened to be off, so we booked the tickets!
It was a rare opportunity for us to take just the older two kids out. My wonderful neighbor watched Parker for us. :)
Every time we head downtown for a game we show the kids where Daddy lived when he met Mommy. (The apartment building behind him in this picture. It's right across the street from the stadium.)
She looks so much like my Nanny to me in this picture. It's the mouth, for sure.
And then we show them the hotel where we met- at the rooftop party. We also stayed here on our wedding night. The Peabody Hotel.
I wanted a picture of Chase eating is hot dog and this is the face that he gave me. Funny guy.
I like how JuJu has to wrinkle up her whole face to try and get a bit of the hot dog.
Posing after the game on home plate.
He didn't want to stand on home plate. It was about a million degrees on this day, so we were all pretty hot and tired by this point.
I love this series of pictures. They are standing on the pitchers mound and Phil asked JuJu if she wanted him to show her how to pitch the ball. Of course she said yes. So here he shows her how to put the ball in her glove like this....
...then how to wind up and kick her leg up like this.....
...and then to pitch the ball like this. (He followed WAY through on his pitch!) JuJu had to make some slight modifications to all those moves due to the jean mini skirt.
My Uncle Tim, my Mom's oldest brother, turned 50 a couple of weeks ago and they had a little party at their house. Luckily for the kids there was a swimming pool so they were entertained.
The sun was blinding Chase as he was trying to look at the camera. Look how laid back he was though. He was so bummed because he couldn't reach the bottom of the pool so he had to wear floaties the whole time.
It was not an easy task to light 50 candles!
Or to blow them out.
All the men, except two teenage cousins. Who knows where they were.
My sweet cousin Molly holding Parker. I am the oldest grandchild and she is the youngest. We are the only girls, separated by 17 years.
This picture is blurry but I had to post it anyway. We put some ice cream on Pops' plate even though he said he didn't want any because we knew who would come asking for Pops to feed him. And sure enough!
We got the kids a plastic pool from Wal-Mart and it has provided lots of fun for them! It even has a built in slide! I can only put a couple of inches of water in it when Parker is out there though because he keeps falling down and going under.
One day they just stayed in their bathing suits all day. I even fed them the majority of the time on the deck. This picture was taken at sunset, just before we went in for bed. Phil has been working lots of nights, and lots of nights in a row, so we've missed him around here.
This is what I got when I said smile. They didn't even plan that.
Then I got this.
Then this. I'm sure that I must have said something like, " Act right and like you love each other.". Or something along those lines.
My sweet, sweet five year old.
And my precious baby girl.
Chase was really wanting to squirt his water gun, but inappropriately, so I set up a bucket for him to shoot into. I was cracking up watching him squint his eye.
I'm not even sure how he seeing here. And the tongue is out a bit to help him.
Looks like he's really straining to keep that eye closed. I told him I'd go in and get his pirate eye patch but he didn't want that. I think he really wanted to figure out how to do it.
Chase has had terrible trouble with his allergies since he was 6 months old. As that point he was hospitalized for croup and started on Singulair. He started having ear infection, after sinus infection after eye infections for the next 5 years. :( He took 4 allergy medications daily, along with weekly allergy shots. We also made all kinds of modifications in our home (allergy pillows, having someone come and start cleaning, air purifier, etc.), but this poor little guy was still sick all the time.
Look, it's Johnny Depp, in my kitchen!
Parker is now 17 months old and busy as ever- as you can see by this picture. It is becoming impossible for me to cook dinner these days because Parker is constantly climbing on something. Yes, this picture was taken while I was trying to cook dinner.
Parker is definitely wanting to be one of the big kids and do whatever his siblings are doing. Notice that he's ditched his high chair. We only let him sit in a regular chair every now and then. Other than that, he's now in a booster seat.
Check out those cheeks stuffed full! He is eating up a storm and growing like a weed! He had his 15 month check-up today. Yes, we are a bit behind. He's 33 inches tall and is in the 75th-80th percentile for height. Those tall genes must come from his Pops or his great-grandfather, PopPop. He weighs 24 lbs 8 oz, which is close to the 50th percentile.
What Parker likes- shoes! Look at those pink sparkly sandals!! He and Julianna wear the same size shoes, so he has a lot to choose from. He also likes playing outside, sliding, swinging, eating, being held by Mommy or Daddy, his NeeNee (MiMi), climbing up and down stairs or even just going up and down one step, and any kind of ball.
His vocabulary is crazy these days and he can say all kinds of things! He sings songs and he's now saying phrases like, "I love JuJu", "Thank you Dada", Night Night Bubba". Some of his new words are- sandwich, apple, NeeNee (MiMi), milk, more, outside, snack, book, pooped, JuJu, Bubba, up, out.
