COUSINS

We just had a SUPER FUN week with our cousins.  They DROVE here all the way from MINNESOTA! crazy! They arrived Friday, 6/19, and stayed a whole week.  Luke & Jess have 4 boys ages 6 & under.  The kids had a great time playing all together. We did get a few comments when all of us were out with 7 kids! Ha!

We had a lot of fun & here are the highlights:

Celebrating Father's Day together!

 Playing at various park with everyone.

Playing games with Uncle Luke

We did Wrightsville Beach & Carolina Beach (and Britt's donuts).

 

Tuesday morning we went to McNally's farm to see ALL the animals & pick blueberries.

Swimming at the pool

 Coffee at Folks on Fourth 

 Downtown Wilmington

We had a couple of movies too.

Thanks Forman's for coming to see us. We LOVED having you (even though some of you were sick & we had an unfortunate accident with Josh & his head.)

THE line up

As of Saturday we have a 5 year old (Lily), 3 year old (Ella), and 9 month old (#babyB).

#babyB has had 2 bottom teeth since a week after he turned 8 months.  He also started crawling, very fast too, a few days after that.  I am pretty sure more teeth are coming soon!

FIVE

It's hard to believe that we have a FIVE year old.

 Lily loves pink, purple & Elsa.

We had waffles, another one of Lily's loves, for breakfast. 
Then Lily opened gifts.  She got another bug collector set with the lantern, net & magnifying glass.  Now the girls can really collect bugs together. 

After a fun day of swimming at the pool with friends, followed by lunch at Costco (Lily's pick) with some other sweet friends, dinner at home, and lots of playing, we had birthday strawberry shortcake!

Happy 5th Birthday Lily! We love you.

a visit from some aunties

We just had such a fun week with Aunt Bekah & Aunt Anna. Jake is done with school so....SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER! 
Here are some of the highlights & yes, of course, all these pics I stole, i mean borrowed with permission, from Bekah & Anna.

 Breakfast at the beach.

 Selfies with Aunt Anna

 Scaring Aunt Bekah with LOTS of little critters.

 Sibling trip to the USS NC Battleship

 We did the beach A LOT!

Snuggles with Auntie Bek

Other highlights not pictured above: Picking strawberries & blueberries at Lewish Farms, going downtown, eating ice cream from Lewis Farms, celebrating AUNT ANNA'S BIRTHDAY!

oldies but goodies

THESE dresses were originally worn here

by Ella & Morgen at our wedding, almost 7 years ago.

It's so fun having them now for our girls. 

Thanks for the hand-me-downs, Jen & Beth!

Adorable jewelry from Aunt Anna.

And a pic of all 3 of the kids!

pink cake

Our Ella turned THREE on Sunday.  How can this be?  
A few weeks ago, I tried to get some information out of Ella regarding birthday festivities.  I was asking her what we should EAT for her birthday (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or what we should DO for her birthday.  The answer to every question was PINK CAKE.  
So we went with that......

THE birthday girl!

 Party set up for Sunday morning breakfast.

Already wearing sprinkles on her face.

 The girls LOVE donuts. LOVE them.  

They are a special treat at our house.

Jake says - "Go nuts for donuts!"

 I took Lily to the dollar store on Saturday to buy a gift from her for Ella.  Lily picked a notebook, crayons & stickers, but man did that take A WHILE to select.

A bug collector (i.e. bug vacuum).  These girls love to collect roly poly's.

We headed to the beach after naps. Ella LOVES the beach!

She is wearing her new swimsuit (not a hand-me-down!).

After sand removal & showers (although I did see some sand in Ella's ear this morning...eww...oops!) 
we had the PINK CAKE.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Ella Taylor!

We love you.

Ella did get new training wheels for her old (hand-me-down) bike.  

Now I have to run to keep up with these two.  

They're great running buddies.