Parellel Play's final show...

My brother's band, Parallel Play played their final show last night. It was so much fun watching them and just hanging out. The kids had a ton of fun too!

Oh how I am going to miss this little man when he and his Mommy and Daddy move to Florida in a few weeks!!!

And this little man will be missing his cousin, aunt and uncle pretty bad too!

Tate was in heaven. As you can see, he's eating a dinner of chips and brownies and sweating from some hard playing!

The Week

I've had an interesting week. I didn't go into work on Monday and yet this week STILL felt like the longest week ever! I am thrilled that the weekend is finally here and that we don't have any major plans. We will be going to watch my brother's band play at a house party tomorrow evening, but aside from that, we don't have anything planned.

I had a rough week at work. At the same time, I had excitement going on as I waited patiently with our great friends Melissa and Corey, for their baby to be born. They are adopting a little boy whose birth mother's due date was June 4th. It has brought back so many memories of the excitement we experienced when we got "the call". Though their adoption experience has been different than ours was, it has still been very special to be able to witness them growing their family this way. It's so nice to have a close friend who truly "gets" the adoption experience like we do...who truly knows the love you have for your child's birth family and what a gift it is to have them in your life. Corey and Melissa now "get it". Their son, Brady Lee Morris was born today at 12:19 pm. Sean, Tate and I had the honor of going to meet Brady as well as his birth family. They were a group of amazing people who I have so much respect for. I am in absolute awe of the unbelievably difficult and selfless decision that birth parents make. It not only affects them, but their families. The difficult decision is many times a decision made by the entire family. They are amazing people. Amazing. And Brady is PERFECT!

Corey and Melissa are so blessed! This huge blessing is what kept my spirits up during my rough work week.

And now, a couple more pictures...

Yesterday we played golf, baseball, bubbles and sidewalk chalk outside.

"Daddy, why do you keep running into things while I'm on your shoulders?!"

I hope everyone has a terrific weekend...we plan to!

Addicted

I can't get enough of these mini Apple Cinnamon flavored rice cakes.

I L-O-V-E them!

Melissa's Baby Shower

For the last several weeks I've been planning a baby shower for my good friend Melissa who is adopting a baby boy due in a few days! It's such an exciting time for her and her husband and it brings all the memories back from when Sean and I adopted Tate. Today was the day of the shower. It went great! I had it at the Botanical Center and it was perfect.

I am no cake decorator, but I took on the task of baking and decorating Melissa's cake and I must say that I am pretty proud of the finished product. I wanted something with feet on it and didn't know exactly how I would do it. It ended up turning out pretty cute I think!
This is a picture that has the napkins in it that I used as a reference for the colors I used for the shower. I thought the napkins were so cute! I am not a huge fan of the pastel and babyish looking decorations and I know Melissa isn't either, so we went with a 'not so babyish' looking baby shower.

Melissa and I...adoptive mommies!!! :)

The room had beautiful big windows that looked out onto the gardens.

The guests all decorated onesies for the baby and all did a terrific job...they turned out so cute!

Now we just wait for Baby Boy Morris to arrive! We are so excited and can't wait to meet him! Only a few more days!!!!!!!!!!

Dam to Dam

Cassie and Paul did the 5K in the Dam to Dam today. Unfortunately Cassie was up ALL NIGHT last night with the stomach flu. She is quite the trooper though and still ran it. She got done in 43 minutes, flu and all! She said that there were several moments when she was looking for a place she could throw up. Luckily, she didn't have to. We stood by the finish line and watched her and Paul run in. Paul did it is 30 minutes! As you can see, Cassie wasn't feeling too hot...Sean even came down with us! We parked about a 1/2 mile away from the finish line and walked over to the finish line and back. You would never have really known that he just had surgery last night! He is feeling MUCH better, but is definitely needing his pain meds on a regular basis.

After the Dam to Dam, we were going to go back to Chris and Brenda's house, but they had a showing and the people were still looking at it when we arrived so we drove to the park and the kids played and ate Cheetos, Doritos and drank Gatorade.

Ayla enjoyed the Cheetos...a lot!

It is BEAUTIFUL outside today. We are now home so that Tate can nap and Sean can rest. I am finishing up some preparations for a baby shower I'm having for Melissa tomorrow at the Botanical Center. I had better get to it!

Not the best way to start the weekend...

Well we started our weekend with a bang. Sean has not felt well the last 48 hours and awoke this morning with severe abdominal pain. He finally decided to go to the doctor. They ordered a CAT Scan and found that he had an appendicitis. Ugh. He called me to let me know that he was advised to go to the ER right away and get his appendix out. So I left work and we headed to the ER and got his appendix out. Within an hour and a half of his surgery being completed, we were walking out the door. Modern medicine is amazing! He's feeling much better with out the pain from his appendix, but is really tired and sore. Apparently the recovery is quick and easy.

I was messing around with Sean while he was in the ER and kept saying, "can I take a picture so I have an image to use when I blog about this?" I was totally kidding knowing there was no way he would let me. He said "no" without hesitation. About 20 minutes after they gave him his IV pain medication, I jokingly asked him again thinking he'd say "no". Well the pain meds must have really worked because he responded with a sigh and that is all. So here's a picture of my drugged hubby about 30 minutes before surgery.

Memorial Day Weekend

It was a terrific long weekend! Being with family is the best!
If only Ayla was looking at the camera in this picture, we would have had a nearly impossible great picture of all the kids looking at the camera. There's no way I could be so lucky. Oh well...close enough! Still super cute. :)

A few random pictures...

Ayla can get stuck in some interesting places. I'm not sure if she's stuck here or just playing.

Mom and Dad splurged on this ginormous doll house that is currently sitting in their living room. Tate LOVED it! He played with it constantly. It is so awesome!

And I totally think Sean could handle 3 kids just fine. What do you think?! :)

Sean might need a daughter...

...but if he had one, my heart would probably just melt away.

Brigg is getting so old!

We went to a practice game of Brigg's on Saturday night. He did amazing! He really is super talented and seriously growing up so fast!

Camping

We camped on Saturday night. Everyone came out for the evening and just Cassie, Paul, their kids, Sean, Tate and I stayed. Sean, Tate and I shared a tent. It was roomy, but not the most comfortable sleeping situation. It was actually really fun though. Cassie and Paul brought out their pop up camper so it was nice to have that to go into to get away from the bugs. Also, they made us a DEEEELISIOUS breakfast on Sunday morning before we went hiking. We roasted marshmallows and the kids played and ran around. It was great!

Tate loves Brigg and wants to do whatever he's doing...

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Hiking

We hiked on Sunday morning and it was BEAUTIFUL! Tate had a walking stick that he held like a gun the entire time. It was more work for him than it was help. It probably didn't help that he was the one to "close down" the camp ground (at midnight) in our tent the night before and then awoke at 7:15 the next morning. He may have been a bit tired! I got more sleep than he did I think. I did wake up about every hour, but I went to sleep probably about an hour before he did. He doesn't do well sleeping with Mommy and Daddy. He needs his own bed and own space in order to sleep well. It was a fun adventure none the less and I would do it again...only I'd have a mattress of some sort next time! :)

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Kris Allen - God of This City

I always loved Kris Allen on American Idol. I was thrilled when he won. I just thought he seemed genuine and I liked his style of music. Don't get me wrong, I thought Adam was uber talented, probably even more talented than Kris, but I liked Kris. I read a blog where the blogger is from Arkansas (where Kris is from) and she knows people who know Kris's family. Apparently, Kris told his mom that he wished he had just a little longer with Adam, even just another week before the finale because he had been witnessing to Adam and just felt he needed more time. She posted this video of Kris leading worship at his home church in Arkansas. It helps that I LOVE this song, but WOW, I love this video! What a great American Idol!!!!

on the agenda

We have a super fun LOOOONG weekend planned. We cannot wait! I took Friday off and we are heading out tomorrow after I get off work. We are going to have some family fun, some camping and just hanging out. Amidst that, Sean has an interview and I will be having some minor finger surgery...ha. It will be a full 4 day weekend! Lots of pictures upon our return!

my boys tonight

A perfect evening for ice cream...

This evening was one of those evenings. The weather was GORGEOUS!!!

Tate loves ice cream!

And when he was done with his cone...he dug in on the remaining of Mommy's sundae she couldn't finish. He said, "MMMM...DEE-LISH!"

Napping

Tate and I took a nap together today. I think that napping with my little boy is in my list of my top 10 favorite things to do!

Trip to Colo

We went to Colo on Saturday morning to have some family time with all the Peakin side aunts, cousins, almost all the uncles (we were missing Travis) and Nana and Papa. It was a great day. Windy, but nice. We broke out Tate's kit the Easter Bunny got him and as you can see, it flew great.

We ate lunch, the kids played HARD, we went to the park, we had a delicious steak dinner and then played games after the kids went to bed. It's so much fun being able to get all the kids together! We are now home and exhausted and plan to lounge around all day and just relax!

It was a great weekend!

Fun at the park

We had a great time at the park in Colo...the kids AND the parents did!

My sisters-in-law Sarah and Sara