Great Grandparents and Great Wolf Lodge

On the 2nd of July Phillip and I went to visit his grandma at a very close by retirement home. She recently moved here from Washington state and we try to visit her as often as possible, with three little sets of hands who get into everything:)
Grandma Hunter is very good at throwing and catching the ball. This was good practice for them all.


The next day we met up with my family, who had traveled from Dallas, to Warrensburg, MO to visit my dad's parents. My grandmother also recently moved into a nursing home, while my very active grandpa still lives at their home. So we all met at the nursing home for a few hours to visit.
Atley (as always these days) was less shy and when asked hopped right up into Grandma Ruth's arms and hugged and kissed her. I got these three sweet pictures of them...my Grandma was crying the whole time. So sweet.

My dad with Avery and Murphy (who the girls still call Mercy).

Phillip was introducing Al to the Iphone, which Phillip just got, and now I agree...it can pretty much do anything!

Sitting and playing with the grandkids. This is the ONLY picture I got of my grandpa...my kid's only remaining great grandfather. He and my dad just went to Washington DC a few weeks ago for the veterans memorial. He is really with it for his age!


After we visited for a while in Warrensburg, we went on to Cameron to visit my Grandma Griffin. She lives at her home and the kids had a great time running around and exploring all of her toys.
Canon especially loved this tractor! I think he's really ready for some BOY TOYS!

Holding hands with Uncle Danny

Avery, Brenley, and Atley waiting for their ice cream cake. As always they had a great time with Brenley and love having another playmate around.

Sweet Brenley in her cute 4th of July outfit! She is always so happy and loves to play with the "big" girls.

I thought this picture makes Atley look so grown up!

My Grandma Griffin with Canon - this is the BEST picture!

We tried to get all four kids in a picture together and this was literally the best I had...

My sister and I with our kids and our grandma. By this point they were about to have melt downs. We were on our way out.

but not before we got a picture of all the family (except mom and dad) with grandma


After that we headed on to Kansas City and stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge . It is a huge hotel with an indoor water park. They had 4th of July festivities, and the kids (as well as the adults) loved playing in the water and going down the big water slides. Yes, we took our little kids(even Brenley went!) on the big water slides and they loved it!

Of course I have NO pictures from the Lodge, but my sister does on her blog
She has some great ones of all our girls going down the kid slides.
Thanks Ang!

Happy belated 4th of July everyone

showers

my precious 3 under 3




yesterday:
phillip showered before work
both girls showered with me, just so I could get a shower
canon threw up on himself in the crib and got a bath
canon threw up on himself and me and we both took a shower
avery pooped in her bed and got a cold shower
we all went swimming with lots of chlorine and all 5 of us took yet ANOTHER SHOWER!

Christmas in July

We've started singing Christmas music around here, and listening to it while we play. The girls are obsessed with "baby Jesus" which is just precious. They are already so excited that they share the same birthday. Nonetheless, they want to sing about him all the time too...which is why "Away in a Manger" is their favorite song. I love Christmas time and we are already anticipating celebrating Christ's birth this Christmas season! All of this to say...that is why I've changed my blog background :)

Summer Dallas Trip 2009

Again, my sister is doing a fabulous job at posting every day to share about our adventures while in Dallas for 2 1/2 weeks. This is a ginormous post of pictures with little captions...and does not do the trip justice. We had a GREAT time with family and saw a few friends too. Phillip and I are so blessed by both our families and count it a joy to spend such intense time with my family in Dallas every summer for a few weeks.

Phillip drove us down to Dallas, stayed a few days, and then flew back to STL to take ZOE on a mission trip to New Orleans. He then went back to STL and stayed a few days, working, and then flew back to Dallas again for a few days and drove us home. What a sweet, serving hubby I have! Here is is lounging with Canon beside the pool while Canon took his 10 minute afternoon power nap.

Avery swinging with pops, one of their favorite things to do together :) I didn't get a picture of this, but Atley's favorite thing to do with Pops is drive the Jeep out on the walking path. She can press the peddle down and Pops runs along next to her steering the wheel. Brenley is Atley's perfect passenger and just sits so quietly while Atley drives like a wild woman.

Atley loved playing with the Fischer Price toys that were ours when we were little.

Brenley is a wild woman in the pool and has no fear of the water. She was so cute, still loving to chew on shoes :)

Nana and Avery in the pool. We would get in the pool every afternoon after naptime. There was a great amount of shade and we only put sunscreen on one time because we really didn't need it...even though it was almost 100 degrees every day! Both girls really improved their swimming skills and can now go under water and blow bubbles in the water. Their favorite thing to do with Nana was go on adventure walks on the walking path. They would go for 1-2 hours each time and would explore the trees, play with frogs, and throw rocks into the pond. Thanks mom for awakening thier desire to learn and explore!

Aunt Amber with Canon. She and Danny were so sweet to come out 3 times while we were in town. They live almost an hour away and brought their sweet new puppy Murphy each time:)

Canon and Uncle Danny - such a cute picture

Atley and Avery playing with Murphy. They call him "Mercy" and LOVE him. They were asking about him every day, and loved it when he came out. Avery, being the little mommy that she is, would follow him around and try to feed him.

Brenley playing with Murphy. We had 4 babies and 4 little white dogs. It was crazy and so fun!

Sweet big boy Canon. He was really able to start scooting around on my parent's rug and now that we are home he is getting faster and faster at it!

Avery using the potty :) So cute and funny. Sidenote on pottytraining: we quit while in Dallas after Atley peed on my mom's new couch :) I am starting back up with Avery in another week :)

Aunt Angie running around the house chasing all of our wild kids

Sweet Atley and her pretty blue eyes. They all got their daddy's blue eyes :)

I just love him!

All the kids in the bathtub. We only did this 3 times while we were there. My parent's pool is a saltwater pool and that pretty much counted as their bath everyday:)

Sweet River Berre. He and Canon are best friends and really do like playing together. On this day, I noticed Canon's tooth coming in and he was cranky (which he never is!) so he was asleep most of the time River was here :(

Happy Birthday Uncle Danny and Uncle Al! We had a birthday party with Ice Cream cake and I had told the girls that they could have some after dinner.

Brenley and Avery waiting expectantly

Atley is eyeing the cake and waiting patiently. She loved the cake and kept asking for more. A little two year old can only have SO much ice cream cake!

This is what happened when I took it away from her. Seriously, this is why we don't let them have sweets that often. If they never knew it was there, they wouldn't know what they were missing.

Sweet precious pretty Brenley. Such a big girl this summer, running and talking and able to follow directions! My sister Angie and I have had our babies in Dec. Nov. Oct. and she's due in Oct. the day after Canon's first birthday. So our kids are always the same stages each summer. ex: brenley is the same age the girl's were last summer, doing the same things. canon is the same age brenely was last summer, and will be brenley's age next summer (crazy!), and Angie's new baby GIRL will be Canon's age next summer. it really is perfect because we never have a new walker stumbling around outside and falling into the pool.

Cutie boy ready for church

Avery all giggles before church (she didn't know we were going to church or she would have wanted to stay home). She is having a really hard time withe separating from mommy lately.

And yes, here is the poop picture. It was on ALL THREE walls, and this picture doesn't do it justice! It was on the floor, on their hands and feet, their lambs...everything. After much scrubbing, my parents are going to have to repaint the walls :) Twins instigate each other I am learning.

Canon had a high fever for 3 days, then broke out in a rash = roseola. Here he is laying on the floor in his swim diaper, totally chilled out, sporting a fever and new tooth...poor guy!

Right after I took the picture, he fell asleep

Here is the the next day, so tired he fell asleep sitting up in my sister's arms!

He started eating solid foods while we were in Dallas. (Lots of firsts for Canon!)

This was a typical day for us. 3 adults and 6-7 babies running around. My sister keeps kids in her home M-Th each week. And a few times we went over there to visit here, but mostly she came over to my mom's house. It is bigger with more space for them to run around. We even had rooms for all of them to sleep and would have them all sleeping at the same time most days!

kissing

eating popcicles

If you look close you can see Canon's red spots from the roseola

Car ride home. Avery and Atley had neck pillows to help them sleep and it actually did help Atley. Avery only wanted to feed her monkey and did not keep it on except for this picture. All three kids were in the middle seat of our car. The back seats were folded down to hold all of our stuff. From the looks of this you'll see we obviously don't have the minivan anymore...bye bye Goldie. We haven't come up with a name for our new car yet...it's a Yukon.

Here Atley is at home. I found her like this the other day. She had sorted all of her kitchen food and utensils! Such a smartie!

Ok, sorry for the massive post. Hope you enjoy all the pictures, we sure enjoyed taking them!!

for now

My sister is doing a blog every day to update about our trip to Dallas and all of the things we did there. Until I get around to doing my own blog with pictures and stories, just check hers out here. Thanks Angie!

our trip so far

While here in Dalls, we've been doing so many things. Here are just a few:
spending time with family
playing with my sister Angie and her daughter Brenley every day here at my mom's house
swimming a LOT - Atley can go under the water for almost 5 seconds now, and loves it
Angie is having another GIRL
meeting our new nephew/dog - Murphy
watching uncle Al's baseball game
MISSING DADDY
going on walks with Nana
going to parks
shopping
dinging some lady's black BMW car door while she was watching
spending more time with family
Canon is scooting around and eating avocado, bananas and egg yolk
Canon got his FIRST tooth
twins are sleeping in a closet, on the floor, in sleeping bags
enjoying my friend Betsy and her baby River
grieving with our friend who lost a baby
Celebrating birthdays and anniversarys
getting excersise running up and down the stairs to check on the girls...which sadly last night I waited too long to do. another post for another day, but I'll leave you with this: poop on the walls!
so long! I'll have pictures next time:)
shelly

We are crazy like that

On Tuesday morning I literally cleaned myself out of the house. Broom in hand, sweeping my footsteps away, I hung it in the garage, hopped in the car and off we went to Branson. We were going to visit Phillip's brother Matt and his wife Lauren at K-Kauai, the Kanakuk Family Kamp. It was a great day traveling, and getting to see Matt and Lauren. We got to tour the kamp, and swim in the amazing pool. Canon even fell asleep in my arms and the girls loved spashing around in the ginormous kiddie pool with fountains and water sprayers. It was great. We went to dinner with M & L and then headed back to kamp to stay the night. This would be the girl's first time to sleep in a regular bed, since they are still sleeping in their (super low) cribs at home. (side note: they can climb out of everyone elses cribs now, excpet their own. I know they CAN climb out of theirs, but Avery hasn't dared to do it again. However, when we are at anyone elses house, a climbing they go...) So Phillip went off to K-Life and I layed down with all 3 kids in the bed, thinking the girls would literally poop out after a long, no nap, day. After 15 minutes of bouncing and me wanting to pull my hair out. We put on our shoes and went to join Phillip at K-Life. Once in there, I mentioned just getting in the car and heading to Dallas. (We weren't supposed to leave for Dallas until the next morning.) So, spur of the moment, we loaded all three kids up, packed up the car, put in a movie, and within 10 minutes on the road...they were all knocked out. We kept thinking, what are we doing...just going to drive all night? Which is what my mom and I had actually done before. We are crazy like that. We were all set to roll into Dallas about 4:30am, until the storm hit. It was much like the storm that hit last night here in Dallas, and I'm sure has hit just about all over the middle pat of America by now. The kids kept waking up crying becuase really it's not that comfortable to sleep in the car, and by the time 11:30 rolled around, we were checking into a Holiday Inn Express in Miami, OK. It was an unexpected little "family trip" to the hotel, where the girls slept like big girls in a bed, and Canon, Phillip and I slept a little in ours. We got up, showered, ate a continental breakfast and headed out. Finally, we were really going to Dallas. We got in to Dallas about 1pm and got to spend the day soaking in the sun and playing in the pool. We got to watch our sweet neice Brenley last night and then spent our 4th anniversary sitting on the couch talking about our wedding FOUR years ago! I am SO blessed to be married to Phillip and admire and love him SO much more than I could have known only 4 short years ago. He is an amazing husband and father and I am so thankful the Lord gave him to me. When we met we were truly seeking the Lord first, not a mate, and when we both looked over (literally at the dinner table at Pine Cove) we were both running the race together, and we knew that by putting Christ first, in every area of our lives and marriage, we would have the sweetest marriage we could image. And after 4 years, I'm proud to say we are more in love now than the day we got married, and know that in 4+4+4+4+40 years later we are still going to be going strong....ONLY by putting Jesus at the center of it all:)
I love you Phillip Andrew Paul!

So we are in Dallas for 2 1/2 weeks and I'll try to post some pictures while we are here...that is IF I take any! I haven't so far.
There is never a dull moment :)
Shelly