Sunday, June 26

Baby Hattie Part 2

The next couple days with all the cousins consisted of the park, golf cart rides, a picnic, more swimming, dress up and pizza! 

Then it was back to Greenville for the kids. Grandpa took them back.

Sleepover! Plus Max. Haha. While I was putting Piper to bed, Max crawled in bed with the girls. So sweet. 
Pizza!
Max was so tired but refused for so long to get off the floor of the back porch. Eventually I got him to the couch and he conked out! 
Max in Elliott's bed. 

Baby Hattie Part 1

Josh and I were on-call for when Jenn went into labor with their baby girl. One Tuesday morning, I got a text from Morgan saying, "come get these crazy kids!" So I hopped in the car and headed to Greenville. When I got there, we ate a quick lunch with everybody then rearranged carseats a bit and put them all in their van and then I headed back to Columbia with all five children! They were actually really good on the drive. 

When we got back to Columbia we changed into our bathing suits and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming! Piper took a nap, but the rest of the kids swam until they were tired. The rest of the evening consisted of dinner, popcorn and a movie, and bedtime. The kids did pretty well. I let the girls have a big sleepover together which was a little crazy, but they had fun (for the most part). 

It was a really fun day!

 
Almost got all five of them in there! 

National Flip Flop Day

My sister told me about National Flip Flop day and that Tropical Smoothie Cafe does free smoothies if you wear flip flops! So we totally took advantage and got 4 free smoothies! They were delicious!

Later that day, a storm hit and our power went out! It was out for 25 hours! The longest it's been out, at least since I've been living here. It was rough. We actually had to throw out a ton of food! Luckily Laurie and Bronson have the chickens, so they enjoyed a lot of the spoiled food! 





Josh and I played a game that night in the candle light! Fun!

Sunday, June 19

Riverbanks Zoo - Sea Lions

The Riverbanks Zoo (which we frequent quite often) just got a new Sea Lion exhibit that is huge and awesome so we made a special trip over to see it! It's pretty amazing. The girls loved it! 

Chick-Fil-A Daddy Daughter Date

Chick-Fil-A is awesome. They sponsored this adorable daddy daughter date night recently that was to die for. Elliott dressed up in her favorite fancy dress (from Hannah and Chandler's wedding) and left all smiles with her dad.

She got her face painted (Elsa), got her nails painted by Dad, did handprints with dad, ate dinner, and answered and asked questions with Dad! She had such a blast and they looked positively adorable!

While they were gone for dinner, Piper and I went to Moe's for dinner. She's such a sweet girl and being the youngest, I don't get a lot of one on one time with her! We had a good time too!








Saturday, June 11

Sibling Rivalry & Bike Rides

Sibling rivalry is so real. I can't tell you how many times I have thought Piper and Elliott might never get along. 

Elliott's rivalry started pretty early on. She liked Piper for the first couple months of her life, but then the jealousy started. Most people told me it would get better as Piper got older and could be more interactive. But it just seemed to get worse. Elliott started hitting, biting, kicking, punching, and pinching Piper. Most the time it was when Piper was using something of Elliott's but it started getting to the point that Elliott would do those things when Piper was doing nothing to her. Elliott would just walk past Piper and hit her as she passed. It was so hard. I felt like Elliott was constantly in trouble and I didn't know what to do about it. Somehow we survived it and it's true, it does pass! I would be kidding myself if I said they never fight because I am constantly breaking up battles still, but there are far less, thank goodness!! 

There was one day we were outside playing in the front and Elliott graciously offered to let Piper ride her bike and she pushed her up and down the street really slowly. I remember this moment so well because it felt like the first big chunk of light at the end of the tunnel. I remember thinking, "it's happening, they're becoming friends!" And it's just gotten better since then. 

Sunday, June 5

Donuts

One day this week we decided to make an impromptu run to Krispy Kreme for donuts. That night I found out the next day was National Donut Day. So, the next morning we met Josh there and had donuts two days in a row. Not a bad two days if you ask me! 

In our jammies!
Cute girls!

Wednesday, June 1

Simpsonville Fair

Morgan and Jenn live in Simpsonville, SC and their town had a fair in May! I was expecting something fairly small, but it was huge and it had a ton of free stuff that you could do. We saw some exotic animals, a freak show, watched pig races, saw a sea lion show, saw Lady Houdini escape the water tank and even saw a man get shot out of a canon! It was such a fun afternoon! And the fair was practically empty, so it wasn't crowded or stressful for us or the kids. We loved it. We even let the kids go on a couple rides before we headed out and grabbed dinner. We can't wait to live closer to them!



Contributors