Lake Vacation

I think it goes without saying that even a beach trip with these 3 monkeys would be way too hard without at LEAST one extra set of hands. So, we took a week long vacation to Limlodge instead, yay! The weather for the first 3-4 days was overcast and windy, windy, windy. Not good for little people in the water! In fact, the only good swimming weather days we had were Thursday and Friday, but what can you do? Some is better than none!

Ardie came with us for the first 3 days, and she was such a huge help! Daddy Wm and I even got to go out to dinner by ourselves one night, what a treat!!

Eat him with a spoon!!

Sweetness....

Most of the time when Shep smiles at you, he squinches up his nose like this, so cute!

William and Charlie LOVE the wave runner. I was so glad that they could be on the water some when it wasn't good for swimming.

One good thing about the windy conditions....flying kites!

I. Love. This. Picture. Charlie is too little to fish with a real hook on the lake, especially in the wind, but he wanted to fish whenever Bubba did. We just put the fish shaped weight that came on the pole on the end. Every time he reeled it in, he would excitedly say, "big fish!" Love. Love. Love.

MiMi and Grandad visited a few times, too! They took William to the Mid-America museum one day while little brothers were napping. He had a ball!

Another attempt to take a picture of all 3. A few of them almost turned out, hooray!

Charlie is so funny and his whole body laughs from deep within when he gets tickled. I wish I could bottle it up forever, because it is so infectious.

I also took the older two to the alligator farm, and oh, that was a sight! Creepy yet intriguing, I don't know the right words to describe it, and I haven't uploaded the pictures from my phone from it yet. All in all, it was a fun yet hard week for Mom and Dad, but the boys could have stayed forever. :) We love that place and have made so many happy memories there.

Why I never take pictures of all 3 boys together

I don't think this post needs any commentary. :)

In the past month we have.....

Visited Nashville with two of William's best childhood friends and their wives. Many thanks to MiMi and Grandad for allowing us this little getaway. It was the first weekend we've had away together without kids in nearly FOUR years! (One minor exception was a one night trip to Dallas for a wedding, but you can't count that due to all the planned wedding festivities, right???)

William, Will, Eric

Oxfords, McMillans, and Tompkins. It's kinda eerie how even if we weren't standing with our spouses, you could totally tell who goes together. All of the couples look alike!! :)

Been visited by an indigo bunting. He was solo and lingered for about 3 days when we had all that rain.

Eaten ice out of a fish cooler. Double gross. That kid is obsessed with ice, no matter where it comes from. Barf.

Had the first fishing trip of the year to the creek.

Caught our very first fish!!!

Gotten to paint the dead fish and transfer their "image" onto paper. This was totally Daddy Wm....I am so impressed by his creativity and willingness to do this with the kids cause you know this Momma ain't touching those rotting carcasses!

Gotten in our first two teeth, on the bottom!

Gotten our first busted lip, courtesy of Charlie and a big old tape measurer square in the mouth. Hence, the turtle lip on Shep. We took a trip to Texarkana, too, where he busted it again on a wooden chair. Same spot.

Still smiling, though.

Had our first pet turtle, named William. (We needed a 3rd one, as if things weren't confusing enough with two. Wm has already informed me we can name the next one Charlie). We kept William the turtle for about 2 days. Wm woke up one day and said he thought the turtle looked a little sad, so we let him go before walking to school. We wrote their names on his shell with lime green paint pen, so if you find him....the name's William.

And last, but not least, we have found several mushy golf ball sized lumps on Lady over the past few months. We had ourselves convinced that she was eaten up with cancer and didn't have long to live, so we took her into find out her prognosis. She's fat. Just fat. Severely overweight. Obese. She's even on thyroid medicine, but she's just a big ole tub of lard, so she has these ginormous fat pockets all over. So, move over and make extra space cause this hunk-o-hound is gonna be around for a while. We love you, Lady, no matter what.