Labor Day Weekend 2011

Ahh. Labor Day weekend. I may have my facts wrong (which is known to be the case 99% of the time) but I believe my mom said this was our 13th Annual Labor Day dove hunt. Not as many participants this year, not as many birds, but it all seemed just the perfect amount! Maybe the growing number of grandkids evened out the few less hunters... who knows! It was a wonderful weekend! Renny was with us for most of it, we had Charley for 24 hours, and Powers for about 10 hours.

My weekend was great, but I saw this picture and thought it summed the weekend up nicely.. We're officially on the go. Run here, run there, laugh laugh laugh, play play play, we whined a little more than normal, but all in all those little legs were going!

I put a blockade in front of the stairs that was hard for the adults to get past and I still seemed to find her at the top of the stairs twice. Whew. 18 months = exercise for anyone who can catch her! Still, my favorite stage so far!

And here we go! Rhea/Lane family carpool to C-town. A little face making to get us kicked off...

 Very nice. 

 (She is a fish... just in case you can't tell!)

 London liked to hold Lizzy's hand during the trip... Lizzy, not so much! Also notice the size difference between Lizzy's car seat and London's monstrosity of a car seat! Holy moly! Wish I would have shopped around a little longer! :) 

Now for the rest of the weekend... most of the grandkids at breakfast

 One of Lulu's favorite places to be... elbow deep in the sink

 Hunter's preparing for next years feast! Cleaning birds. 

 Isn't he adorable? He loved hunting with his dad!

 Watching the clock chime.... which is apparently serious business! :)

 Caden and Renny... right before they got caught in a yellow jacket nest :( Bless their hearts. Caden went to the tree line to find a bird and kicked a yellow jacket nest. He started screaming and Serenity... my brave, compassionate little girl... went running in after him to help him out... not knowing what was going on. They got after her too. Caden had 12 stings and Renny had 8. Poor kids. Sweet Renny said through tears, 'at least I got to go get a couple of birds!' I think all in all she counted it worth it! 

 Favorite quote from the weekend from this little guy. We're at dinner and he's telling us about school and he says, 'I have a new friend named Ian. He walks on two legs.' Thank you, sweet boy, for that memory that I will hold on to forever! He also surprised his dad last week with his very first knock knock joke! 'Why did the chicken cross the playground?  To get to the other side!' I love him!!

 The Ladies, minus Charley who was hunting

 The Jr. Hunting Team

 The Sr. Hunting Team

 Could she be anymore beautiful? Absolutely gorgeous!

 I love this one!

 Archie found a mud hole and was so dirty! Dad turned on the sprinkler system and Archie snapped and snapped at the water trying to bite it! So funny!

 Powers and Trey found the secret to the Rhea house. The sunroom couches are the BEST napping couches ever made. Well done, guys. Barry and I have kept that secret for years!

 I was proud of London... we went down to the Sunday afternoon hunt and I was wondering how she would do with all the gun shots. She apparently thought someone was clapping whenever a shot would sound because after every shot she started clapping her hands!

 Oh how they love group bath time!

 London montage time.. Sorry there are so many pictures, but my grandmother made this dress for me when I was London's age. I thought she looked adorable in it so I took lots of pictures! Din din, isn't this sweet?!? Thank you for making such precious clothes for me! 

I have a few video's to post but I'll get around to that. 

Booper and Andaddy, thank you for a wonderful weekend! Labor Day is one of my favorite weekends and I can't wait for next year already! 

Pictures Post

Most of these pictures are from a few weeks ago when we all packed up and went to Booper's (and Anddaddy's) house! :) Din Din came and spent HOURS with us which was awesome! We don't have each others undivided attention nearly enough and I loved spending the day with her! I'll narrate as we go! 

London dressed her self. NAILED IT! 

 Funny post I read from www.stuffkidswrite.com (which is all together hilarious at times!) 

Renny's new haircut! Super cute in my opinion! We get to see her this weekend and we're all so excited! 

 My smile looks super staged... and it may have been, but good times anyway! :)

 You can tell he's really into getting his picture taken in this shot! I love distracted little boys!

 Caden's first fish!! The boys went fishing at a friends house and caught TONS of fish! He. Had. A. Blast. He was so excited!

 They are adorable!! I have a video to go with this.. It's loading... and loading... and loading. Got to find a new program!

 None of our Papa Pictures turned out :( Love Caden's expression in this one! Haha!! 

Side note funny story: we spent a good bit of time with Papa on this trip. Ever since, every time London has seen some one who is a) an old man or b) a bald man she calls him 'Papa'! Ha! Cutie pie!

OH! BIG NEWS! (this reminded me!) We're pacifier free and loving it! (I think) We took it away a few weeks ago and it was easy peasy! Hooray!

Ready for nap or what?!

Caden and Liz playing with the same toy...

 Caden, happy to be sharing with his sister...

 

Toots- Pouts McGee!! Ha ha! Poor kids! Everything's always divided in half! :)

 This is a picture Elizabeth drew of me! SPOT ON, TOOTS! I love it so much!

 Hard to see but I found London sitting in the corner of her room reading to herself one day! It was precious but I acted like it was a military operation to hide the camera and get the shot before she noticed me and stopped what she was doing! 

 My sweet grandmother

Video's to come! They are taking WAY TOO LONG to load and are slowing all of the computers at work down to a crawl so I'll have to wait til later to load them!