Zoo Trip

**I wrote this post a month ago but forgot that I saved it in my drafts! I'm still thinking a lot about motherhood and want every momma out there to know that I simply adore you. We are an incredible group of strong, selfless, fighters-for-the-small-people and I love you so much. 

**Also, I'm posting so much because we think my precious momma has the flu and I want to cheer her up! Prayers for the Boopster, please and thank you!

I've been thinking a lot about motherhood this week. I caught up with a friend that I haven't visited with in far too long. We ended up at the zoo on a Friday mid-afternoon. It. was. incredible. All other kids were still in school so we had the place to ourselves. It was a ghost town. The kids ran and played and were perfectly fine. We chatted NON STOP for a good two hours. 

Our lives look a lot different. She stays home with her 4 kids and home-schools the 3 oldest. She works in her 'spare time' for our church. (Spare time. What a laughable phrase! :) ) She is an incredibly refreshing friend to me because her conversation isn't gussied up in anyway. She speaks of life frankly. She talks about the challenges just as easily as she talks about the victories. There's never an air of 'having it all together' and for that, I adore her. Her kids are amazing. They are the most well behaved clan of folks I've ever seen. She is gorgeous and seriously has it going on. If I were her, I would be tempted to be like, 'look how beautiful and amazing we all are!'... but she wouldn't act that way in a million years. She's legit and I love her. 

**At this point, I deleted the over worded post of what I see in the lives of momma's around me. Let's just say that I think being a momma is joyfully hard as hell. I have such a heart to encourage women and it's hard for me when sometimes it seems like we're making this big hard thing that we're doing harder for each other. Then I read THIS post and mentally highlighted every word. So, I'll let Glennon speak (in her infinite wisdom) and I'll get on with the pictures! 

Inadvertent monkey faces while watching the monkeys :)

More of THIS GUY PLEASE!! Isn't he so cute!

"No pictures.. not now." :)

He looked like he was practicing a belly flop but sitting still! 

This was so hilarious. London really wanted to follow along with where we were walking on the zoo map. I looked up and look what was walking down the sidewalk! London wasn't paying a lick of attention and I was scared to scream because I didn't want it to run off!  Lu was ON IT when I pointed her out and decided they would be co-navigators, so off we went! 

Nancy Navigators :)

A Beautiful Girl's Birthday

We are 5 years old. She is SO TALL and SO smart and so all the things that come with being a 'big girl'. It's okay if you need to take a moment to sob-it-out because that's how I felt about this milestone of a birthday. Just 1 minute ago, she was making her first silly faces and throwing everything I knew about love for a loop. Just a minute before that, she was in my belly re-defining JOY for me. Oh my. How have we gotten here so quickly??

Now, past the bittersweetness of birthdays and on to celebrating the wonderful, amazing, sweet, encouraging child that I adore growing up with! I've joined a parenting small group and we discuss what we're learning and how to have a 'game plan' for this parenting gig. Each week I sit there quiet while inside my head, I repeat over and over and over, 'thank you God for knowing I needed London. Thank you for making her exactly as she is.' 

She is kind, loving, obedient (most all of the time), helpful, hilarious, and always wants to make me happy. She's currently really into washing the dishes and sweeping! We finally painted a tea set that we got for Christmas so all drinks are served tea party style. :) Her favorite food is candy. Lord help. She loves to feel beautiful and special! She tells me she loves me 1,000 times per day and has special faces that she'll flash me that either mean 1. I need a hug or 2. I need a kiss. I am A-OK with this system. 

We're learning hard lessons about choosing kindness when you may not want to at first and she is doing a remarkable job of overcoming her (our) natural instincts to walk away when things get tough. Learning life lessons is hard work and humbling. I am delighted that she has such a teachable spirit, at least during this current phase of life. I don't think I was so easily taught.... I apologize, Mom and Dad! 

Everyday with her feels like.... like the way Christmas lights make me feel. She is a twinkling little beacon of joy and the ultimate good timer and I am evermore grateful that we're doing this thing together. 

What. A. Great. Life.

Our tradition of birthday breakfast at The Original Pancake House. I might need to reconsider this because the only food group London ate on birthday day was... sugar. 

I won these adorable cake pops in a blog giveaway! London LOVES gum so I asked if she'd make gum ball machine pops. Aren't they the cutest thing you've ever seen?? 

She didn't like the lips lollipop that I bought her but I thought it was funny!

We had her birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. I was not really looking forward to it because The Cheese always feels like a germ pit. I was wrong to doubt them though! The party was AWESOME. All of the kids had a blast and they let us stay and play for hours! The workers were so patient and nice and made it a wonderful night for London! My pictures didn't turn out very well but I wanted to share a few of them!

Caden shooting hoops

{video- click into blog to watch!}
The birthday kids get to go into this 'catch the tickets' wind machine. She didn't catch many but they give them a bunch after it stops. This was hilarious and she loved it! 

We bought a number 5 sparkler candle for the cake. It was cool! 

My favorite part of the party was watching Lu open the cards that her friends had written for her! They are all doing great at writing words and drawing hearts and it MELTED ME. So sweet to see their scribbly little attempts at communicating! I love it! 

This is the card from Elizabeth and it shall be saved for all of time. I can't even handle it. 

Lala knows ALL of Lulu's favorite things! :) She's the greatest aunt alive!

Knox's card! That's London with the long hair and they are holding hands inside of a heart. Yup. I died too. He loves her to infinity. 

Sweetest bunch of kids you've ever met. I'm so grateful that we've cultivated friendships with these great kids. What a blessing. 

He's the best! :)

Happy Birthday to my baby. What a fun, magical day! :) 

Beauty Walk

In continuing the over exaggerated sappiness, Charley Rhea was in the Senior beauty walk at school on the same Saturday as the marathon. Of course, they start the program with a slide show of baby pictures. I was okay at this point, just a lump in the throat remembering this precious toddler who had me COMPLETELY wrapped from the day she came into this world. 

Then she walked onto the stage (middle, between the red dress and blue dress) and all my rock solid composure started to crack a bit! :) She looked PHENOMENAL. Not just beautiful, she looked stunningly gorgeous. 

She would've fit the bill if she were walking the red carpet at the Oscars. 

That. Dress.

It fits her like a dream.

There were lots of beautiful girls with beautiful dresses on the stage, but Charley carried herself with such an air of maturity and grace instead of giggles and tripping over dresses. When she walked onto the stage, it just felt different. Like surely she must be 8 years older than the other girls because she just had this sense of mojo about her that the other girls hadn't yet grown into. 

She was called into to the top 30 which was a total no brainer! 

Mom had a very detailed system down for how she was ranking her favorites in the event. She even thought Charley earned a 'WOW' by her name after she first walked out! I was cracking up but I couldn't agree more! 

Char got to come say hello to us between rounds and Andaddy practically stuck the camera up her nose trying to get pictures of her! He had the best time whooting for his grand baby and playing with their new camera!

I can not believe we are in our final year with this girl just a few minutes away. I was hopeful her senior year would be a good one, and as we listened to the crowd erupt with screams every time she walked out on stage, I knew it. She's having the time of her life.

You've brought us all so much joy, sweet Charley. We are overwhelmingly proud of you. We'll be in the crowd, cheering you on for every single stage of life. You can count on that. We love you more than you'll ever know, beautiful girl!

Marathon Runners

These two tiny people have officially run 2 more marathons than me! So be it. I hope I never do one! Two Saturday's ago, London and I jumped in the car to cheer on our favorite twins at the Mercedes Marathon! They run a mile every day at recess, then show up to the 'big event' to run their last mile and they get official marathon medals! I absolutely love this idea. How cool will it be to one day have  a pile of marathon medals? 

I know this isn't a precious pic of him but I love his happy eyes and how you can see the freckles on his nose. He's such a cutie to me! 

Caden was stiff arming London in the above picture because I wanted a pic of just the three of them, but you know little lady pushed her way in anyway! And, she's eating. Shocker. 

London and I strong armed our way to 'sight distance' at the finish line. You guys. A wall of proud parents might be harder to push through than the Great Wall of China. Those jokers were. not. budging. I couldn't see a thing so I stuck London on my shoulders and told her to scream like crazy when she saw either kid! We saw Caden run through first but I couldn't get a picture because we barely saw him fly by! I did catch Lizzy though! For the record, even though the Proud Wall of Parents was thick, no one was a more obnoxious cheer leader than the me and Lu combo. Whoa. We brought the loud. 

I wanted to make sure I had evidence of both kids running so we did fake finish line pictures, which were really fun! Caden giggled the whole time... another shocker.

London veered way off course for some reason (She had 1/8th of a block to run and somehow managed to take a trail run in that distance.) Anywho, her 100% awesome cousin was waiting for her at the 'finish line' with a high five! :) He's the best. 

This picture right here is why I moved to Birmingham. I didn't want to miss a thing. And I'm not going to. Caden spent the night with us this night and London later told me that she wished he were her brother. We both adore them. 

I'm so proud of these chicken nuggets!

Booper and Andaddy drove into town just after the race so we met up for lunch. As luck would have it, the restaurant was painted perfectly to match ALL THE SAPPY FEELINGS I was feeling this day! How fortuitous! 

(Be warned, the sappy level only goes up from here... more to come on that.)