dinner at nana's...5.31

aunt becky brought crafts. sarah was in heaven!

nana got this doll at an estate sale...it talks and moves and such...becky, tim, and i agreed that it was the scariest thing we had ever seen in our lives...the kiddos LOVED it. go figure :)

hmmm...best picture of the 3 big grandkids together. so sad!

3 generations...jake LOVES to touch faces...

another random talking toy that drew loves at nana's house...what's with kids and scary talking creatures?!?

it had been way too long since we had seen tim's parents, so we loaded up and headed out to their house one sunday night! aunt becky provided the food and it was so good! it was a great night to just visit!!!

eating lunch with our friends...5.31

one sunday after church, when mimi and poppy were out of town, tim and i took the kiddos to lunch with several friends at our new fave...russo's.

we ended up with 4 families and NINE children. 8 of those kids were 4 or under! 3 were triplets! poor russo's!

everyone was actually VERY well behaved...

and the kids had fun playing together while the adults were able to get a few words in...

thankfully, everyone was very tired after all the fun and took great sunday afternoon naps...mommy and daddy included!!!

fun times at mickey d's...5.30

just switch out the milk jugs for cups of coffee and sarah and grace are ready to be stay-at-home moms :)

we all made it over to mcdonald's to enjoy the air conditioning and relative quietness...

do you think mcdonald's playland has EVER been referred to as quiet?!?

tim and i LOVED lovin' on david...he is a cutie little chunky monkey like sarah and drew were...

jake was SO happy to be out of the heat! he just smiled and smiled!!!

sweet little david was so comfy in tim's arms...he just drifted off to sleep! so cute!!!
~~~~~~~~~
it was so nice to get together and visit with friends from long ago! and how sweet to watch the next generation of friendships forming!!!

touch a truck...5.30

all ready to go...we all still have our hearing and aren't dripping in sweat...

sarah and grace were so happy to see each other again...

sarah trying out the firetruck...

drew is actually trying to figure out how to crank the firetruck...good thing the keys weren't in there!!!

drew wasn't happy just sitting in the police hummer, he wanted to crawl onto the dash...

all of the sweet kiddos lined up, minus drew...(L to R) jake, sarah, brady and grace palmer, and anna claire and david tipton...

sarah and her insta-buddy, anna claire...

ring around the rosie...

notice sarah with her hand over her left ear and drew with his hands over his ears. the touch a truck event is SO awesome for the kiddos, but it gets SO SO loud with all the kids honking ALL the horns on the vehicles at once!!!

several of my friends from high school were able to get together one saturday morning with our kiddos for the annual touch a truck event by the germantown library. dianna and elaine were both in town for the weekend so amber and i met them for a playdate...we also ran into another high school friend christy while we were there! it was a fun, but super hot outing...we saw all the trucks and scurried over to an air conditioned location to continue the fun...

silly kids...5.28

we were at mimi's house one night and she offered the kids a bubble bath in her big ole tub which OF COURSE they immediately jumped at the chance to do!!! their clothes were filthy because they had been playing in mimi's sand and water table. (i wonder why they love going to mimi and poppy's house so much!?!) somehow, i had bottoms for both of them in the car but no shirts. really not sure how that happened! so, mimi offered up some of her old preschool t-shirts for them to wear. they thought it was SO cool! of course i had to snap a picture!

another fun visit from dianna and fam...5.28

it was a VERY overcast and almost chilly day when we went to the sprinkler park with dianna, josh, grace, brady, and baby "X" in dianna's belly!!!

drew was chugging along like he always does and he busted HARD...poor little guy. he immediately had a really fat lip. thankfully, mr. josh was there to assess the damage for us. (the blood was a little overwhelming!)

jacob sat in the stroller and just took it all in. it was cool enough that i used a beach towel to cover his legs!

sweet pregnant dianna with the girls...

the kids made a fort out of the picnic table and the towels...

the boys were SO cold. their lips were blue and they couldn't quit shivering. but they kept going back for more!

a pitiful attempt at a group picture...

a last minute playdate at the sprinkler park...5.27

(how in the world did i get a picture of them where BOTH of them had their eyes closed?!?)

(i have the weirdest pictures of drew...SO much blackmail!)

so, after nap time one day, i called up my friends amy and mary and asked them if they wanted to spend the witching hours together at the sprinkler park!?!

45 minutes later, we were all there, with pizza, diet cokes, juice boxes, chips and dips, and dessert...wow!!! i was impressed with us :) and poppy made a quick stop by to see us too! it was a really fun impromptu playdate!

notice the dark clouds in the background in some of the pics...when we left, i mean IMMEDIATELY upon us all getting into our cars, the floodgates opened...whew...

memorial day at the sprinkler park...5.25

sweet ava shares her towel with sarah...

posing for the camera...

this last picture is of sarah and her friend meredith from dance class...except sarah INSISTS that her name is "meredin"...ugh. she is so so stubborn!!!

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we spent the evening of memorial day at the sprinkler park. going to the sprinkler park "opening weekend" has become a little tradition for the past few years...

goodbye for just a little while...5.25

sarah was in a random "let's take my picture with EVERYONE mood" on the morning that we said goodbye to the mcvea's...we were super excited because we would rejoin with the mcvea's at the beach in a few weeks!!!

(yes, poppy, THIS is my new favorite picture of you and sarah!!!)

can't get enough of the bonding times between jacob and jacob...

uncle chip had LOTS of quality time with the little man during their visit...jacob LOVED it!!!

the women were all fascinated with this chip with a perfect circle in the middle of it...the men thought it was WAY stupid that we thought it was WAY cool :) (and i told everyone i was gonna put a picture of it on my blog!!!)

this is were drew was during the attempts of a group pic...same song, different verse...

look how well everyone else did?!?

where's drew?

oh, there he is!!!

our final attempt...

aunt annie getting ONE last smooch!!!

i was just trying to get a cute shot of mimi and drew...THEN i realized a flag was in the background and it was memorial day! so this is my official MD picture :)

after the mcvea's left, everyone was SO heartbroken that we all had to pile up in mimi's bed for a little r&r...

memorial day weekend pre-church picture...5.24

the little pesticator...5.23

sweet jacob mcvea LOVES disney movies.

and he LOVES his mike the tiger.

all jacob was trying to do was watch his dvd's in peace, while sipping on his diet coke, in mimi's room.

all was going along swimmingly until...

DREW!

drew was a HUGE bother to jacob.

drew kept touching jacob's dvd's and touching the dvd player.

he even BROKE an ariel dvd.

poor jacob.

jacob kept shaking his head and putting his head in his hands...

i feel the same way about drew most of the time too, jacob...

a visit from the mcvea's...5.22

right after the mcvea's arrived, big jacob sat down to have a heart to heart with baby jacob :)

aunt annie, the rock star great aunt, got lots of love from sarah and drew after spoiling them with tons of toys as always...

still wish drew was a little more participatory during picture time...

thankfully, my cousin seth, and my honorary cousins brady and dylan were available to entertain sarah and drew for hours on end...sarah and drew worship them!!!

good thing he's so cute since he's B.A.D...

baby jacob brought out the big smiles for aunt annie...

a shot of the mass chaos that descended upon mimi and poppy's house every time my family came over to visit with the mcvea's...

ugh...jake's first sippy cup...5.20

so jake, following in sarah's footsteps, has decided that bm's are not so important. ugh. so we went to the doctor, where we heard the same old song and dance about how everyone is different, don't worry, yada yada yada...seriously people. i lived through 3 years of my oldest having problems...i'm aware of the norm and i'm highly aware of the NON-norm...

so, we decided to take matters into our own hands as we did with sar...i mean, why do we have mommy instinct if we don't trust it???

so, we gave jake his first sippy cup...filled with watered down prune juice...yummy yummy :)

unfortunately, jacob was not too impressed with the cup nor the juice...he gave it a try, then decided to just smile for the camera and act all precious so we would forget our evil plan to get a bm-producing-beverage into his sweet little self...

p.s. i know this post is a little tmi, but i haven't purchased a baby book nor written down a single details of jake's existence beyond this blog...

another old picture from our diaper bag camera...4.11

sarah is dramatic.

that's all there is to it.

one day she was playing in the back yard (as she does almost every single day) and she decided to try to throw a brick over the fence...she ended up with a cut on her nose.

i question the truth behind her statement that it was a brick, since all she had was the teeny tiniest of scrapes on her nose, but whatever. her story is that a WHOLE BRICK landed on her nose...thusly, requiring that a bandaid immediately be placed across the bridge of her nose to rectify the terrible situation...

of course, as soon as i placed said bandaid on her nose, i immediately found a camera to memorialize the occasion for all future generations...

i don't know where in the WORLD sarah got her flare for the dramatic...

ummm...found these on the diaper bag camera... from a lunch with our connect group aka sunday school class on 5.3...

the day that sarah sang in big church with the preschool choir, we headed out to eat lunch with our connect group at our new favoritest restaurant, russo's. it was mass chaos. we had 50+ people there, including WAY too many kiddos. in the top pick, sarah was flanked on either side by her friends hudson and maddox little. those two boys and griffin were fighting over who would get to sit by sarah...oh the drama of love at such a young age :)

in the second pic, drew is loving on his girlfriend ava. he seriously adores this little girl!!!

and the third pic is jacob entertaining himself while we ate our lunch...poor baby jake...

poor baby jacob...5.18

oh goodness...5.18

mimi had sarah spend the night with her after her dance recital so that they could go shopping together in the morning for some "jewelry" at claire's...

as you can image, sarah was IN HEAVEN browsing the awesome finds at claire's.

and also as you can image, mimi did not say no to anything sarah was eyeing :)

sarah scored this "amazing" hannah montana outfit and all the rockin' accessories you see in the pictures...

sarah was SO SO proud to show off her purchases for me...and she has been wearing her ensemble from the second she wakes up until i force her to take it off to donn her precious little girlie clothes that she MUST wear to match her little brothers :)

p.s. sarah asked me today, why did God give me two little brothers? when do i get to have a sister?

sarah's spring dance recital...5.17

corn on the cobb...5.16

reason #648 why you KNOW jacob is our third child...gnawing on corn on the cobb at 6 months :)

just jacob...5.14