Happy birthday to one of the most amazing, miraculous little babies around. We love you so much sweet John Paul!

Travel is exhausting

As is running with your siblings!

By far, the highlight of our trip (at least for me) was getting to run with my husband, brother and sister in the 8K Turkey Trot we all did. It was awesome.

Sweet girl

Sweet girls

I love my family

The once a year entire family photo!

Also the elusive mama & girls photo

Sorta

The big girls

The big girls and big boy

Big girls, big boy, baby girl

See a theme here?

Big girl, big boy, baby girl, and baby boys

That looks about right

I don’t think we’ve had a picture like this, well, ever

Just missing cousin Rosemary (and now baby Caroline!)

These two, watch out. T-R-O-U-B-L-E

We need a bigger kids table

Nothing like a little turkey day coloring contest

Like I said, trouble.

A little post turkey eating football nap

Or maybe a nap instead

Yet another person finds out the way to Eliza’s heart is with brownies

Or just triffle

Love this sweet boy!

Poor Marme, there’s always mouths to share food with!

Demanding mouths at that

Big pimpin. And with that, we left!

Maybe I’ll get Christmas up before Valentine’s day…

Bebe let Marion play with her jewelry

Always a surefire way to make her happy!

And I got sweet, sleepy Raleigh smiles

Because you can never have too many pictures of a man holding a baby

We also had time for a playdate with one of Belle-Mere & Grandman’s friends and her two little kids

Not that we ever need an excuse to visit Piedmont Park

But having friends to play with

And leaves to enjoy

Certainly added to it

Big girl

And those that know me from my Atlanta life will know just how proud this picture of her rock climbing makes me

Daddy on the slide!

Eliza Jane has finally gotten over her suspicion of the swings

Although she remains suspicious of group photos

No better ending to a day at the park than lunch at The Varsity!

Complete with a fried pie, of course

That is one satisfied baby

With room for one more bite of pie, naturally

The grandparents also treated us all to a horse drawn carriage ride through the park in the evening!

It was so much fun we couldn’t capture it in a photograph!

I promise you, it was a lot more fun than this! (I just couldn’t resist posting this picture, as horrible as it is. It’s just a perfect summation of a moment in the life of a toddler.)

And then mama had to get creative! We did a lot more walking than anticipate and Eliza was tired (and heavy) so I used my pashmina to make a wrap for her. Babywearing FTW!

Why yes, we did feed our kids gelato at 10:00 p.m.

Because you can’t visit Atlanta and not visit Paolo’s!

And on our final morning, breakfast with Bebe

Where Eliza learned to drink straight from the syrup bottle

Which made her super cooperative for pictures! And the drive back to Mississippi, haha!

One of the things I was most looking forward to about back to Atlanta was getting to take a long run on my favorite running trail, the Silver Comet Trail. Twelve miles has never felt so good.

Meanwhile, Marion got to play with some cousins back at Papa & Granny Chris’s house

Granny Chris quickly learned the quickest way to Eliza’s heart is through food.

Eliza was big into trading kisses for bites of Granny’s brownie!

Three silly girls

And now, Marion never wants to leave Atlanta!

Meeting Aunt Linda’s horse

Let’s be honest, Mama never wants to leave Atlanta now either!

Sweet horsie

What a big girl!

Eliza got a turn this go round

And proved to be quite the horsewoman!

She was, dare I say it? Even more excited about the horse than Marion

And so ends what was quite possibly the best day of the girls’ lives, haha!

It might have also been one of the best day of Granman’s and Belle-Mere’s lives too, having all their grandchildren under the roof for the first time!

Hello houseful of children!

It was worth every single minute in the car to snuggle this sweet boy for the first time! Welcome to the family baby Raleigh!

We have made the trip so many times that we have a routine set in stone, including always stopping at the same Chick-Fil-A for dinner.

Crazy traveling hair

Sad baby when we told her we had to get back in the car!

Eliza Jane also got stuck in the sun most of the trip but we ended up solving that with a cleverly placed crib sheet. Which is now a necessity for us to pack every road trip.

So happy to see this skyline!

It was all worth it to see Titus the cat. And Grandman too!

Grandman’s iPad was a huge hit too.

And Nanuq never wants to leave Atlanta because he gets to lick an ice cream bowl every evening!

One worn out girl for sure!

It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate our girls with the people that love them the most.

And ponies. Because there is nothing smarter than giving a horse obsessed three year old a party with pony rides

She wasn’t so sure about it at first

But it didn’t take long for her to get excited!

Her horse’s name was Strawberry

And since we’ve been back, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard about Strawberry

At first, she was terrified to let go of Josh’s hand

But by her third ride, she was handling it like a pro

Eliza Bean was too small to ride the horses

So she just got in some good snuggle time with Aunt Angie instead

Isabella had a good time riding though

So did Morgan

Lauren was patient waiting her turn

And so was Ada Marie

Even the birthday girl had to wait her turn

And Eliza Jane got in more snuggles with Laura Payton

I adore this picture

This one is pretty special too

After pony rides, we moved on to the carousel

And this time, Eliza got to ride as well!

Skeptical baby is skeptical of your carousel fun

There’s a bit more of a smile

When the tongue comes out, you know she’s having fun

Good horsie!

Then it was time for food!

All Marion really needs to be happy is some ham. No lie. She can eat her weight in ham.

Eliza just wanted cupcakes

Birthday cupcake time!

This picture sums up why we went through all this. The look on her face while everyone was singing to her was absolutely priceless and worth it all.

I love this girl

Three candles!

Happy girl

Skeptical baby is skeptical of your cupcake

Skeptical baby is not skeptical of how yummy cupcakes are though!

Posing for pictures interfered with her cupcake eating agenda

Back to business

And um, yeah, someone else ate a cupcake too

I think the cupcake ate her back a little bit

There was icing her nose

Skeptical baby is fascinated by

The banjo player!

She had fun on the dance floor

I promise!

Girl has moves

And the rare photo of just the two of us!

More party pictures and details to come over the week

Again, a huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us, your presence was truly the best gift and it was so wonderful to celebrate our girls with you all!

It was Eliza’s first flight and my first flight with both girls, flying solo! While the world isn’t kind to a mom traveling with two little ones by herself, I’m happy to say we survived and no one asked us to get off the plane!

Although several people probably thought we couldn’t get off fast enough when Marion puked on the landing of our flight into Jackson.

Me and my girls

Riding the moving sidewalk. This pretty much rocked her world.

Her surprise toy for the plane – color wonder markers, such a lifesaver

And how baby girl spent the flight, thankfully!

Unfortunately, travel does not wear big girl out, so her early as always wake up was tempered by some Mr Rogers on the laptop. This means I got another 30 minutes of sleep, yay!

Marme had lots of fun activities planned

Cookies!

Eliza Jane wants to be big so badly

So proud of her work

The best part of coming home – a pile of babies!

And a pile of clean girls!

All this visiting wore Beans out

We fit in a visit to the Ag Museum as well, mainly for mama to scope out where the girls’ are having their birthday party!

I don’t think there’s a kid in Mississippi that hasn’t had their picture taken in this chair

Watching the trains

Pap and the girls

Highlight of the trip do you think?

What’s better than one horsie? (Or donkey I think) Two, of course!

Okay, so having the pig smell her hand (Pap was very careful to show her how to put the back of her hand up against the fencing!) was a close second for her favorite thing

And no visit to the Ag Museum is complete with a stop by the general store

Where mama bought (probably not my wisest decision) maracas for the girls!

Naturally, no visit was complete without a great visit with Mamaw!

Apparently this was a visit filled with highlights as playing in the hose was definitely a fun time

It wasn’t as hot in MS as it is here back home (currently on our 24th day of temps over 100*) but the water was still much appreciated

Even Eliza enjoyed it

In fact, Eliza might have had even more fun than big sister (and if you watch that video, you probably are going to want to turn your volume down. I go home and I get real Southern, real loud.)

And well, since this was at my dad’s, we kept it classy with a homemade slip n slide. This is why you keep tarps just hanging around.

Truly, there’s nothing funnier than watching a baby try to crawl uphill on a slip n slide.

Unless it’s watching a baby eat a pickle

She really is like a Dr Suess character come to life

Then all too soon it was time to come back home – vomit free, thanks to a healthy dose of dramamine!

Mr Brown Dog, an old pro at this flying thing!

In summary (as if I can actually do such a thing) my parents have a fishing house (let’s call it) in Norfork, Arkansas. Technically, between Old Joe and Norfork, but whatever. It satisfies my dad’s requirement to fish every 24 hours or he’ll stop breathing. The town of Norfork puts on this great (reportedly) fishing derby every year, the second Saturday in June, where they stock up kiddie pools with fish and every kid gets a prize and it’s so much Americana you sneeze red, white, and blue. And fish.

Anyway, having fond memories of many fishing trips with my dad and catching my first bass on the iconic Snoopy rod & reel, I decided last year, probably the second Sunday in June 2010, that I wanted us all to head up to Arkansas this year for that fishing derby and Marion’s first fishing trip.

So a family trip for the four of us turned into a family reunion / kick off BB&R’s trip back to Alaska / last vacation as a family of four for Al’s crew / John Paul’s first road trip / matching personalized t-shirts for all the kiddos. Some might call it a little out of control.

Then mother nature got mad she wasn’t invited. And rained. And rained, rained, rained, rained. In fact, it rained so much it flooded the parking lot where the derby was held and so the derby was cancelled.

Great start, right?

It ended fairly much the same way. With the birth of my newest nephew, Samuel Brooks Apparently pregnant mother nature was upset we left her off the guest list as well. Brooks made his arrival a full month early but is doing perfectly well and will one day be forgiven by his grandparents for being such a surprise and making them miss his birth. Out of the nine grandchildren my parents have, Brooks is the only birth they’ve missed. Including one born in Alaska and two in Texas.

Anyway, since I’ve proven my inability to sum up in a few words, I’ll let pictures do the rest of the talking. One of the best parts of going to Arkansas is playing in the creeks and streams and dams (when they aren’t flooding) and so that’s what we did. Lots.

{ blanchard springs 2009 }

{ blanchard springs, 2011 }