Adoration's 1st Birthday!

 Adoration is one of Forest boy's bff's. She was his first "play-mate" when he was around 4 weeks old. hehe. Adoration was only around 3 months old and I can still remember Kristina and I standing on my couch taking a million pictures of them together on my ottoman. The ottoman they now walk along and crawl under. Gosh... Well, as hard as it is for me to believe she turned 1 this month! Her momma, Kristina is one of my favorite hearts and she threw the sweetest, little magical outdoor pool party ever. She made all the little girls felt flower hair clips and the boys were given their choice of toy trucks as party favors. It was wonderful! Kristina and her family are moving far away to Florida at the end of next month so we are all trying to keep a smile on our face and think of all the fun they will have so we won't cry. ;) Sam filmed a little video as a part of our present to sweet cakes. Check it out at the bottom of the post.  We love you Adoration, happy birthday pretty girl!

Birthday Pool Party from Samuel Gatlyn on Vimeo.

Star Wars and the Sniffles

Well, it started off as sniffles and now it's a barrage of fever, snot and little whines for my Forest boy...and now me. Káel finally went down for a nap just a few minutes ago and I'm all cuddled on the couch with a fuzzy blanket, chicken noodle soup and an old episode of Star Wars (never seen it) with Sam. He was so sweet and went out to the store to get me some of my favorite organic soup and wheat crackers.  I feel way less freaked out this round of my boy getting a bug. I am more prepared and can read his signs way better than the first couple times he got sick. Still, it's no fun watching his little self try to fight off whatever this is. My poor baby.

I'm going to finish enjoying Luke Skywalker and the force. ;) 

My Daddy

my dad married Sam and I under the trees. 

 My dad is pretty much the sweetest, most gentle, best listener and kick-butt cool of a guy you will ever meet. Everyone who meets him falls in love with him, ask anybody. He looks like he's 15-20 years younger than he is. So much so that when I got older, people frequently mistook him for my brother or boyfriend. Can you say 'embarrassing?' ha! ;)  I fell in love with him the first time I met him too.

Me, right about the time my mom met my dad

My biological father had been in but, mostly out of the picture for several years from the time I was 2 on due to a drug and alcohol addiction. My mom had raised me as a single parent. She's amazing. She wasn't interested in dating and thought seeing guys was a distraction. She did desire for me to have a good dad figure in my life and prayed that if God did have someone for her he would come soon enough for me to be able to bond with him.

A few weeks after praying that, she met my dad (Ruben) at a Christian business meeting, at the sign in table. They became really good friends instantly. My mom had not a clue that he was interested in her until they were in the parking lot and he gave her a little peck on the cheek... or was it the lips? ;) She was shocked and said, "but you're younger than me!?" My dad is 5 years older than my mom for the record. haha. She made him pull out his driver's license to prove it to her. She then went down a list of reasons why he was "too good" for her. He quickly shot everything out of the sky and thus their romance began.

I was around 6 and a half. My mom hadn't been dating him too long, when he met up with us at McDonalds to see me for the first time. I remember liking him instantly. He watched me walk across the see-saw like it was the greatest thing ever.  I was pretending it was a balance beam.  How cool is that!? What kid wouldn't think he was amazing? haha. He quickly became one of my favorite people.

 I remember my mom coming up to the school in the middle of the day some months after they had been dating, taking me out of class to tell me that she thought "Ruben" was going to ask her to marry him. I definitely approved. My mom went back to work, I went back to school and proceeded to tell my entire class that I was getting a new daddy. Then, at lunch I told the entire elementary school, literally. My baby sitter's daughter, who was a few years older than me, upon hearing the news, looked at me and said, "I feel so sorry for you." At the time, my innocent 6 year old heart didn't understand what self righteousness was, so I shrugged my shoulders and skipped off to tell my other friends the exciting news. A few days later he did indeed propose. And a few months after that, they were married and I had myself the most amazing daddy ever.  My parents just celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary 2 weeks ago. :)

Seriously, my dad is one of my best friends you guys. God answered my mom's prayer in the most beautiful way. A week after they were married I started calling him "daddy" and never have stopped.  I love redemption and that is the definition of my family.

Thank you daddy for loving me, listening to me and seeing everything I do as the most important event ever. Thank you for making me laugh, for being my friend and for loving momma the way you do. You are one of the greatest treasures. I love you. Happy Father's Day.

I'm around 11 or so in this pic. 

my dad and me watching the stars...right before I left for school out in California.

grandpa, right after little man was born. 

Baby Makin'

There's more baby makin' going on in the circle of my friends! Yesterday afternoon I met up with my beautiful friend Rebecca to enjoy the fun experience of doing the baby registry with her! She is 7 months pregnant with her and her hubby's first baby, a little boy! (Yay boys!) She is such a beautiful love and is going to be the most amazing mommy! It was so much fun! Any of you ladies who have been there done that, know how overwhelming it can be the first time you walk into a baby store. Ok, so I need to register for a pacifier...um which of the 200 choices do I pick? AH! *fainting, or quickly switching to overload-shutdown mode as you quickly start heading toward the exit*.  I had my close friend Jessie, who had already crossed the bridge of "first time registry" go with me for my first time, and it helped me loads. I was SO excited to get to go with Becca. We were like little girls in a candy store. We hit up Buy Buy Baby and Target, all in one afternoon. Seeing that one of us was pregnant and the other is...well, obsessed with both of those stores, that is impressive.

First time ever parking in the special mommy spot! 

I'm so excited to get the honor and total joy of planning a shower for Becca before her little man makes his debut! It's going to be held at their farm and is going to be one fun, shin-dig of a time! Ah! I love babies, I love my friends and I love parties to celebrate both!

Today we are headed off to another 1st year birthday party for one of Forest boy's little friends, Dashel. YAY! All these little sweeties are growing SO fast! Will try to stop back in later today with pictures! (If not, I'll try to post them very soon).

 Have a lovely weekend and Father's Day!

More Beachness

Yes, another beach installment. ;) You would think with all these babies in one house it would be pretty chaotic but, it was actually really peaceful most of the time. All the little sweeties would wake up and play together completely entertaining themselves. It was precious. My heart was SUPER rejuvenated and filled up with so many giggles, seeing that girl talk ruled that week. YES! Once the littles went down for bed it was just us baby mommas to rule the night!  We laughed so hard playing stupid games and having 3 conversations going on at once, from all directions of the living room. It was heavenly to say the least. I love these girlies so much. 

Jessie, Lorean and Anna's little sugar Isabel

Early morning snuggles.
jessie's photo

Sparrow and Forest boy chillin' over breakfast.
jessie's pic

miss kara's photo here and below :) 

Our little sweeties.
anna's pic

The view from our deck. Yes, I know...AH! 

Some of my treasures

Káel loves Kara

Little Micah bean 

Anna and Kristina made some kick booty, good salmon cakes with mashed potatoes and asparagus for dinner. It was SO  yummy. Each night we switched off and each girl got a night to whip up some dinner. 

Our evening beach walks were some of my favorite moments. 

Káel would fall asleep every time we took a beach walk in the evening. Those ocean waves were magic.

 Ok, let me just say there was a storm from the bowels of scariness that blew over our beach house which was up on stilts. The windows were breathing with the gusts of wind and the whole house was gently swaying back and forth. Gulp. Anna was laying out an emergency plan in her head, we were all ready at a moments notice to scoop up our sleeping little darlings and head....um where? Oh yeah lets head to the bathroom, the bathroom that's sitting 15 feet off the freaking ground.  The only semi-safe place was a little room under the house in the carport. Lets just say there were a lot of prayers and nervous smiles that night. Anna's little girl Isabel was the only baby to wake up and she was quite the entertainment. I don't think she realized she was awake. haha. She was chitter chatting to all of us and stumbling like she had had too much to drink. HA! It was the cutest thing ever. I remember waking up around 4am and thinking I was on a boat, the house was swaying so much. I went down stairs and peeked out the windows,  as lightening was gloriously striking the water. It was beautiful.

This storm better not mess with these mommas. BOOM. 

Have a beautiful rest of the day dears! 

A Day In Charleston

Oh my goodness, Charleston has become one of my new favsies of places to be. I LOVED it! The second to last day we were at the beach, we decided to take a day and drive into town, babies and all. We were quite the sight to see. 6 mommas and 6 babies can really take up small downtown shop spaces. Ha! We shopped, walked around, had cupcakes and coffee. It was the most pleasant treat to me. One thing you should know about me, I really love old, vintage robot and kid's space gadgets, prints, toys and whatnot. So, the candy store we discovered made me smile very, very big. They had the quaintest little contraptions mixed in with their large array of sweets. Of course we all got a very unhealthy bag full of whatever we so desired. Heck, we were on vacation. Who doesn't like to have the little girlish thrill of being able to go wild in a candy store? I actually lost my treasure bag full of high corn fructose  syrup within hours of purchasing it. Probably a good thing in the long run. But, my beauties were more than willing to share their goodies with me. :) 

i really, REALLY wanted to snag these robot stacking blocks, but just didn't have it in my remaining vacation budget. 

hey there ladies. 

We stopped at one of THE best coffee houses I've been to. It's called Kudu and DANG their lattes, woooweee! So good! 

I waited to have my cake-pop with some coffee. Oh yes, it was heavenly. 

Noah and Isabel enjoying the fountain in the Kudu courtyard.