Brinley's 4th birthday weekend

Last weekend was Brinley's birthday. Monday was actually her birthday, but we had her party on Saturday. For the last 6 months, she has been telling me that she wanted her party at Jump N Jungle and had to have a mermaid cake. Not once did she waiver on these two ideas! Here are pictures from her big day!

The mermaid cake she picked out and I made

Sliding down the slide at Jump N Jungle

Here is the crew that came to the party...notice Clayton crying and running out of the picture!

Time to blow out the candles

Present time. This is the lap board I made for her to color/draw on

Clayton enjoying the party (after lots of cake and ice cream!!!)

**on a side note, I need to say how NICE it was to have a party not at my house!!! No cleaning before/after and no food preparation (besides cake). It was the most relaxing birthday party day ever! I think this has ended our home party era.....famous last words :-)

On Sunday, we headed down to Galveston to eat at Brinley's favorite restaurant, The Rainforest Cafe. The entire restaurant looks like a rainforest with moving animated animals and rain storms that happen every 15 minutes! Lots of fun, even Clayton enjoyed it. After eating, we headed to the beach for the last few hours of daylight. It is really the best time to go because it is not hot and you don't get sunburned!

Brinley and the frog at the Rainforest Cafe

This girl is absolutely a beach girl! She loves to be in the ocean!

They did this for at least 30 minutes! She filled up the wagon, he pulled it out to the ocean.

splashing around

Monday, on Brinley's actual birthday, we met her friends at Chick fil a for lunch. The girls played and then we had cupcakes and sang happy birthday to her.

That evening, we gave Brinley our present to her, a big girl bike. She asked Santa for one last Christmas, but we decided to wait for her birthday when she could get more use of it with better weather. She was thrilled to see her new purple (fav color) bike! She loved the bell on the handle bars too! She rides around ringing the bell and saying "mail lady". Clayton is also happy because he now can ride her big wheels without her getting mad!

I love her face! She was sooo happy

The first of many rides together, although we need to get him a more manly ride!

Brinley, you are such a sweet and happy little girl. You are 41.5 inches tall and weigh 37 lbs. You love life and always have a smile on your face. Your imagination has really kicked in and you can play with your barbies or princesses for hours. It is hard to believe you will be starting kindergarten, this time next year!!! You love being a big sister and teaching Clayton new things and you can't wait to show him how to potty like a big boy. Dancing and dressing up is your favorite thing to do! You also love to help me around the house by feeding the animals every night and putting your clean clothes away. We are blessed to have you in our lives!!!

July 4th

We spent the 4th of July at my brother's house swimming, eating and popping fireworks! Thanks to hurricane Alex, it rained the entire week here. I think we got 10 inches of rain on Friday!!! God knew how to pick up our cabin fevered, water logged spirits by creating a beautifully sunny (and HOT) 4th of July.


We spent the entire day in the pool. Brinley enjoyed hanging out with the older kids (Reese and her cousins), while Clayton enjoyed splashing, throwing balls and diving sticks into the pool.

We also ATE the entire time we were there. To say we had a ton of food would be an understatement! Hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage, boudan balls, bacon tomato tartlettes, chips, queso, salsa, watermelon, ham and turkey roll ups, and grilled jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese. The desert counter (oh yea, I said counter!) included : oreo balls, individual cherry pies, Texas white sheet cake, chocolate chip cookies, pretzels dipped in icing, and homemade ice cream!!!!!!!! Lets just say I am still full this morning :-)

Once it got dark and we coaxed our sun burnt, pruned bodied kids out of the pool, we started the fireworks show. Normally, Blake's neighborhood puts on a fabulous fireworks show, but thanks to the rain, everything was waterlogged and rescheduled until Labor day. So Blake and Jason went the fireworks stand and like kids in a candy store, bought a large amount of pyrotechnics for our viewing pleasure!

I was worried how Clayton would take firework action since he hadn't had a nap, swam all day and eaten himself into a coma, but in true man form, he LOVED IT!

We got home around 11pm and now we are spending the day being lazy. It was a great way to spend the 4th of July!