This friend....

God has blessed me with. She has been there with me in the happiest of times and the not so great times. We both can get caught up in the whirlwind of motherhood and just... life, and not talk for the longest time. But when we finally do, it is seamless. We just pick up where we left off. I just love her. 

 I love to see our children together. 

 Fifteen years ago, she was there ,in the room with me, and witnessed the birth of my Sophie. And she helped me care for her in the beginning days when I had to return to work and hadn't found a day care. We've been friends for 20 years now, which is really hard to believe! 

I can't imagine life without her. 

I wish everyone the blessing of a friend like her. 

Love you Keri!! 

a glimpse...

into our Spring Break.

Boy, were we busy.

First we celebrated the beginning of Spring Break with a little

ICE CREAM! 

Yum.

And then we played in the driveway a little bit.

Shep had fun driving down the little hill.

Then the real fun began.

Our sweet friends from Memphis came for a visit.

All the kids played at the house, we went to the art museum, we rode the carousel at the mall and then...

we saw the Easter Bunny. 

To cap the whole week off, we had a day trip to the beach.

Oh what fun we had! 

And now, momma's ready for a nap! 

A little Lily Love

That's what we got this past week. Some love from Lily. My best good friend Keri, her sweet husband Joe and most precious baby Lily came up for a visit last week.

We had such a fun visit. We sat around, drank coffee, ate good food and watched the kids play. There's nothin' better, in my opinion. We went to Buck Creek park and let the kids swing and play and get very dirty. 

Lily got lots of love from my little ones.

And lots of play time.

Hopefully Keri got better pictures of this. Shep has never done this before with any other baby. He hugged and kissed this baby girl so much. It was the sweetest thing. He just loved her.

 

Hopefully we'll all still get along when we become in-laws one day. :)

I so enjoyed their visit. We have to do it again really soon.  

i heart faces: friends

This weeks theme at iheartfaces is friends. We just returned yesterday from our annual family reunion. So there were lots of good opportunities to get shots of friends. Oh, what fun we had. But thats a whole other post for itself. Until then...

These two sweet little girls are " best cousin friends". That is what my GG calls her cousin Hattie. 10 months apart ( Hattie is the older of the two). And they love each other. They play so well together and we all have the best time watching them. They were making goofy faces for me here.

 

Next up is my adult entry. This is my cousin Audrey and her ( and my) uncle Marty. So they are family, but friends too. When I got home last night and began to look at all my photos, this quickly became one of my favorites. I love it. I love that Audrey is laughing and I love the smile Marty is giving. And the bunny ears, just shows what a silly, sweet family we have. 

 

So head over to iheartfaces to see some great friends photos.

Baby Lily

Finally. Finally, I got to meet sweet little baby Lily. She is 3 months now. I was so happy and she is so precious. She is Keri and Joe's daughter. Keri is my friend from a long time ago and I don't know what I would do without her. She is such a sweet soul. We went Saturday morning and got there in time to eat lunch and spend the evening with them. Sunday was her dedication at church and it was a really sweet thing to witness. You can read more about that here.

 

Look how beautiful she is! I couldn't get enough of her. 

 

All the kids.

 

and the mommies.

Lily

My sweet, sweet friend Keri and her husband Joe just had their first baby girl born October 17th. Please head over to Lily's Life and congratulate her. Words cannot express how happy I am for them. They both have waited a long time for this perfect gift from God. She is such a blessing! 

GG made some friends (and so did mommy)

A few weeks ago, I happened upon a stay at home mom meetup group here in Helena. I found their site on the internet. Anyway, I joined but hadn't been able to go to any of the play dates until this week. Earlier in the week, we met at a local park. We had a lot of fun but it was really too hot to be outside for very long. Today we met at a place called Kids Gym. G.G. and I had a great time. She really had fun playing with the other kids. I had fun talking to the other mommies.

Here she is when we first got there. She just stared for a little while, checking everything and everyone out.

Hmmm... this looks like fun..

it is fun!

They had a mini trampoline for little ones. She had a blast.

Here she is by the end of it. She was laughing and running and having such fun.

Friends

After Sophie's visit with her grandparents in Chattanooga, I picked her up and we went to visit some great friends that we haven't seen since we moved. It was wonderful. Josh wasn't with us, he had to work. But the girls and I had a blast.

All the little ones

G.G., Sophie, Callie, Delaney and Cole
G.G. and Delaney are 6 weeks apart ( Delaney is older). They weren't really at the stage where they played together but it was sweet to see them playing around each other. Both Kim and I are stay at home moms so these babies don't see other babies that much. They were fascinated with each other.

We drove the scenic drive through Cades Cove. It was BEAUTIFUL! I had never been before and I loved it. We stopped at a few streams and let the kids wade through the water. Sophie absolutely loved it.

One of the several deer we saw along the way.

What a threesome! These kids had so much fun together.

And just a few more pics of the babies. Kim and I were pregnant together and both so, so sick. We really thought we would be raising these babies close together and that they would grow up being such good friends. Then we both moved! I guess God had other plans for us! We sure had a lot of fun and look forward to coming back. And to ya'll heading down our way!

Look at those eyes! Gorgeous.