Lately...

So lately we've been doing a lot of...

 Hanging out at the pool (it's HOT here!)

 learning to swim

taking family evening walks

 well, just once so far (it's HOT here!)

dressing up the puppy dog

being silly (but that's the norm around here)

 getting cute haircuts

NAPPING ( I love naptime!)

and really enjoying our summer.

What have you been up to, lately?

A Walk About

Not too long ago we visited the Grandparents.

Grampie took the kids on a walk about.

 Shep didn't quite make it the entire way. He ended up on Daddy's shoulders. 

Below are the Whiting boys (men). :)

Popsicles, Fireworks, Sprinklers, Cake and Family....

Celebrating our freedom.

Happy 4th of July!

The weekend.. part one

We found out last week that Josh's family was having a family reunion in Orlando over the Memorial Day weekend. So we packed up the kids and the van and set out on a 12 hour driving "adventure" :). It was crazy and exhausting but lots of fun. Josh got to see lots of family that he hasn't seen in a long time. And I got to meet lots of his family I've never met. And we got to show off our children, which is always fun.

We spent Friday night and Saturday with his grandparents.

We went swimming ( in between thunderstorms), we picked flowers, we relaxed on the porch and chased lizards.

Saturday night we had dinner with his Aunt Jan ( Grampy Gordon's sister) and her family. It was a good time and good to meet them. We haven't seen Aunt Jan since our wedding.

 

The little girl with GG above is Josh's cousins daughter, Lexie. We were talking about names and I found out that she is named after Josh's grandma, just like GG. Her name is Geneva Delia.

Lexie's middle name is Delia and GG's first name is Geneva. I thought that was sweet.

Sunday was the big family reunion.... 

The Whiting Men

Daddy ( Josh), Shep and Grampy ( Gordon)

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.

Home...

After all our travels, we were finally home. This was the first time in many, many years that we were home by ourselves for Christmas. In Memphis, we would always spend Christmas Eve with my mom and Christmas Day we would go to my dad's house for the afternoon. When we moved, Josh's parents would come and spend that time here with us. This year was a first.  I had these big plans to spend Christmas Eve baking with Sophie and doing some crafts with both the girls. In reality, I had to do a little more shopping and Josh and Sophie stayed home and cleaned. I did get home in time to bake one batch of cookies. We went to our Christmas Eve service at church and then drove around and looked at Christmas lights. We came home and had chili and then it was time for bed. Santa was on his way!

Our advent calendar. We let the kids open it each night after dinner and they have a treat inside. 

We got all new stockings this year. I have used the same stocking my entire life (made by my Aunt Doris, as was Sophie's). But this year I needed to get GG and Shep one and I thought it would be cute if they all matched.

We started a new tradition this year with " The Elf on the Shelf". His name is Bernard. He was a lot of fun and GG really liked looking for him every morning. 

Josh always reads this book right before bedtime.

Our tree.

Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk. GG was really excited about this all Christmas morning. She told everyone that called about it.

And, the presents. Sophie is on the left, GG in the middle and Shep on the right.

We really had a good Christmas this year. Spent with all the people we love. And remembering the real reason for this season, the coming of our Savior. I am so thankful for all the blessings He has given me. 

I hope all of your holidays were wonderful.   

Aunt Doris

The day before we traveled to Memphis, my great Aunt Doris had a stroke and fell into a coma. I was able to spend some time with her and her daughters in the hospital on Saturday. It was such a blessing to be able to be there and have that. She passed away the following week. 

Here she is holding newborn GG in the hospital.

She is already greatly missed.

Kentucky, here we come!

After Doris passed, we thought we might not have our Kentucky Christmas. My grandma decided it would be a good thing to do. Doris would have wanted it that way and we needed to be around each other and be happy. So the weekend before Christmas we packed up and headed to Kentucky.

We had Christmas with my mom at her house Saturday morning. She cooked breakfast and we were all there: my brother Jason, his wife Jennifer and her son Josh and my brother Andy, his wife Megan and their kiddos Hattie and Hayden. 
Breakfast was great and the kids loved their presents from Grama.
This is Hattie and GG playing with Grama's stethoscope.

They thought that was really fun.

After that we were off to Nana's house...