Happy Birthday Mike

Today my sweet husband turns the big 30!!! This is weekend #2 of celebrating his birthday, and I think he is soaking it all in.
Happy Birthday Michael Paul, I can't wait for many more years of birthday celebrations!

O'Malley wasn't very excited about celebrating

Monday smiles

It's a known reality that I rarely see my husband these days and it makes me a little crazy. I am a planner by blood and clearly this isn't how I planned our 1st year of marriage (cry a river, I know). I will say that this time is teaching me A LOT and sometimes the lessons aren't ones that I'm ready to hear. But we are making it through this season and are thankful for the blessings and the lessons the Lord has given us.

With all that to say, I got a much needed and sweet surprise today. Our wedding photographer let me know that we were featured on Wedding Row Charlotte today. Looking at those pictures made me so happy! We loved, I mean LOVED, our wedding weekend (especially the early morning 5k race) and it was great to see all the pictures again. Thank you Jeremie for capturing all the love we felt during our wedding weekend. It's hard to believe it's almost been a year!!

Spiderman rocks!

We spent our Saturday celebrating Nate's 4th birthday (a month early since they are moving to Tuscaloosa in 2 weeks). Em rented a great place called Jumpy's and it was so much fun...every kids dream! The party was a huge success and I think we successfully wore out every child so they would take a great afternoon nap.
The spiderman cupcakes were my personal favorite, but a close second was seeing Nate in his pirate costume. Nate now owns every spiderman toy sold in the state of Tennessee and boy is he a happy kid.
It was a great way to spend Nate's last birthday in Murfreesboro. Enjoy just a few pictures...I'm sure Em will have a much better birthday recap.

Charlotte fun

I think I'm finally recovered from a L.O.N.G work week in Charlotte. My company had 500+ recent college grads start last week into one of our many development programs. It was 5 days filled with presentations, suits, talking, schmoozing, no sleep, time with my teammates and trying not to scare my new hires. Even though it was an exhausting week, I really had a good time getting to know the new hires and spending some quality time with my teammates.

team building activity with some of the new hires

The highlight of the week was a team dinner at my manager's house. We ate, drank, painted mugs for each other, laughed and cried together...it was one great evening. My friend, Kara, has been waiting to adopt for 10+ months and just found out they are going to be parents to a baby boy! She shared the news with with the team and the ugly cry began. So many people have been praying for their journey, and I was so happy to hear their prayers had been answered.

celebrating some team birthdays

CUTE Emerson at Kelly's house

Family dinner at Kelly & Robby's new house

Friday morning, Mike flew into Charlotte so we could spend the weekend with the Staton Family. His brother, Tim, was home for a few days before he gets deployed for another tour. He is leaving later this week for a year in Afghanistan and we were soaking up as much quality time as we could. PLEASE say a prayer for Tim and the 100+ men he will be leading in Afghanistan over the next year.

Mike, granddaddy & Tim

After a weekend full of family and friends, we were excited to head back to Knoxville AND our own bed. I'm flying solo this week because Mike is traveling (again) and O'Malley is living with my parents for a while.

Family Beach Trip recap

Better late than never...
This was the 27th year that my family has gone on our annual beach trip...can you see why I love traditions so much?!?!

Our first day on the beach, I was talking to mom as we watched Abby Reece & Nate play in the ocean. Mom reminded me of our first trip to our family's beach house when I was 2.5 years old. It went a little something like this...
"The house was finished being built when you were around 2.5 years old and we took our first family beach trip to Litchfield, SC. You were wearing your favorite seersucker dress and you and your sisters were so excited about going to the beach with Aunt Betty. The minute your feet hit the sand, you began running to the water. You ran all the way into the ocean and the waves took your feet out from under you and you tumbled in the waves. You popped back up, wet and sandy, but could not stop laughing".
Seeing Abby Reece have no fear and walk right into the ocean, made my heart so happy!!



We had a great time...ran around the beach, jumped waves, splashed around, looked for fish, built sand castles and buried the kiddos in the sand. We also had our usual "theme night dinners", read lots of books, played cards, celebrated mom & dad's 40th wedding anniversary, had sister time and just enjoyed hanging out together.
I was sad to see the beach trip end, but I felt better knowing there will be many more years of memories to come.

My sister, Em, did a great job blogging about our annual family beach trip so read her post for more details and pics.