Trek to Gulf Shores.... Leg One: Raleigh to Atlanta

Yesterday we began our trip down to Gulf Shores/ Orange Beach, Alabama. After a crazy week of packing, house showings, swimming lessons, and more.... we hit the road Friday morning and left our house around 10:00am. Our goal was to get to outside of Atlanta where we would stop for the night.

J Bug is ready

Picture of all five... Maddox's leg counts :) This picture was taken at Eagles gas station on Hwy 70 before we left Raleigh

Judah chillin with Blue in the hotel

For all my friends that feel sorry for us staying in hotels with all five boys... don't. We can't even stay in a "normal" hotel room these days, since we have so many kids and don't meet the occupancy codes. So we have had to start staying in suites... which I must admit, I don't mind a bit :)

Mads taking in all the action

Caleb and Nate loving their new coloring sheets

Cheese!

Nana's visit

This past week my mom was in town to stay with us for a few days and to help me out with the boys! We had a great time with Nana and as always her visit was too short! One day we went to the park, had a Sonic picnic, and about melted (It was 95 degrees that day or more). Other than that we hung around the house, read books, played, and I ran around like a crazy person taking these two here (swimming lessons), that one there (basketball camp), etc. Such is my life I'm afraid for many more years to come! Thanks for coming to visit Nana! We loved it!

Little Eagles Basketball Camp

This past week Asher went to Little Eagles Basketball Camp at his school, Grace Christian. The camp was from 5- 7 each afternoon/ evening Monday through Friday. The best part for him, besides getting to work on his basketball skills, was that most of his buddies from his 1st grade class came too! Friday night to end the week, they had scrimmages with all the campers and put them on four different teams to play each other. Ash did great and has come so far since starting Upward just last March. He even scored 2 baskets ! We are so proud of him!

Cooper, Ben, Cole, and Asher

Ash and Katie

Asher and his best friend, Cole

I know, blurry.... wrong camera setting :(

still trying to get those action shots..... uuugh!

Swimming Lessons

Caleb and Nate have had the opportunity to take swimming lessons with our friends the Nelsons at their condo community's pool. They are taking a group lesson for 4 kiddos with Mary Evelyn and Margo. So far we have had 3 lessons and they have already learned SO much! I'm taking notes so I can teach Judah and Maddox when they get a little older :) It's nice to have such a small ratio and lots of individual attention! The first lesson was rough... I think C about drowned 3x because he thought he was invincible without his life jacket! It took that many times of telling him that if he jumps in deep water with no one there to help him and he doesn't know how to swim, it will NOT go well for him! He rebounded the next two lessons though, and is doing great!

They started out the first lesson swimming using the right form, aided by the kick board and their teacher, Katie.

Nate with his straight arms and kicks!

Coming back in!

C with straight arms and kicks!

Ready for day 3!

Practicing streamline arms

More streamline arms..... arms straight, squeeze those ears!

Nate has had some goggle issues during lessons....

Their teacher, Miss Katie

ME and C practicing their arms

Nate is ready... awesome form buddy!

C getting ready to spring off and swim to Katie.... stay tuned, we have 5 more days of lessons!

Bulls game with Nate

I love this post because it reminds me of one of my first blog posts (wish I knew how to insert a link of how to click on the old one here.. June 2007 on our sidebar if you want to check it out) of when Blake and I took Asher to a Durham Bulls game for his third birthday... just us and him... and my 7 month old pregnant belly with NATE!

We have some sweet friends who shared their two tickets with us with us while they were out of town. So all week we knew we wanted one of the boys to have a special date with daddy, so when the day came, Nate it was!

It was a perfect night and Blake said they had a blast... ate hot dogs, cotton candy, etc.... sure there were more treats I didn't know about :)

I think they lasted through about 6 innings or so before Nate was ready to head! He came home just beaming!

Thanks David and Ashley! They had the best time!

Cars 2 with Judah

Judah and I had a date to see Cars 2... just me and him! The other three had already been with Daddy. We found the perfect showing time.... 12:00 (before and a little during when he would usually be napping), got some fun snacks, but my fatal flaw was forgetting his lovey "Blue Doggie" that he always has while he's watching a show.... it's his "calming, insert thumb to suck" lovey! Uh oh.... he was great for about the first 45 minutes, very enthralled with the movie and his M & Ms that I was putting on the arm of seat about 3 at a time for him. The middle part of the movie was rough and I didn't know if he would be able to make it through the whole thing... just super wiggly and "ready to go". We toughed it out and he finally chilled out with about 20 minutes or so to go! He really did love the movie and if Blue had been along, he would have been golden! I had a great time with just me and J Bug!

Not the best picture... of course he is mid squint and screaming "cheese" at me

Bailey came to play!

Our sweet friend Bailey came down and stayed with us for a couple days around the 4th of July. She will be a senior at Liberty this fall. She and her family used to live in Raleigh before they moved up to Lynchburg, VA (her dad got a job up there) the year that Bailey started college. Her family has been so sweet to love on our boys and we were SO sad when they moved away 3 years ago. They come back down and visit whenever they can though and we (let me rephrase that), the boys and I just got back from a very quick trip up and back from VA to visit them. Yep, you read that right.... me and the five.... 3 hour drive! Amazing what you can do when you have to :) We had a ton of fun up there including Mr. Brian taking us out tubing on his boat! The boys were in HEAVEN! My camera battery had died, so unfortunately I have no pictures! Boo :(

We had a great time with Bailey though and played alot of the game, Guess Who! Come back and see us soon!

Cuteness

I really could just eat him up. J has his beloved "blue doggie" and Mr. Squiggles (Zhu Zhu stuffed hamster) that he is "wrapping up" in his blankie.

More Pool Days....

I'm sure you're thinking "Wasn't her last post a pool post?" And that would pretty much be right... we have been living at friends' pools this summer.... SURVIVAL with FIVE!!!

This is Katie, one of Asher's best friends at school. They have been in the same class for both kindergarten and first grade and are just great little buddies. I like Katie's mom, Kathy alot too!

I think in this picture they are trying to dodge the bugs on the slide steps....

Kathy is always so sweet to tell me to bring all the boys to swim.... Nate loved the slide!

J Bug finally started to get brave :)

We've also been swimming alot with our friends the Nelsons at their condo pool (Caleb and Nate have also started swim lessons there... more to come on that :)

Miss Margo

Baby Asher

And the Roarks came too.... sweet Emmaline

Cheesy boys

Not another picture Mom....

All Judah does when it's time for picture taking is to scream "Cheese" as long as he can

And last but not least, my two oldest goofballs :)