July 4th Festivities on the 5th ;)

We went to our sweet friends, the Buchanan's, to celebrate July 4 on the 5th, which was a holiday for everyone. :)

I made a new recipe of a cake I found somewhere. It is a version of Strawberry Shortcake. It was really delicious and VERY "rich" tasting. I think it tasted better the second day once all the strawberry juice sank into the cake. Yum!

They put a slip and slide out for the kids. They had a blast! ;)

It was Emma's first time. She was a little skittish at first but soon started having a blast. :)

sitting in the "pool" of water

sweet Micah man :)

I'm surprised they didn't slip as they danced down the 'slide'.

Emma asking someone to pull her down to the end.

Attempting to give Ethan a push.

Lazy bums laying at the end. :)

July 4 Festivities

We spent 4th of July evening with our friends! We had so much fun eating and watching the fireworks. E enjoyed the unlimited cotton candy, snow cones and soda! :) She had so much fun playing with her best friends.

E showing off.

B showing off.

E and B showing off and being silly! :)

E holding Baby C...she LOVES holding him but does not like me to hold him too much! :) Our little family. E giving one of her best friends a hug. Watching the fireworks.

The fireworks were wonderful and the fellowship was even better.

Thanks, friends, for inviting us! :) We had a blast!

Bathroom Cooking

Emma got bored with her play kitchen and decided to take all her utensils to the bathroom to "cook"....with soap and water, I might add! :)

Emma's New "Rings"

Emma has been getting into things ALOT these past several months. I was busy getting ready to go somewhere and Emma was busy "getting into things". She found a new use for some personal hygeine products. She had ALOT to clean up after this!

Girls' Trip cont.

On our way back to Raleigh, E and I stopped in to stay with another set of dear friends, the Lewis family. E had fun trying out the Wii with the girls. She had NO CLUE what she was doing, but she enjoyed it.

Trying to get a picture with all 4 girls is not always easy but I think they turned out pretty cute! The older girls were still in their jammies. E and I were up and at it early that day! :)

We hung around Birmingham for a while. We went to Academy and WalMart to get some Alabama attire for Daddy. I took E to Samford and we walked around, ate lunch and bought Mommy some Samford attire and then we headed home on our 9 hour journey. Emma was a good trooper on the trip and we had alot of fun. The next morning, we met Daddy and the Bolivia team at the airport! It was nice to all be back home!

Girl's Trip!

Emma and I took a road trip to Florida while Josh was in Bolivia. On our way, we stopped to spend a coupld of nights in Valdosta, GA to visit our dear friends, the Parkers.

Here is a picture of their sweet little girl, S, and Emma. Emma is still talking about her 7 months later. She had the best time playing with her.

I took them to Wile Adventures Water Park one day. It had to be the hottest day of the year. We were burning up. Even the water was warm. At least when you were in the water you weren't melting! Emma enjoyed letting the water fall all over her! :) She has become quite the little fish.

She had the best time playing with an older girl and S was SO go to her! Em passed out with one of S's animals. :)

The next day we drove to Pensacola to stay with Mam and Pawpaw! Em HAD to go swimming that night so Mam took her. E swam as much as she could the whole time we were there! Day or Night she was wanting to get in the pool! :)

E enjoyed her night swim with Mam! :)

On Saturday, we went to the beach to check out the situation with the oil. This is one of the clean-up stations. They had a TON of them all down the beach, every few hundred yards. I felt sorry for the workers b/c it was boiling hot out there however, they were making pretty good money doing what they were doing.

They would scoop up the oil and put the oil/sand mixture into a bag that they would later sift out.

The water was so pretty...no one was in it though.

Oil

Cold Drinks! Mam treated us to cold lemonade and fries at the Surf Shack...a cute burger joint on the beach. Lemonade never tested so good!

E and I went to my home church, Olive Baptist Church, to worship and visit with dear friends. I still miss it terribly and I've been gone for 5 years! I love going "home"! :) Mam wanted a picture with Emma and E wasn't the most cooperative! :) The pics are still cute, though. :)

I love this with her looking up at Mam.

Sweet!

And this is Emma's clothing after pictures. She took off her clothes as she was walking down the hall. What do you think she put on? Her BATHINGSUIT! This picture was just too funny!!!

Finally, she can relax in the pool! :)

I love it! :)