Thirty-Third Birthday

My birthday this year was EXTRA special. Mr. JCrew arranged a pedicure date and dinner with some friends.

I never paint my toes red, but I went for it. 

On my actual birthday I got he BEST present. Mr.JCrew's sister had her baby!

 Little JCrew loved holding her.

And Mr. Brigglesworth was in awe!

Mr JCrew was nervous about him holding her, but he was a pro!

I am so excited to have a birthday buddy!  

What a great birthday!

Lake Weekend 2015

You can obviously see how much is going on with how often the posts are coming.

Every summer, we visit the lake, and I notice I write about it every other year, so I am due to share.

This year, the boys decided life jackets were not worth crying over. They gladly wore them.

The weather was COLD this year! We had a bad storm come through on our first night and it made things cold. It was so much warmer to be in the water.

Both boys don't like the idea of just floating and not touching the bottom. I forced Mr. Brigglesworth to float with me. He came up with all kinds of excuses to get out. My favorite was, "I'm really tired. I want a nap." Ha! Not at 10:30, buddy!

They both loved the boat. Mr. Briggleworth wanted to drive.

Auntie Julie let him!

And she let Little JCrew drive too!

They loved going under the bridge to honk the horn at trolls.

We had a great group that always goes with us. The kids were so cute eating watermelon. Even mine decided to try it!

Mr. JCrew is the resident kid entertainer. They think he is so funny! He tackles them and plays this "attack game" with a large stuffed fish. It's funny to hear the kids screaming. And something as little as fizz out of a coke can turns into a laughing session.

Little JCrew gets shy now when I take pictures of him. He covers his face.

While we were getting breakfast ready, the kids had fun with chalk.

They started making outlines of themselves.

The boys had me write their "letters" on them and Little JCrew made a smiley face on his.

After they were done, it looked like a crime scene.

I love this little tradition we have started. It's all about spending time with a great group of friends and making memories that will last our lifetime!

Thanksgiving 2014

Our first Thanksgiving without Dad.

My sister from Florida came up to visit and brought her husband.

They also brought their pups. We had SEVEN dogs. Thank goodness they are small.

Anderson, Jackson, Colby, Hunter, Kates, Bosley, Charles

The house was full, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

We spent Thanksgiving with our friends. The kiddos had a great time at their own table.

Little JCrew even tried the cranberry sauce!

We didn't do any Black Friday shopping, but we did get out of the house. We went to Lowes! I really wanted to visit the subcontractors for the house, but they are good businesses and allowed their employees to have the day after Thanksgiving off. To satisfy the need to get something done, we went to Lowes. The boys liked cramming themselves into vanities.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Jenson side on Sunday. We walked in and were blown away with the setup.

It was perfect. Cole wrote out the name tags.

Mr. JCrew's sisters have the pictures with everyone sitting down. Grandpa J had all the kids at his end.

After dessert, we ended the night with Bunco! It was a fun game the kids enjoyed. It will now be a tradition.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. December is here and that's hard to believe!

Visiting Dance Friends - Florida

While in Florida, I made time to visit some special friends. The first set date back to early childhood.

My second set of friends comes from my dance days. We spent many hours in the dance studio from elementary to college.

Kelly and I met first on our own at “Slightest Movement” dance studio. She and I locked together fast. Her parents were always moving. They’d get into a house, fix it up, then find a new one to fix up. Her parents also taught me about giving meaning to things. She had a dog named “Georgia.” Then they adopted another beautiful dog and they named him, “Clay.” This was in reference to Georgia Clay that I knew nothing about. I only knew of the sand/dirt in Florida.

Yes, I made sure to take a picture of Little JCrew playing in the dirt I grew up to know as dirt. Much different than the clay my children will learn about.

Kelly and I had many letters we wrote to each other. I still have them, too! I can’t part with the sweet memories.

Lindsey’s family and my family knew of each other before we were born, but we didn’t really get to know each other until middle school. We even had special spellings for our nicknames… she was Linz, I was Lins. Strange things we did!

Ashley and I are two peas in a pod. The more time I spend with her, the more I grow to love her. She is a special person. Very genuine. She opened up her home for us to visit together. Kelly now lives in another city, but was unable to come.

Ashley, Lindsey and I were all pregnant at the same time with our last babies. Mr. Brigglesworth came first, with Miles following exactly a month later, and Dawson following a month after Miles. They LOVED playing together!

Little JCrew grabbed the instruments and started a parade around the house.

We even got a picture of all the kids together! Didn’t think that would happen!

Ashley has been updating her house and is about to start an addition her husband designed. She knows how much I love that stuff, so she has been sharing with me all kinds of details. I can’t wait to see the updates and finished product. It will be gorgeous!!

I’m so happy we could all get together. I keep in touch with my Florida friends on Facebook, phone calls/texts and such, but I wanted our kids to meet!

We will definitely have to get together on all my trips home to Florida, and I will have to make my trips more frequent. I had so much fun! Thank you, ladies! I miss you already!

Visiting Old Friends - Florida

Our time in Florida was short, but we squeezed a lot in. We visited my sister’s farm, sent a whole day with family, and then had another day to spend with friends.

I have two sets of friends back home that I keep in touch with regularly. The oldest friends date back to church/elementary school. Lindy and Jill were my friends from church. We did so much together growing up. I switched schools in fifth grade, and Lindy was in my new class and made the transition so easy! That is where I met my friend, Jessica. I can remember going to Jessica’s house and we would create drawings on the computer and print them out. She had a color printer and I didn’t, so I thought that was the coolest thing. I also remember going to an old, old house that was a relative of Jessica’s. There was no A/C and it was such a neat experience. Lindy and I stayed close throughout high school. We both had separate extra-curricular activities that kept us busy, but it helped us relate. We had no time to get involved with school clicks, or drama. We just stuck together and had a great time in high school. In fifth grade I told Lindy she would be in the 1996 Olympics for gymnastics. She was THAT good and even her daughters are now gymnasts. But she left gymnastics to go into track & field. She then got a track & field scholarship to college, so it was a good decision!

Well, Lindy, Jessica and I got together while I was in town. Jill just bought an AWESOME lake house, so she invited us over. It’s on the lake we grew up on. Some people had their main house on the lake, and some people just had lake houses they frequent in the summer (and sometimes winter.)

The set up was beautiful. The house was built to take in the gorgeous view!

Little Jcrew loved the sand.

He got right on in. The older kids pushed him around on a board. He liked that only for a little while.

Then he jumped on and off the tube. He thought the sand would be soft, but found out otherwise.

He also followed Jill’s son, Noah, out to the dock to go fishing. He wanted to be a big boy.

The kids did great playing with each other. They are older than my boys, but were so sweet with them.

I forgot Mr. Brigglesworth has yet to experience sand. He was not happy about it! He did not like it. But Jess didn't mind holding him.

Again, it took him a while to get comfortable, but once he was, he went right on in the house and played in the kids’ rooms.

Thank you Lindy, Jill and Jessica for meeting up with me!!! I always have a blast with y'all. We will definitely have to get together on all my trips home to Florida, and I will have to make my trips more frequent. I had so much fun!