BFF Dinners

Ever since Kristen and Jeff have moved to McKinney this summer, it has been such a dream come true for us.
 Kris and I lived either next door or in the same house or room together from the ages of 6 to 21 (minus 2 years when she started college and went to ACU) but we have not lived in the same town for the last 9 years...basically our entire married with kids life.  So, we have definitely been so pumped to have the Barstads closer. It's not next door...but, so much better than hours away.
Same with Allison. We all lived in the same neighborhood growing up but I haven't lived in the same town as Al since high school. Kris and Al have since had 2 years at ACU and 3 years in Lubbock together but have been apart the last 3 or 4 years also.

I feel so thankful about how protective and intentional Kristen and Allison and I have been in our friendships since high school and college. We know that it is super rare to have those close friendships for so long. Our moms are all best friends that see each other everyday and still live close and that does help us stay connected at times but, we all are just extremely close in our own right.

 We have all moved on in many respects and have our own lives and wonderful friends and routines outside of each other but, nothing takes priority over time we all get together because it has been so rare!
(this is so super cheesy I know) 

 Anyway, since the Barstads moved here in June we have seen them almost every single week. Either in McKinney or in Colleville or the 4th of July in Granbury we have made time to see them as much as possible before school and a crazier routine starts.

 Lately, we have gotten into the weekend family dinner routine that Kristen and I used to have when we were kids with our parents. It came to be some sort of a tradition that almost every Friday night when we were kids, the Halberts and Howes would get together, order pizza and Chinese food and make 2 pitchers of margaritas...one for adults and one for kids. The parents would hang out and as kids we would either swim, watch Nick at Nite or just play. These nights are some of our favorite memories. I distinctly remember one weekend night when they tried to trick us and say we all had to stop playing and go to our own houses for "family night" and then laughed, threw a watermelon in a pool and said "just kidding, its a combined family night, just the 10 of us!" As kids, it was like you told us we were going to Disney World.

 Here are a few pictures of our first time of second-generation family dinners. These boys went fishing and caught lots of big catfish while the rest of us stayed back and played at the house.
 
Ty was automatically drawn in to the fish and not scared at all to try to hold it...it must be a boy thing.
  
Kris got me some awesome headbands from American Apparel for my birthday and I think I have worn all 4 of them already.

We got an amazing Fantastic Gymnastics performance by these 3 girls.

Dinnertime!

After dinner we went to the park to feed the ducks and play on the playground. Ty may or may not have fallen off the playground directly onto his face onto the bark that cut him up and made his gums bleed. Since he's totally fine, I have to say it was worth it to get these amazing pics of the kids feeding the ducks at sunset.


Then....this past weekend, Allison, Bob, Ella and McKenna were in town too and it finally felt complete! I cannot wait until they move back to the metroplex too because it will seriously be a dream come true.
Allison brought glitter tattoos and they were all the rage on the front porch. I think we basically superglued glitter to each kid in 3 different places.

After dinner we went out for ice cream in the town square and it was so fun!  
We even played a little duck-duck-goose in the middle of the sidewalk and took a group kid pic.
How cute are these dads that love to spend as much time together as we do!?
Even Bob said when we got together that this is the closest we have all lived to each other ever.  
Ty and Kenna are just too cute together.
Well, it was fun for a second.
And these sweet BFFs are a dream come true for their mommas.
I know it sounds so cheesy but, I think in our heads we all wanted to live in the same neighborhood and see each other every day and grow up all friends with each others friends and have our whole adult lives mimic our childhood.
But, I am so thankful for where our lives have gone.
I know we have all been changed by the new places we've been and the amazing friends we have met.  We would not change where we are now and know God has placed us exactly where we are meant to be.  I just am so glad that we all still talk daily and know each others hearts and want to raise our kids together in whatever way that means.  And I I feel like when Al & Bob finally move to the metroplex too we will have gotten the best of both worlds.  I am so excited about where the years will take us and the memories we will continue to make.

31

I had another birthday last week. 

 For someone who loves any reason for a party and birthday parties in particular...they are just not as much fun anymore after 30! But, that attitude quickly melted away after I had an amazing week full of lots of love from friends and family. 

I feel so, so blessed. 

I got to go out for Sushi with playgroup moms one night.

  Tuesday, Don & Margie from work took me to lunch at a restaurant off Main Street.

  

My kids handpainted a new bag for me one day with Honey. I love their little hand and footprints and that Kinley did all the writing and painting herself.

   

How jealous are you?? 

 

And we had a Howe family dinner (minus Bart & O...sad) in Dallas at Ocean Prime (Matt's recommendation) and it was amazing!

   

Friday night we had a couples date night with Lindsey & Ross in downtown Ft. Worth and we definitely over-ate at Texas de Brazil. 

 

And Sunday was a fun celebration at the Harrison's with swimming and the BEST ice cream birthday cake ever! 

Chicken fight anyone?  

Ty will also mow your concrete if you want. 

 

 So basically, I ate and ate and ate all week and I need to go on a detox cleanse now. But, it was soooo worth it! 

Thanks to all who helped made my birthday special! 

 I love you all!

Summer Activities

This summer we changed it up a bit with our activities.

Both kids were enrolled in swim class and have grown leaps and bounds in their swimming and breath control. Since I have to get in the water with Ty, I had mom take some pictures for us one day.

 

Ty has gone through all the emotions throughout the summer during this class. He has gone from being so excited about it....to crying the whole class.....to loving some of the activities and hating others. I never know what I am about to walk into.  But, he can monkey walk on the side of the pool by himself, has definitely gained breath control and gotten overall more comfortable in the water and that is exciting.

 

Kinley's class starts 15 minutes after Ty's so she usually sits on the side of the pool or helps out Ty's teacher until her class starts.

 

Kinley is doing awesome and is basically totally swimming on her own. She can swim across the pool, jump in turn around and swim to the wall, take breaths and everything. What a blessing!
This particular day was life boat training and learning what to do and how to float properly with a lifejacket if you fall out of a boat.

 

So we could all do swim, Kinley took a break from gymnastics this summer and decided to take dance lessons at the grapevine rec center with Aslynn and Tatum. These girls are too cute and have so much fun learning tap and ballet. We haven't decided on our fall activity for Kinley yet but, dance is definitely now a contender!

 She definitely has the ballerina attitude down!  We have loved dance with these precious girls and will be so sad when summer ends.

GRACE Feed our Kids

Last week our church sponsored a week of Feed our Kids through GRACE. Our community group helped sponsor the meals and activities for up to 140 kids on Monday of the week.

 

We had a preparation get together at our house Sunday night to make sandwiches and pack lunches for the kids. It was such a fun activity to do as families. We had so much support from our group.  Even if a family could not meet at our house, they shopped in advance and dropped of supplies or sent part of their family to prepare.  It was such a testimony of what wonderful people are in our group. 

 

The kids helped pack cookies into ziplock sacks and just played so sweetly together all evening.

Love our Community Group!

The next day our group and a few other groups met up at our assigned location and handed out food and played with any kids that came to eat.
It was seriously just the best day!
It was super hot but, we had plenty of kids come out to play and eat. We also had crafts, balls, sidewalk chalk, bubbles and games to play.

Kinley and Ty did not even want to leave they had so much fun!

I can't wait to do this again next year!