The Bright Eyed Brunette

Trey the football player Carlie the cheerleader Makena the cheerleader Cody and Eli blowing out the candles with a little help from Benton! Eli loved his new Lightening McQueen 4-wheeler! Today we celebrated my nephew Eli's second birthday with a football themed party.  The kids had a lot of fun playing flag football, horseshoes, and of course eating all the good football game treats :)   

 Last night Carl and I took the kids to DeWitt for the Arkansas County Fair.  They had some different rides this year and the kids had a lot of fun.  The girls wanted to ride the "big" rides which kind of made me sad because they are growing up so fast.  I still want to dress them in their overalls and ride the merry-go-round with them! Trey is in the 3rd car on this little roller coaster.  He loved it, but never would let go of the bar!  Makena wanted to ride the Ali Baba but Carlie didn't want to so Makena just marched up there all by herself!  I know Carl was secretly dieing to get on it with her, but didn't dare embarrass her like that :) Carlie wanted to ride the Cobra while Makena was on her ride. You can barely see her up there in the air all by herself! She said it was her favorite!! T on the airplane All three of them rode this ride, which I thought wouldn't be a big deal because it didn't really go very fast, and Carlie and Makena don't know how

My sweet baby boy was born. I still get emotional looking at this picture because they had a hard time getting him to breathe...he was completely blue for a good while, and that scared us to death! To my Trey, You have grown up to be a very smart and handsome little guy who knows exactly what you want and how to get it!  You still scare us to death because you are such a rowdy little boy!  We love you so much Trey, and we are very glad that God picked us to be your parents.

Well, we had very good intentions when it came to Trey's cowboy party.  Carl took off half of the day on Friday to help me get stuff set up in the yard and get some things picked up around here.  Saturday morning we woke up to clouds and rain :(  I was not very happy, but I was hopeful that by party time the rain would be gone.  Didn't happen!!  We ended up having to move EVERYTHING to the Community Center....at the last minute!!  There were hardly any decorations, and we weren't able to do all the cute games that I had planned for.  It just made me sick!!  Trey had a good time, though.  I didn't get many pictures either.  I'm hoping that my mom got some of him blowing his candles out.  My grandmother made his birthday cake ( a cowboy boot) and it was pretty good, not to be professional.  Carl and I gave Trey his present from us after we got back home from the party, because it was and outside present.  He loved it!!  He also chose to go out and eat at El Canaveral

On Labor Day my Mom, Dad, and I took the kids toThe Arkansas Post Museum in Gillett.  Carl is still working hard (but if the rain holds off they'll be done with rice by Wed.!) and couldn't be off with us today, but we had a great time with Nanny and Pop anyway!  We had lunch in the picnic area and the kids loved it.  After we left there we headed to the visitor center where they have all kinds of exhibits and even a movie theater.  It is very educational, but fun also.  So after we finished up in the visitor center, we went on a hike by the river and  that's when we had a few melt-downs (Carlie of all people), got a little hot, and couldn't wait to get back to the truck!!  It was a really nice hike if you don't count all of that!! Makena really enjoyed herself until the very end when she was worn out from walking :)  We also went to the actual museum part where they have a lot of really old, interesting things.  We attempted to go swimming today, but the water was