Exciting weekend

Last weekend was awesome. We had a lot going on and loved it! We started the weekend on Thursday night....which made me feel like I was in college again (but not really) with a cookout with our small group at church. It actually apparently started out as a small group but has really been growing and when he include all the kids, it's not quite such a small group anymore. We're actually not great members as we can't seem to find much consistency between work dinners, travel, and just things going on in our lives to make it to our small group get togethers each week, but we'll try to do better starting this fall! Small group took the summer off so when we saw the email about a cookout, we jumped all over it. The boys had so much fun with our church friends and I think it's such a great experience for them to get to play with the other kids from our church. It was awesome and William and Stokes keep asking to "go to a cookout!"

"Small" group cookout!

Then Friday night, we got the chance to attend a gender reveal party for Matt and Katie Money. Matt works with Thomas and he and Katie are the sweetest couple! They reassured us that there would be other kids there at the party, so we went straight from work and school to their house to find out what they're having. Katie actually made this amazing video and posted it when she officially announced that they were expecting.

The party was so awesome! She had a table set up with 1/2 pink and 1/2 blue themed things - including iced sugar cookies, watermelon (girl), blueberry (boy), pretzels with pink and blue icing, etc, etc. She also had 2 small chalk boards with blue and pink chalk so you could vote for what gender you thought it would be. We talked to the boys in the car on the way to the party and they thought boy so we marked down 5 votes for boys. Katie also had pink and blue leis so you could sport your vote in necklace form during the party. They served pizza (lots of pizza!) and had blue water and pink lemonade. Anyway, it was really so super cute! The best part was the actual announcement. They know a guy that sells fireworks so they gave him the envelope with the gender from the doctor and he made smoke bombs with either pink or blue. The family gathered around Matt and Katie and lit the smoke bombs at the same time. At first they were lit but no color was appearing and I was starting to wonder what was going on, and then.....pink smoke started billowing up. It was so cool! We totally guessed wrong (I guess we just think in blue!) but it was the coolest reveal and we are so excited and happy for Matt and Katie!
Here's a pic collage of the announcement. The bottom picture shows everyone that was at the party.

Then on Saturday, we got to go to our dear friend Ava Lane's first birthday party! We've been great friends with AL's parents, Steph and Clark for year and years and they've been around for the boys's milestones and birthdays. I love how we are creating all these memories together. Stephanie, no surprise, threw the cutest birthday party! It was originally going to be outside, like a cookout, but with threatening rain, she moved it inside ahead of time and it's a good thing she did because it absolutely POURED during the party.

The adorable birthday girl with
her cousin Davis

B and Caroline

Pretty

The kids table

Time for cake!

Smash cake

Love them so much!

Just look at those cheeks!!!!

"What's this??"

Yum!
She didn't quite have the sweet tooth her daddy does.

Ryan with Rosie

Time for gifts!

Sweet birthday girl

All the kids!
L to R: B, Davis, Ryan, Ava Lane, William, Caroline, Stokes

AL didn't want any party of it!

After we left the party, we went directly to the airport to pick up MaSha. She had been out west visiting her cousins and attending a wedding and was gone for 10 days. Those 10 days seemed like they lasted forever. We sure did miss her! The boys were so excited to see her and Stokes and Thomas went inside to wait for her and be her greeting committee while William, Ryan and I stayed at the car. Then, timing being crazy as it is, Aunt Kathy, Uncle Duncan, Virginia and Abigail just happened to be driving through town after picking Abigail up from camp and so they stopped by the airport to say hi really quickly! It was such a fun, random and spontaneous reunion with both sides of our families!

MaSha and Uncle Dunc with Ryan

Aunt Kathy and Virginia with William and Stokes

The boys love their beautiful big cousins!

I, unfortunately, had to fly out to Dallas on Sunday morning for a work trip, but definitely left on a high note after such a fun and busy (for us anyways!) weekend. I loved it.