in no particular order...part 3

So proud of our flower girl. We were nervous. VERY nervous. But she did so well...seriously thankful to God for answering our MANY prayers!


Look at those beautiful people! No wonder I think my kids are cute. :) (We missed you, Jess! The fourth beautiful member of the Jack DeKorne family. :))
These are out of order. But look at her face. Recognize it? It's because that bead is from my dress. Look at the sheer glee on her face in the picture below. Stinker!
But really, at this point she had walked down the aisle and posed for 1,000 pictures without fault-so she could probably have done just about anything and I wouldn't have minded!


Absolutely breathtaking. Made getting married in a church seem so boring!
I'm with the d.j.


Ava enjoyed riding the golf cart up and down the mountain. I also enjoyed it. Much more than I enjoyed riding the ski lift up with both flower girls and almost going into cardiac arrest right before the wedding.
Ok, I LOVE this picture-see the two dads at the end of the aisle holding up suckers??? Hilarious!
I mean, seriously gorgeous.

Pretty much done with the pictures, at this point.
You know the d.j. is good when they get Grandma on the dance floor for Black Eyed Peas songs!
Mark and Greg d.j.'d their second wedding together. They were AMAZING. I love these pictures because a)you can see how much fun they're having, and b)I wanted to point out that the dance floor shifted off the dance floor to the right to be closer to them. They were that good. :)
Just a couple shots from the final day of our weekend tour. Reese's flabbergasted look makes me smile here...
And Ava's face in this one is hilarious I think! Like she's trying really hard to decide what kind of ice cream to choose.
GREAT WEEKEND! CONGRATULATIONS DAN & KARYN! :)

Mama said there'd be days like this...

I thought Friday morning was going really well. I had two crock pots and a cheesecake going by 9:30 in the morning. Kaiya had dumped out a 64 count box of crayons which scattered to the ends of the earth but when you are as productive and accomplished as I am, things like that don't even phase you.

But then this happened. Well, some stuff happened right before this, but this was the final product. Big Fat Lip #1 of her life. Poor baby.

Just a little more perspective.
And while I was dealing with this....(I didn't photograph any of the blood. You can thank me later.)
Ava walked up to me with this face. And whenever I see this face, I know something has just transpired that I will most likely not support.
This time? It was this. "Mom, I spilled paint but don't say WHOAH Ava, that's bad, bad, bad. Cause it's ok Mom. Accidents happen." And really, when you're already laughing, it's hard to be too mad about spilled paint. Especially when it's just in the mudroom and only one of the three containers spilled.
Thankfully things brightened up as the day went on. Daddy came home from being gone all week with new butterfly wings. And who doesn't need a good pair of butterfly wings on a Friday afternoon.



Even the fat lip was smiling.

Waterworks

Anytime we pass over a creek or a river or a lake or a pool or anything bigger than a puddle Ava says: "water!!! we love water!!!"...she comes by it honestly. Her Dad is a fiend!

Mark has been gone a lot of weekends lately-but we had him for about 48 hours last weekend and so we took advantage of a beautiful day and gave the girls their first dip in the river.

Of course Mark made sure everything was ok before we put the girls in. He is thoughtful like that.

She's laughing, you just can't tell. (I can hear my Mom gasping all the way in Florida when she sees this picture.)
They each took turns swimming. I use the term swimming VERY loosely.
Love this! She was done swimming and just wanted to cuddle with her Daddy.
On our way to the pool. Obviously purple lipgloss is a must.
I realize this is a pointless picture, but Ava has gotten so brave this summer. This one is for my own records-she and her little friend are out in the middle under water. It's so much fun to just have her doing her own thing now. And I don't have to clean anything up when she's done. Awesome.
Miss Independent. She don't need no friend.
Thankful for lots of water to keep us cool during the hottest summer in 20 years. More thankful for cutie girls to play in it!

Evangelism and Oral Hygiene

I don't know. Maybe the girl has some of her Uncle Joel in her. Preach it sister.

I guess she was really moved.
I have always brushed my children's teeth every night. **

We just started taking pictures of it. Ava was prompted to oral hygiene improvement by the new pink toothbrush she got at the Children's Fair.

**BLATANT lie. don't judge me.

Wait a minute. Who took my baby and put this in her place?!?!
This one's for all your minivan haters out there. I don't think it's that you're too cool, I think it's that you're too insecure. :) A couple weeks ago Mark was putting the car top carrier on top of the van (that's right, we took it to the next level baby), and I was like-"honey, I'm so sorry you used to be a cool guy and now I've turned you into this. " And he responded: "This is what I have always wanted." And then I fell in love all over again, until he took laundry out of the dryer without folding it. :)
Them: "jumping is AWESOME!:"

Me: "please don't kill your sister, please don't kill your sister, please don't kill your sister..."
a rare moment.
Talk about missing babies. I'm 0 for 3. This chica is 5 months old and on the move. She will roll the entire length of our living room and if I wasn't always watching her carefully she might even get stuck under a chair. But that would never happen. Because I always watch her carefully.
No official crawling yet, just the all fours lunging dance. You know the one.
The scary picture of her holding Reese a few months ago has morphed into this. Still a little scary.
I like how evident it is in this post that my house is always very clean. Tidy is my middle name. Just ask anyone who has ever lived with me. :)

The one where I took all the pictures with my cell phone

I'd say 95% of the time we adhere pretty much to our nap/bedtime routine, but, every once in awhile at 5:30 we look at each other and decide to go to a festival with our 3 small children that's an hour away.

And those are always the most fun memories.

The first merry go round experience.

This was called the wobbly worm or something. Who knows. Go dirty carnival rides!
Reese and I had a jolly old time on the sidelines.
This had great potential.
Someone asked if Mark came with me, ummmm...yeah-couldn't do stuff like this without him! Way to go for double-fisting, babe. :)
This cracked me up...Kaiya was holding on for dear life right over Mark's eyes. :)
We loved the Coast Guard Festival. But more loved having fun with our family...eating dinner at 9 o clock...rides....sunset...but next time I'll bring the camera.