Our Family Wins.

So.much.family.time. 

AMAZING. 

If a location could be a person, Target would be our cousin. 

We have started eating dinner there now, so she has maybe moved up to a sister. 

A quick visit to Alabama resulted in hang out time in a bobcat in Aunt Manda's back yard. 

OF COURSE Aunt Manda had a bobcat for Max in her backyard. I cannot make this stuff up. 

Also, my children know how to immediately make themselves at home in a matter of seconds once we pull into their driveway. I hate that we don't see them as often as I would like, but am reassured by how quickly we all connect on our visits. 

At the present time, Max refuses to wear anything but Ninja Turtle shirts, so the rest of us support our Vols, while Max is always on the ready to protect us. 

A visit from our girls resulted in lots of hang out time. 

Shout out to Uncle Brandon/Daddy. 

Uncle Curtis painted this rain reservoir/thing! So much talent. How does someone even do something like this?

Max has the greatest laugh ever and I managed to capture him terrifying Mr.Bear/Baby Levi with it. 

A little introduction to Wayside School from Bobble Cole. Sammy, anyone??

Anderson lost interest in the book and quickly turned his attention to making an elaborate web that trapped everyone. It was not terrible because it did delay these 2 for a few seconds. I am thinking about having Anderson install a permanent one in our house. 

I know. 

How is this CUTENESS even possible????

Also, 6 months. He is becoming a person. THE CUTEST PERSON EVER. 

Mom took this picture and it is such an accurate portrayal of real life with Melissa/Nicole. 

The franticness abounds. It is not our fault; it is in our genes. 

Look at this baby in these overalls! I cannot explain the cuteness. 

Because our village wins every, single time my mom had lunch with Anderson. I was happy because this was the day that I made him wear a green (non "thin" shirt) to school for "green" day, so when WWIII was erupting in my house, I had the Noni lunch visit to fall back on, which was nice. 

Anderson's cheering section at his last football game was the largest one there! We love J-Pa for making the trip, too!

Celebrations

Most of these pics are over the last month...

Anderson is so awesome in so many ways and one of the things that I love about him is the fact that he is so interested in the Titanic. He has been for at least a year now and always requests to go to the Titanic Museum. To celebrate the fact that he is in kindergarten, (and to kill a day during the awful stagger days) Brandon took him there. They couldn't take pictures inside, but Brandon said that he really loved it.

And, because he might be the dad of the year, Brandon also took him to some Nascar place and he got to drive his very own go-cart. 

We got to celebrate Baby Brimer 3 with a celebratory dinner of just awesome people. Clare is PREGNANT and is having a THIRD kid. What on earth just happened?? I cannot wait until a year from now when it is so normal that she has 3 kids and we know Baby 3, just like we know Jack and Lucy. The celebration was supposed to be a surprise, but she maybe saw me carrying cupcakes when she was walking in, so...I was just thankful that her mom gave it away before I did!

In a really fun/I am so inspired by her way, she has fought temptation and is not finding out the gender until Baby 3 arrives. We know this baby will join us this month and I CANNOT WAIT!!!!

We are so excited about this baby and needed to show him/her some love, too. 

My friends that I don't get to work with anymore, but still get to see, thank goodness. 

We also celebrated Brandon's birthday and my birthday at the Glover's house with GG's famous cake. 

We are so thankful that GG loves us and cooks for us!

If my boys love me as much as Brandon loves his mom, I will be one happy mama. 

We celebrated "Football Time in Tennessee" with the Glovers. At one point, I walked into the room to hear Anderson and Pappaw talking about WWII. It was so wonderful. Honestly, I cannot even explain how happy this moment made me. 

Brandon definitely celebrated the week that we had edible food, thanks to a gift card from Toni to Hello Fresh that Toni gave us for our Anniversary. 

One my favorite traditions with the boys is when we pull out the seasonal clothes/decorations/random  hoarded clearance stuff. In order to kill some early morning weekend hours, we hit up our Halloween stuff as soon as August was over. 

I am always so proud of the me of the past who found some really awesome clearance stuff and hoarded it all in the bins. 

I celebrated the fact that Brandon really and truly is my soulmate because he randomly sent me this one night, remembering my love for "Take a look, it's in a book."

It was a happy moment in my 17 hour day that ended with a weather delay/stadium evacuation at a football game. 

We always celebrate when we find a bounce house, which is basically every weekend. 

Max.

I literally cannot get enough of this kid. 

We've visited a lot of parks over the past few months.

 Carl Cowan Splash Pad/Park

The childhood of splash pads. 

This was a fave because it has access to a lake.

The Library park-does this have a name? 

They think they are explorers. Anderson would spend every minute of his life in some kind of creek or pond if we would let him. 

Noni's House (basically a park)

Every day we are so thankful for our Noni. 

World's Fair Park

I love this one of these 2 boys in their elements with the Sunsphere right behind them. 

Life with boys right here: jumping, mismatched clothes, grins, alligator shoes. 

Oak Ridge Pool-not a park, but sort of close 

We went with Noni & Saasha/Sunny & I got a high number of pictures (2) to capture the fun. 

YMCA swimming pool-rounding from a pool to a park, again

The Brimers joined us one day & it was really fun to hang out with them! It was especially nice because Brandon was there to entertain Anderson-it's almost football time, again!

The Cove

We met the Brimers here & had so much fun playing in the water, digging in the sand and trying to avoid catching parasites! Kidding. It really was fun. We planned to just go to the park and were not in swim gear, but ended up swimming anyway, which was a fun twist on the afternoon. 

Noni met us after work & took over the task of pushing Max in the swing. This kid loves swinging. And, Noni. He also loves his Noni. 

Fort Kid

A visit to the Art Museum with Noni, followed by fun at the park with the Brimers!

Watt Road/Bob Leonard

This park was completely renovated into this giant/dangerous climbing thing. It looks really cool, but I am not sure how practical it is to actually play on, while not breaking anything.
Also, green. So much green in this picture

This random creek in our neighborhood

Seriously, all they want to do is go outside/explore/find living things. 

We (I) caught a lizard and yet another sippy cup made the sacrifice to be an animal holder. We let him go after awhile because he was super intense with the biting. 

In a pretty awesome twist, we got his tail! I knew he had one when I first saw him, so when we realized it was gone, the hunt was on to get it. I have honestly never seen a wiggling blue lizard tail, devoid of his reptile counterpart, so I was a a little reluctant to pick it up, but am so happy that I did. The lizard tail has made a really nice addition to our nature box and I am not sure we will ever get another one, so we will treasure it. 

The Zoo (not  a park at all, but I am rounding up and stretching it a bit)

We spent a day at the zoo with a friend of mine and it was so nice; I love our zoo. Max is obsessed with Ninja Turtles lately and refuses to wear anything but one of the 3 Ninja Turles shirts that he owns (2 pajama shirt, 1 swim rash guard...none of them actual shirts.)