Flashback Friday

oh wait. I can't do a Flashback Friday without pictures to flashback with...

my pictures are still being recovered.

yes, we're looking at almost a week here.

So thankful for Paul's computer knowledge

and patience.

But have I mentioned recently how much I love these girls?

Their smiles. Their laughter.

Even their sweet tears.

And I love

their seriousness

their sweetness

and their silliness!

And I love that Addie is wearing a dress that used to be my friend Didi's little girl's & that the little girls are wearing dresses that my mom made for me that I wore & that Addie wore as well!

Happy Friday!

Recover

-ing

pictures.

Because this was me a mere 4 nights ago.

And after throwing up my hands in the air,

 

I gave up and went to bed.

While some of us were laying around

Thankfully my sweet husband wasn't so quick to give up.

And it's been his bright idea

that's been

recovering

retrieving

rescuing

repairing

restoring

my pictures.

By the time it's done,

it will have taken over 110 hours to actually

restore

the files.


While there are still hours to go,

I feel pretty safe doing a little rejoicing,

or relaxing in the cool grass,

regaling in a little fun,

and relishing in the relief

that I will once again have accessible pictures of our precious girls!

Today I am thankful for my patient, persistent, phenomenal husband who can solve presumably preposterous problems!

Precisely, my dear Watson. Precisely!

What did you do on your Friday night...?

Weekends are so different now that we have 3 kiddos.

They involve naps

and playing

and birthday parties

and spending time with friends and family

Ok. So they aren't so different...

...but this one also involved cooking.

Yes, cooking! I'm so thankful for our friends Mandy, Chad, and Cady.

As Addie says, Cady is her bestest friend!

But in addition to being an amazing cook (among other things of course), Mandy is an incredible organizer!

And because of her, our freezer is now stocked with 8 meals and 2 sides.

Seriously? Seriously!

I'll let Mandy tell you more about that!

After Mandy left, I sat down to download some pictures and blog about Finn's story.

And there was nothing on my {external} hard drive.

Let me repeat that: there was nothing on my hard drive where I store all of my pictures!!!!

0 bytes out of 983 gigabytes.

Zero

Nothing left of over 30,000 files.

And I proceeded to have a complete and utter meltdown!

After many tears and Paul attempting to figure out what happened, we discovered that somehow my hard drive formated itself.

Yes, I know I'm giving my hard drive more power than it deserves...but I didn't reformat it. Addie didn't reformat it. Paul didn't reformat it. No one reformated it!!!

There is no explanation, but I'm praying what Paul is doing will recover 3 years of our pictures.

And today he's going to buy two additional hard drives so we have a backup and a backup of the backup.

Seriously? Seriously!

But the whole reason I sat down to blog {at 12:30am} was to show you these pictures of our boy.

We knew we would get another dog sooner than later.

We're a dog family. Ok, I'm a dog person. Well, really, I'm just an animal person!

But I started realizing that Audrey Kate was becoming very fearful of dogs we would be around. So I started looking at Golden Retriever rescues and moved to shelters in search of a Golden mix.

What I found though, was nothing short of amazing.

Finn was relinquished to a local shelter on March 11th because his family had too many dogs (um, don't get me started).

He became part of our family on April 4th.

I have no idea why he remained in the shelter for as long as he did.

He is so gentle with our girls. So kind with Addie. So calm.

His coat is in perfect shape. He is heartworm negative. He's a great age, being halfway through that puppy stage.

But I think he stayed because he was meant for our family.

Sure, there have been some ups and downs. Some accidents on the floor. Some barking and whining in his crate at night.

But as a whole, he is simply an amazing dog!

He loves to lay on the cold bathroom floor

or in the bathtub.

On the cool dirt outside or underneath our huge magnolia tree.

He hasn't been mean to the cats, but he's clearly chased them enough that they are {on their guard}. You think?

But who could be afraid of this smile?

There will always be a special place in our hearts for our Abbey girl. No dog will ever replace her.

But we are so thankful to have found another perfect dog for our family!

Welcome to the family Finn-ster!

Let's Party!

Who knew how much fun (and work) it would be to pull off birthday parties for our girls.

Invitations. Planning. Cakes. Decorating.

But I think this year tops the list

...in fun.

and in work!

I should have known the first birthday party would have to be rescheduled when the first cake started like this:

Thankfully having to reschedule because Addie was sick gave us a little more time to create this:

and put the finishing touches on all these Sweets...

And after all those sweets, we had to make sure we didn't cause any cavities.

My favorite part used to be the cake. Now I think it stresses me out! But after my friend Anna told me about gum paste, life cake decorating became so much easier! Thank goodness for googling cake ideas!

Addie's appliquéd outfit, made by Rie Rie with fabric that Gramma helped choose, turned out pretty cute if I'm allowed to say. And after threatening bribing her with time on her playground, I actually got some pictures!

But I think this has to be one of my favorites!

The party was more than I could have ever imagined! The rain held off so we spent most of the time outside.

Daddy grilled 300 56 hot dogs.

And so many sweet friends and family came, all the way from Atlanta and Augusta!

 

(I would have never made it without my aunt, Nana! She called me Thursday and asked to come help! Thank you Nana for all you did!)

And even sweet Kennedy (Thomas' baby sister) came in her sweet lollipop dress! Can we say adorable?!?!?

But after everyone ate, it was time for cake. And for a little girl who sings Happy Birthday all.the.time. to everyone else, it was pure bliss to hear everyone sing Happy Birthday to her! And it was that moment that caught me off guard, as everyone begin to sing. Friends. Family. Moms and Dads. Children. I didn't know Happy Birthday could be so beautiful until it was sung by people who truly love my little girl and our family! Blessed. So very blessed!

I loved watching her face and smile! And finally it was time to really blow out the candles!

The pull pinata was a huge hit! Since we had so much candy inside waiting for the kids to make goodie bags with, there were small toys: rings, necklaces, bubbles, bouncy balls, etc in the pinata.

Oh. And a handful of suckers. You think the birthday girl was excited here! (thank you Erin for taking these pictures!)

As I look back on this day and the days (or weeks) preceding it, I am reminded at what amazing, precious friends and family we have! I had family helping me finish painting the kitchen. More family here the day before and day of tirelessly working to get things straight and ready. I had friends who helped me bake cakes, make chocolate covered goodies, had Addie over to play for the morning, even one who brought a yummy mexican dip to the party, and two in specific that were fervently praying for things to go smoothly. And then there's my husband who kneaded color into gum paste and stayed up late with me to finish the cake in addition to everything else he did!

Amazing. Precious. Selfless. Wonderful.  

Thankful. Blessed. 

Happy Birthday our Big Girl! We love you 

and so do many, many others!

Wordless Wednesday

Go Climb a Tree

As I was getting a few last minute items for Addie's party...

(side note: as some of you know, we had to go out of town unexpectedly last week, so I promise a birthday party post is in the works and almost complete. the best laid plans, right?) now back to our regularly scheduled post...

I found a huge pink polka-dotted ball and a small green and small purple ball. The girls, all 3 of them, have had so much fun with them! {Some of} the best $5 we've spent.

So it didn't surprise me that Addie and Paul played and played and played with the balls in the days leading up to her party.

It did, however, surprise me to walk outside the day before Addie's party to find my husband two thirds of the way up our huge magnolia tree in the backyard attempting to shake loose not one,

not two,

but three balls  

and a broomstick that were stuck in our tree!

When questioned, he explained that he and Addie had been kicking the ball.

Clearly Addie could not and did not kick the first ball that high.

And she certainly did not throw 2 additional balls and a broomstick (minus the broom part) up in the tree in an initial attempt to free the first one.

Right?

I turned around and walked back inside all the while mumbling under my breath: if he falls out of that tree, he's taking himself to the emergency room!

Thankfully, Paul did not fall out of the tree.

Unfortunately, the balls remained in the tree the day of Addie's party (defeating one of the main purposes of getting them...so kids could play with them at her party)!

Fortunately our good friend's Diane (aka Didi) and Tim's nine year old son along with his family came to Addie's party.

Apparently 9 year old boys have an easier time retrieving objects from a tree than grown men.

And Tyler was quite successful!

I'm pretty sure Addie Paul won't be kicking balls up in our magnolia tree anytime soon.

At least I hope not! :)

If you climb up a tree, you must climb down the same tree.

African Proverb

*thank you to either Paul, Erin, or Diane for taking these pictures. One of the 3 of them had my camera at one point or another during the party (now that's trust, isnt it!). love these pictures! thanks y'all!