Summertime!

We are having a great summer! It’s hard to believe that June is over. Here are some favorite pictures from this month:

I always think it’s funny when people say that my daughter Eliza looks just like me. She has several features that she certainly did not inherit from me, but I guess overall she might favor me some. :)

I love my boys!

We went to see my grandparents in Memphis one weekend. My grandfather had major surgery on his jaw to remove some cancer, and had a very rough few months. This was about a week after he was finally released from the hospital. He was happy to be able to go to church! He would appreciate your prayers, as he received discouraging news this week regarding the cancer.

They are clearing the woods at the end of our street, which makes me a little sad. We won’t be the “last house on the right” for much longer!

We ate a picnic lunch with Jay at work. One of the things we love about summer!

At the UALR fountain

My crazy kids

Walking with family

Pretty Emma!

I finally got to hold Levi Jon at the hospital the day before he got to go home. He was only in the NICU for 10 days, which is amazing considering he was almost 6 weeks early!

Fun at the zoo!

My baby, Daisy. She is getting so big!

My nephew Vash just gets chunkier every day! He was 6 weeks old in this picture.

Bridget and Benj joined us at the pool! I got to watch Vash. :)

Vacation Bible School week was great! I had 5 girls that were a handful, but so sweet. Here I am with a flower one of the girls in my crew girls picked for me. :)

Levi at 2 1/2 weeks old. It is so great to be close to family and surrounded by babies!

Eliza got a haircut- probably her shortest cut yet. So thankful for a mom that is willing to chop off our hair for us! We will donate the hair to Locks of Love.

The kids meet their cousin Levi for the first time.

Last day of VBS- it was so much fun!

Levi at 3 weeks old. Can’t get enough of these babies!

Taking a walk at one of our favorite places.

Dancing in the rain

Wild blackberries from the soon-to-be gone woods next door.

Sundays are a wonderful time of fellowship with church and then family. Praising God for the health of these 2 nephews, and so thankful I get to see them so often! Vash is 8 weeks and Levi is 4 weeks.

These are exciting times!

Month of graduations

This month has been a busy one for my family! Last weekend nearly my whole family trekked to Tulsa, OK to watch my youngest sister, Alayne, get her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Tulsa. This week my brother Gerald, the baby of our family of 7 kids, graduated from high school! And in a few weeks my oldest will graduate from the 5th grade, leaving elementary school behind and heading to middle school. Time marches on!

Alayne’s graduation:

Out of the 7 of us siblings, we were only missing Benjamin, whose wife Bridget just had their baby, Vash, the week before. Even my oldest brother Joseph, who lives in Nashville with his wife Nicole and son Nathan, got to come! Here’s a picture to prove we were all there:

Alayne with the parents

Alayne wanted a picture with her 4-year-old nephews, Brian and Nathan, to compare to the one she had taken just after her high school graduation:

Alayne hasn’t changed much in 4 years, but the boys sure have!

This next picture scares me, because I know it will not be that long before Eliza is wearing her own cap and gown, and not pretending with Alayne’s!

The graduation itself was long and boring, :) but we had a fun weekend together at the hotel! Also, the family that Lydia nannies for invited us all over for a cookout at their house. The kids (and some adults) had a blast jumping on the trampoline, playing tether ball, and riding the little electric cars.

The hotel had a pool, so we had fun swimming, too!

That Sunday was Mother’s Day, and we celebrated by eating at Cracker Barrel before leaving Tulsa for home. I took a selfie with my Mama:

This woman is amazing! She is a wise teacher, a wonderful encourager, and a godly role model. The 7 of us are so blessed to call her “Mom”.

Gerald’s graduation:

Gerald sang in the choir- he’s the tall graduate in the back row.

My Granny got out of the hospital the same day Gerald graduated. She was glad to be able to see her youngest grandson walk across the stage!

Gerald with Granny and parents

This time we were missing Joseph, Nicole, and Nathan! Benjamin and Bridget brought 2-week-old baby Vash, but had to leave before the ceremony was over. Adrienne’s husband Jon took this picture for us:

Afterwards, we had cake and ice cream at my parents’ house:

And here’s my son James’s cap and gown picture for 5th grade graduation:

This month has definitely been eventful, and it’s barely even half gone! Unfortunately, we have had our share of sickness this month, too, and Brian has croup right now. I slept with him the last 2 nights so I could be near in case he had trouble breathing (we’ve been to the ER twice before when he had croup). I think he may be breathing better today and I can sleep in my own bed. We may get to skip the ER this time! We’ll see. Maybe he’s “graduated” from that bit of trouble- I sure hope so! :)

Babies everywhere!

It must be spring! And I have a brand new nephew, born May 4th (also known as Star Wars Day- “May the Fourth be with you”). My brother Benjamin and his wife Bridget are the proud parents of Vash Benjamin, who weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds, 1 ounce. I got to see him the day after he was born, and he sure is cute (and chubby)!

My kids were glad to meet their new cousin, although they were pretty sure he would look like every other newborn baby, and be kind of boring at first. :)

I think he favors his mama right now, but I know how much babies change those first weeks and months! I look forward to watching him grow!

On the way home from taking the kids to school yesterday, I caught a glimpse of some geese with a bunch of babies in tow, so Brian and I went back to get a closer look:

And, of course, there’s my new baby, Daisy:

I got to keep my niece, Emma, for several hours on Saturday and again on Sunday. She’s still a baby even though she’s 2, but she’s gonna seem all grown up when her baby brother makes his appearance in July! I hope he loves his Aunt Lauren as much as this girl does! I managed to get a picture that captures some of Emma’s beauty while she was having fun at my house on Sunday:

I do love babies! Watching my own babies grow up is bittersweet for this mama. You can see how big they are getting in our Easter picture this year:

My 10-year-old, James, performed in a concert with his school honors choir last week. We got several comments from people saying they love to watch him sing, because he puts his heart (and his body) into it. Here’s a picture to prove it:

That’s him in the white shirt on the front row. They all did such a great job!

James and Eliza (she’s 8) both got to participate in the kids’ musical at church. It was called “The Star Factor”. James played a sound technician and Eliza was a backup singer, but they both had solos as well. They were amazing!

And then there’s my baby Brian, who is 4. He thinks he’s so big- here he is just chillin’ after an Easter egg hunt a few weeks ago:

I love watching kids grow and change, especially when they are little. But they don’t stay little very long! Well, at least there are babies being born around me, so I can continue to enjoy all the different stages of childhood!

Springy fun

Here are some pictures from our spring-time activities the last few months:

My cuties at the park on the first day of March

Bicycle ride around the neighborhood

Eliza was Clara Barton for the 3rd grade wax museum project

We got to see the zoo’s baby tigers! They are so adorable:

(This picture was taken by Eliza!)

And we had fun with our own little tiger. Poor Dinah!

St. Patrick’s Day cuties!

Emma Lu being cute

Admiring Adrienne’s daffodils before we got to go to Wye Mountain

We went to the zoo with Adrienne, Emma, and Adrienne’s friend and her 2 girls:

After a weekend in Mississippi with Jay’s mom, we picked up my nephew Nathan in Memphis so he could spend a few days with us:

Nathan is a couple months younger than Brian, so it really feels like having twins when he’s around!

Crazy cousins!

Nap time accomplished by taking a ride in the car

Fun at the park!

And the zoo again!

All the Mayo grandkids! (Except of course the 2 boys on the way! One due in May and the other in July!)

I just love this girl!

And of course these crazies…

Did I mention they were crazy? :)

Wye Mountain daffodils (lots of pictures!)

We had a great time at the Wye Mountain daffodil field. Because we are not going to make it on one of the festival weekends, I decided to go during the week, as the kids are out of school. Unfortunately, Jay could not join us since he had to work. But we still had a good time and got some decent pictures! Just not quite as good as if Jay had been there. :) The best photo I got was one of me and the kids that I got by setting the camera on my bag and using the timer:

To make it more fun for the kids, I let 10-year-old James take my camera (since I was using Jay’s), and 8-year-old Eliza had her little camera as well. Eliza didn’t take many pictures (she was too busy catching grasshoppers and smelling flowers), but I was very impressed with James’ pictures! Here are some of his best shots:

I think we have a budding photographer on our hands! It was very bright out today, which caused us to be squinty. Oh, well! Here are the pictures I got with Jay’s camera:

And of course, the best shot I got of the kids was with my phone:

It was a good day!