I'm Back! Birthday Edition

It has been forever since I blogged, but...

-Today is my birthday!

-I was told to relax and enjoy the whoooooole day!

-So here's my chance to get caught up in the blogosphere.

(And, oh my word- Blogger sure has changed while I was away!  I couldn't even figure out how to move my pictures around the easy way I had used before, so all of these pictures are completely out of order.  Oh, well!)

I've had friends and family tell me how far behind my blog is, and all I could say was, "I've been so busy living, I haven't had time to blog about living!"

And that's the truth!

This boys has kept me on my toes.

It's been in a great way!
But, I am NOT a fan of this growing up thing!

We've been able to spend time with friends.

This night we were enjoying the drive-in movie.

The boys have been busy with karate.

We survived a HOT summer.

This photo was the end of May... hotter weather was ahead!

We spent a week with the grandparents at the beach.

Stayed at our usual place.

Love the fireworks there!

Enjoyed a night with good friends.

The kids had a great time.

But, we sure hated to see one of the families head back to Tennessee.

Began a new school year.

Figured out that using Friday afternoons for Math Bingo was a fantastic motivator for the joys to finish up their work!

Had a quick visit with The Baby brother.

:(

Wish he could have stayed longer.

Love that he has to come to my town for business a few times a year!

My first-born became a teenager.

I cried!

Have I mentioned that I'm not a fan of this whole growing up thing???

And my baby turned 11.

How dare he?

Because, in my mind, I'm still only 23!

There's no way I can possibly have an 11-year-old!!!

Aside from crying over my children growing up on me, we did manage to squeeze in a little more during the summer.

We ate our weight in tomatoes straight from the garden.

Have you ever eaten a tomato still warm from the garden?

If you did, you'd become a tomato snob like me, and not dare to eat tomatoes in the off-season.

They just taste like mush once you've eaten true, fresh ones.

These beauties came from our neighbor.

He was always bringing up tomatoes and cucumbers from him garden.

They were incredible!!!

We spent a few days at the beach with Little Miss Priss.

Lord knows, I love that child!

We spent a few more days at the beach with The Godfather and The GodWoman.

We made some serious changes to the house.

I'm loving it!

Superman is awesome, as usual!

I'll eventually get all the before and after pictures together so that I can show you just how many changes we made.

And early in the summer, when we stayed at the beach with the grandparents (but stinkin' Blogger won't let me move these pictures up there without making me pull my hair out) the boys were able to swim with the stingrays at the aquarium.

On that same trip, we celebrated Grammy's birthday.

She's pretty amazing at spoiling the joys, so we had a chance to spoil her back just a little!

So you see, we've been busy living!

And I wouldn't change a thing!

But, I'm surely going to have to do a better job of blogging about all this living we're doing!

Until next time,

Dana