Happy Birthday, Brooke!

Two weeks past I travelled to Asheville to celebrate Brooke's birthday. A few months ago I approached my sister with the idea of me keeping her kids for a weekend so she and her husband could get outta town. This evolved into Brooke and Chris spending one night away from their kids, which was perfect, because then I got to spend time with the two of them AND my niece and nephew, as well.

I love ANY time I can get with Luke and Taylor, but I really want to develop and nurture a personal relationship with the two of them, because, as their aunt, I can walk the fine line between family and friend.

As soon as I arrived on Thursday afternoon, Brooke was out the door to get her birthday hairs did. So I played Barbies with Taylor and Luke and I rolled a ball back and forth to each other for a couple of hours.

Here's Taylor trying on my lip gloss: Clinique Bonus Time, Biotches!

Oh, and Luke debuted a new expression (new to me, anyway.)

There was also a dance party.

I'm going to let Brooke blog about her actual birthday day and celebration, let's just say that I got talked into a pair of skinny jeans. After dropping Brooke off at her super fancy hotel room downtown, the kids and I settled in for our Friday Fun Night which included two screenings of The Lion King and two screenings of Tangled (man, I love that movie!)

Things were going great. Luke sucked his formula bottle down like a champ, and Taylor fell asleep on the couch.

Leading up to this visit, I had prepared myself to get ZERO sleep on the night that I spent with the two Amys kiddos. You see, every morning, when I talk to my sister, the conversation always begins with how Luke slept the night before. You look at the kid, and he's this big ball of happy boy. But after dark. Whoa. I think he's got a little Cullen in him. At four o'clock I kind of considered just getting up, fixing some coffee, and starting my day. It's got to the point where I was just over the whole trying-to-fall-asleep thing. I honestly looked at him around 2:30 and said, "Who ARE you?!" I finally turned to him around 5:00 and said, "Dude, I don't have a boob to give you right now, you're gonna have to figure it out." And he did, and once the sun came up, he was all smiles and happy bubble baby boy again. Ha! So yeah, when Brooke says Luke doesn't sleep, she's not exaggerating.

We spent some time at the park on Saturday.

Do you remember when it was this fun to take a trip down a twirly slide?!

Taylor's expression here reminds me so much of photos of Baby Brooke:

Little Lion Man:

This makes me laugh every time I look at it.

This series of photos is so typical of pictures taken with both Luke and Taylor.

They start off smiling:

It quickly evolves into Luke getting strangled.

Luke starts squirming.

Then Taylor tries to kiss and make up and Brooke makes this face:

He's happy.

And five seconds later, he's pissed because he's realized no one is holding him.

Don't you just want to stick his chubby hands in your mouth?!

Another typical Taylor and Luke picture.

All is happy unicorns and bubble gum butterflies:

And then they're both over it:

This is Taylor's best friend Elliott, who joined us at the park along with her mother Paige (Brooke's bestie) and her new baby sister, Delilah.

That pretty much sums up Elliott's silly spirit. She doesn't stop moving.

These two are so cute together. This photo makes me want to hold hands with Mel or Kate or Mary Claire.

And here's 3-month-old Delilah, who's eyelashes are so long they tangle in her eyebrows!

And some pictures of all four of the cute kiddos.

Brooke had the brilliant idea to have a photoshoot of Taylor wearing Brooke's wedding dress. I promised I wouldn't share these pics, but I CAN share a video, and one picture that Brooke snapped of Taylor and me. The object she's focused on in this video is of herself. In her full length mirror.

It was the perfect trip, it really was. It was super duper relaxing with lots of good food, wine, and quality time with some of my favorite people. As I was carrying my suitcase out of the house the day I was leaving, Taylor grabbed my hand and said, "I sure am going to miss you, Beeba." Break my heart.

The Famous Amys Visit

Melody left on Monday, and our trip was fantastic. I know all of you are very anxious to see some photos, but when I sat down to start the editing process, I realized that I still hadn't gone through photos from the Amys visit earlier this month. I have OCD, and my brain literally could not allow me to edit photos from this trip without first finishing up the last.

I've already shared photos and stories from one of the highlights of the family visit, which was the Red Nose Run, but there were other photos taken, to be sure.

This is one of the photos I was able to capture of Taylor NOT doing her fabulous pose. It's funny, but at the beach, I was doing a pose, and Mel was like, "too Taylor, relax a little bit." I love that Taylor's posing habit has become an adjective. Taylor, one day you will be thankful for your tips from your Aunt Beeba, I promise!

This is the first photo I took of T. I told her to sit down on the rock and this is what she did, naturally. I like to think of it as her First Lady pose. Hilarious.

Taylor also discovered my American Girl Doll and all of her clothes. At 6:30 in the morning.


Have you ever seen a picture of Luke NOT smiling? Well, here it is.
Taylor spent lots of time playing with her Uncle Dirky.


Then she started to feel puny in the middle of family dinner. She spent the night on the couch, completely unbothered by the 19 people partying around her.
I got a phone call mid-party from Dirk, and I was like, "Where are you?!" "Locked in the bathroom." So then we spent a good bit of time trying to figure out how to get him out of the bathroom. Grandaddy supervised.
Mike had the brilliant idea of using a coat hanger to unlock the door, but Granddaddy only owns fancy coat hangers, so Mike decided to use a pair of hedge trimmers to fashion a MacGuyver-like door-unlocker. At one point, Jane ran into the living room about to burst with laughter saying, "I don't know what's funnier, Dirk being locked in the bathroom, or Mike, out in the garage, trying to fashion a tool to get him out."
Never fear, though, bloggers, thanks to Kirk's handy dandy AmEx, Dirk was freed from the powder room.
We tend to brush over the fact, however, that as soon as Dirk was out, Chris had to use the restroom, and proceeded to lock himself in the bathroom. Yeah.

It was a great visit, and I was very sad to see them go. I could have kept them here at least a few more days. Now I get to look forward to my visit to Asheville for Brooke's Birthday!

Okay, my next post will be from our fabulous refreshing girl's getaway. Promise

Giving Thanks with the Young South Amyses

I hope you're ready for the most photos I've ever shared in a blog post before. There's just too much to share from the first time all the Youngs have been together since Dirk and I got married. These photos are all really raw, straight out of camera. Who has time for photo editing these days, anyway?

Mama, Daddy, Dirk, the dogs, and I rented a cabin not too far from the Amyses. It had an amazing view:


Daddy came up with four rules for the Golden Girls: no nudging, no barking, no whining, no begging. Basically, no being a dog.


We watched Peter Pan at least twice a day during our visit:


It's a big joke in our family that Mama always asks whoever is traveling from Birmingham to bring her Savages cookies. And so we carry that durn box across the country and she'll eat one bite out of one cookie and then they'll sit there and get stale until someone throws them away. This year I said a big "NO!" to bringing her Savages, but then Will begged me, so I caved. At least someone enjoyed their cookie that traveled across the Southeast:


Luke likes to nurse shoulders:




The guys tossed footballs in the cul de sac while Brooke worked her magic in the kitchen:








Taylor LOVES her Uncle Dirkee:




There was a game on every single day, so there was a lot of football watching going on:




Taylor and I opted to play princesses:


The spread:


On Friday, Mama and I decided to get out in the woods for a little bit, it was therapeutic:


The dogs loved lounging on the cabin deck:


I enjoyed wandering around, taking photos:


On Saturday we hit downtown Asheville, to spend some time stimulating the economy:






Then the guys took the kids and Mama, Brooke, and I got to go to a fancy lunch, just the girls. You should have seen the look on poor Taylor's face when we told her she was going with the boys. "But I'M a girl!"




We did some shopping. Believe it or not, we couldn't convince her to buy these pants (?)


No trip to Asheville would be complete without a visit to Woolworth Walk. The only place other than Ida Grove's Albrechts Pharmacy that I've ever been able to find Phosphates on the drink menu:


I wish I could afford to have a display of these amazing tiles in my home:




I love Asheville for reasons like this:

Will and Devon's flight left from Birmingham, so after a very cramped car ride to Alabama, we were able to freshen up before heading to Granddaddy's and introducing her to the Blackwell side of the family.

Blair & Sarah were in charge of the brownies. This is a hot mess right here:


The first thing Granddaddy said to Devon was, "What's a lovely young lady like yourself doing with my grandson?!"


Granddaddy with his grandsons:

A memorable holiday, for sure :)