July trip to Nashville

Scott recently brought home some very anemic looking tomato plants for our garden.  He explained to Brett that they would need some love.  He said, "Brett, I need you to water the plants."  To which Brett replied so earnestly, "Is water love??"  

I cannot believe it is August already which means the boys, including Brett, start school in a few weeks!

Last month we took a very spontaneous road trip to Nashville for cousins Andie and Brady's birthday party.  We left Dallas Friday night around 6:30 and rolled into Nashville around 5 am.  The big boys slept fine but the baby definitely objected to sleeping all night in his car seat.  From about 2 am on he did that annoying cry-out-every-five-minutes routine while he was still asleep!  Needless to say Scott and I got no sleep but managed to sneak a few hours when we arrived at Carrie's.  Another major reason for the trip was to see Carrie's new Nashville home!  They recently purchased a gorgeous home about a mile from their old house.  The new house is definitely Carrie.  Perfect for entertaining with beautiful flooring throughout, a gorgeous open kitchen (very difficult to find in Nashville for some reason), huge windows and lots of light.  Best of all a pool which is where the kids spent all day Saturday.  I especially loved the sunroom off the back of the house overlooking the entire back yard and the surrounding green hills.  Nashville is stunning this time of year.   

We could only stay a few days and had to drive back on Tuesday but it was worth it to see our Haslam cousins and the new house.  I think that is one of the greatest blessings of our living in Dallas.  Frankly a family of 6 does not fly anywhere cheap so we are extra grateful the Haslam's are within driving distance.  

Crazy Brett in the hot tub

Adorable Andie at her 9th birthday party!

Brady and David swimming in the hot tub

Happy Birthday Andie and Brady!

Scott and Becky looking tired!!

Happy 5th Birthday Brett!!

Brett and his best friend Luke Johnson (the sprinkler park is in the background)

We celebrated Brett's 5th birthday this Saturday at the local sprinkler park.  He invited his two best friends from the gym and a neighborhood family with 5 children which worked out well because they also have kids both Chad and David's age.  In fact my kids have spent a lot of time with this family during the summer vacation going back and forth from our house to theirs.  They spend hours upstairs in the playroom building legos.

At 9 am on Saturday I wondered if we'd have to cancel Brett's party because of the torrential downpour ripping through Dallas.  His party was scheduled to start at noon and (literally) around 11 am the heavens parted and it was sunny and blue skies for the rest of the day.  So we got lucky.  

Neighbors Zoe and Paulie with Chad

I love this particular park because the water activities are right next to the play structures.  So the kids had a blast running back and forth between the sprinklers and the swings.  I grilled hot dogs at home and brought them to the park for lunch.  And of course we had cake.  Brett has pointed out a particular cake at Costco each time we went for the past couple of months.  After spending hours on Chad's snake cake I was only too happy to oblige and let Costco do the work!

Brett blowing out 5 candles!!

Waiting for CAKE!!