Sophie Kate’s Journal

We had quite a weekend with all of Chad’s family in town, well almost all of them we were missing one brother-in-law, but all the cousins were in full force so they could not have been happier.

Grey has officially been unleashed in the pool, he is no longer confining himself to the steps…

Jacob’s third and final birthday celebration. He is definitely 7 now, ending his tour of birthdays with a baseball cake made by Aunt Aimee.

Sophie Kate’s first trip to the zoo!!

Continuing with the firsts…SK’s first train ride…

All of the cousins…

My sweet girl was looking so deliciously cute in her little stripped dress the other day that I could resist an impromptu photo shoot with her and Grey.

Funny story about blankie…the other day we were getting in the van and Grey asked me to buckle blankie, oh yes like in a seat belt. Blankie has started taking on a life of it’s own. The funnier thing is that I actually did it…ok Grey blankie is buckled in, now can we go?

My absolute favorite, I love, love, love this one!! I wonder what she’s thinking about her big brother, he’s pretty awesome isn’t he Sophie? Well…he’s pretty taken with you too, baby girl.

Chad, Cooper and Jacob had father/son baseball camp at UAB this week. The highlight of the camp was the father/son game on the last night. The sons had a winning streak to protect, the dads have never won…

Too bad daddies, better luck next year, you ain’t getting a win on these boys…not to be left out, Grey played the role of team mascot.

Cooper and Jacob with Coach Shoop (head coach of the UAB baseball team). Again, I can’t say enough good things about this camp, Coach Shoop and his coaching staff, it was a great week for everyone.

Here are my boys with the most important man in their life. They couldn’t be happier when they are with him and I wouldn’t have it any other way. They have a great role model in their daddy and that they want to grow up and be just like him thrills me.

Just a quick word, if you check in on us and the website is down…just know that webmaster Chad is working on getting us completely converted over to the new website.  Everything will still be under www.sophiekate.com so just keep checking back if you find that one day we are “under construction” b/c we will be back. 

Alright, I think this will officially wrap up our Smith Lake trip. My dad rented a boat for a couple of the days we were there and we had a blast.

All of the cousins on the boat, doesn’t SK look thrilled…

When we asked who wanted to be the first in the innertube, of course Jacob’s hand shot straight up. He really is fearless, don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

This is what happens after 2 days of boat riding and tubing…

My sister and Grey, she was the best, she went with him every time and as long as Daddy didn’t drive too fast, he was lovin‘ it.

Cousins Cooper and Emma Claire, he was so sweet with her and she just adored him. He never stops being the big brother.

Life Jacket-check, floaty ring-check, ok now Grey is ready to get in the lake.

After SK got dressed that morning she was really hoping it was the 4th of July, love her sweet smile…

My mom and Sophie Kate…

Oh please, don’t act like you didn’t know they would have on matching dresses that day, my mom made certain of that.

All of the cousins…

Thanks PawPaw and MiMi for a super fun trip with the whole family. Praise God for family and fun times, good weather, good food and worn out kids. SK did great, she spent 2 full days on the boat and didn’t miss a beat. She was held, fed, loved on, played with and fussed over by many people who love her. Thank you Jesus for her health this summer, she has been our go along and get along girl and an absolute sweetheart. We spent 8 days swimming, boating, tubing, eating, playing Wii, watching a little Star Wars, ummm….floating, running wild, sleeping (some) and even less bathing (for the kids of course) and SK was in on almost all of it.

This is my gift, when I look at these faces it’s almost more than my heart can handle. I want to give them the bestest, most funnest summer before scheduled, routine life catches up with us again.

These next 2 posts are going to be heavy on the pictures and light on the words, hope y’all can handle it.

One of the sweet pictures of SK from our Smith Lake trip…

Fun with glow in the dark swords, lots of light saber battles going on here…

Sophie Kate was not allowed in the lake water due to her gtube, so we did the next best thing…

MiMi and Grey…

The kids would pull this rope way out in the water and then have one of the grownup boys pull them in…

Grey never got in the water w/o his life jacket and his ring, this boy was NOT going under…

We celebrated Jacob’s birthday early since we were with my family. Now with a kid party and another family party yet to come, we won’t be able to live with him by the time all the celebrating is over…

My niece Emma Claire and Grey enjoying Jacob’s cookie cake…

I love this one of Emma Claire and Sophie Kate…

Bedhead…

Yes, I think I took a picture of her almost every morning we were there…

This is the evening all the girls were playing beauty shop…

My mom and her two granddaughters…

Didn’t realize I took so many pictures while we were there. In an effort not to overload y’all with pictures, I’ll save the rest for another post. Thanks for checking in on us.

P.S. I love it that my spell checker is trying to tell me that gtube is not a word. Well guess what…it is in our world.

We have spent the last week at Smith Lake having an absolute ball. I kept wondering to myself all week long how is it that we have lived here for 10 years now and have never been there? It was 8 days of great weather, great company, good food and nonstop swimming, boat riding and tubing.

This was one of the closest trips we have ever taken, only an hour and a half from our house, but we still had to endure those all too familiar phrases uttered by every child as soon as you hit the interstate, “Are we there yet?” as well as the fan favorite “How much farther?” Well, I guess the upside for us was that we only had to endure it for 1 1/2 hours, right?

This was the view of our dock from the house, we were in a perfect little cove for the kids to swim.

It was so perfect where we were situated that the kids could swim across the lake and explore undiscovered territory. You may not be able to see the little dots across the way, but those are all the kids over there, they would go back and forth across the lake to their little island.
 

Sophie Kate and her cousin Emma Claire love to dress alike whenever they are together…

Another one of SK’s favorite past times at the lake…

There is so much more I want to share about our trip, but it will have to wait until I can come out from under this mountain of laundry that we brought back and I even did 4 loads while we were there!!! More to come soon including Jacob’s birthday, tubing pics, more of SK being adorable and SK sleeping. Sorry no “Grey in his underwear” pics, there were others in the house so he had to try and behave himself. Thanks for checking in.