The Parnell Family Adventures: June 2014

Avery's 8th Birthday

How is it that our firstborn is turning 8???

Well, I know its hard to imagine, but Avery wanted to have an American Girl birthday party this year. She invited a few friends (and their dolls) over to the house for crafts, games, pizza, and cupcakes.

Their first craft was to make tutus for their dolls. We cut rolls of different colored toole up and I sewed elastic bands into circles. Then the girls could used whatever color combo they wanted as they made their tutus. We also made and decorated treasure boxes.

We had pizza, fruit kabobs, and watermelon cut into stars...Claire, Emily, Carson, Avery, Skylar, and Deeley....I should mention that Brent got really sick the night before so he was confined to our room and couldn't even enjoy the party! I called Miss Jessie in for reinforcements though!!

and the doll table, of course

the boys

spontaneous "cheers" from the girls

Singing Happy Birthday

Playing American Girl Bingo - printed from online and using hersey kisses as their chips - the kids LOVED playing!

even this guy played

and the birthday girl on her big day...(and the kids just learned the term "photo bomb")

Swim Team

After much deliberation on my part, we finally decided to give swim team a try this year. I knew it would be a lot of running around for me but knew that the kids would benefit from the confidence and endurance that swim team would provide. And they were both dying to do swim team. So far, so good! I can see how it will be a lot of fun when everyone is a little older but right now, meets are a little crazy with the little ones.

Before their first meet

Avery swam breast stroke, butterfly, freestyle, and 2 relays at the first meet. She did really well. Avery is a perfectionist so she has really been working on her form and learning how to correctly do butterfly and breast stroke.

Griffin swam freestyle and backstroke at his first meet. During practice, he stops and grabs the rope constantly so I thought he wasn't going to do well and wasn't sure he would even make it down the lane....but he has proved me wrong - this dude is as fast in the water as he is on land!!

Family Pictures on the Beach

While at the beach, we had a professional photographer come take family pictures so that we could update our living room wall...but here are some pictures that we took ourselves during / after our photo shoot. Pictures are always a challenge with this many little people but I think we got some good ones and I can't wait to see the ones the photographer took!

Visit to Mobile

We left the beach and drove over to Mobile to visit Gammy. While there, we took the kids bowling, ate at the Oyster House, had friends over for ice-cream, and cooked out with extended family. Gammy taught Avery how to sew on a button and helped her sew a pillow for her doll. And Brent taught the big 2 how to cross stitch and he started a new cross stitching project!

Griffin was funny to watch - he about rolled down the lane with the ball!

Graham remembers and still talks about making ice-cream with uncle gene last summer so he was super excited to do it again!

ice-cream with friends

Beach Time

The kids got out of school on Friday May 23 and we took off for the beach that afternoon. We went to mom and mike's new place near Grayton Beach in Florida. Mom/Mike, Preston/LeeAnn, and Haley/Joel and their families were there. It was crazy and fun and a great way to kick off our summer.

We went to the beach most mornings, came back to swim at the pool at the house until lunch was ready, ate poolside, and headed inside for naps and rest time. The neighborhood also had a pool that we frequented. It overlooked the ocean and was beautiful.