Pence Family: Family

And by full, I mean 53 pictures. You have been warned. :)

Friday we had dinner at Grandma’s house. Before we went inside I made the kids pose by Aunt Gail’s bluebonnet patch.

I’m not sure we’ll make it to our usual patch this year. This little one is just perfect (and easy!)

It was just a beautiful evening!

For dinner Aunt Gail made meatloaf and sides. I may have eaten two plates’ worth – soooooo good! Then it was so beautiful outside we spent most of the evening watching the kiddos play.

That’s Thomas in the azalea window. He was all over the place!

It was Drew’s first birthday! He apparently started walking well this week and wanted to be all over the place too.

He’s adorable, that’s for sure. :)

The light was so pretty coming through the trees I dragged James over in the wagon to pose for me. He, unfortunately, had to immediately go inside and pee, so Natalie agreed to be my subject.

Cheeseball.

Cousin Jade was there too! She’s right in between my girls, age wise, and they had such fun playing.

Then Thomas got a ride in the wagon.

He thought it was THE BEST.

It was such a lovely evening!

On Saturday the kids and I headed into town to pick out a good birthday present for Drew. The big three are at a fun age to do shopping like that. I left the babies at home with Matt. :)

Matt ended up staying home from Drew’s birthday party to oversee the roofers we had fixing water damage around the chimney. So I brought all five. (What was I thinking?!)

As you can see, it was a Mickey mouse theme. Adorable!

I love watching present opening at one year old parties. (Side note: can you believe Joanna here? She’s got Michael on her hip, reaching into the present bag for the cards they made for Drew. Sometimes I can’t believe she’s only eight.)

Drew was very impressed with the bigs’ cards.

“Happy Birthday” time!

And then I took approximately three zillion pictures of Drew not eating his smash cake. Hee hee.

He did really enjoy feeding it to his dad though.

Love this face – ew!

It was such fun, but the boys turned into rotten pumpkins after that. Maybe the sugar got to them. :) I think this was actually the first time they had cake. Thanks cousin Drew! I managed to get them muscled into the van (with the help of Christiana’s mother!) when Matt pulled up. Poor guy, I made him take the van o’ babies home while I gathered the bigs and came home in the quiet car. Ahhhhhhhh…

That evening what had been a tickle in my throat became pain, and I decided I would go to the RediClinic before church in the morning. So I went even though this morning I didn’t actually feel that bad, and sure enough – strep throat for the momma. Boo. But I got antibiotics and will hopefully be feeling great soon. And even more hopefully, I didn’t pass it along to the many many people I was around this weekend, and the several of my children who I’m sure I shared food with. Yay.

I sent Matt and all the kiddos along to church at regular time. I took his car up and slipped in just for the part of the service the girls were singing. They were beautiful; then I slipped out to pick up my prescription and some groceries.

This afternoon I guess the ibuprofen was making me feel not awful, so we took the kids for some pictures while the azaleas were still blooming.

This was by far the best group shot I got. I think I need magic to get a pic of all of them together. :)

But then I got some great individual shots!

James is at that age where he has trouble smiling naturally. Love him.

This one on the other hand…

She may be missing a few teeth, but she’s got a beautiful smile!

Sweet Natalie.

Michael was very into little things in the grass. I’m pretty sure he was trying to hand something to Joanna behind me. :)

This one’s almost a smile!

Thomas saw something cool to point at.

Not exactly a smile, but he’s looking at me!

I promised the kids if they’d take the pictures I wanted, I would take whatever picture they wanted. They all chose to run up and down the ditch in the tall grass. Love ‘em.