the rest of summer, according to my iphone...

It all happened in the flash!

3 little dumplins, all in a row...

Totoro cookies, courtesy of Emmy and Sadie. ;)

A sweet vist from Elle one beautiful evening!

The moment in time Meghan's room was really clean/tidy. :P

Driving to Fort Worth to see Hilary & Baby Isa, in celebration of Hope's birthday. :) 

Bahama Bucks + fundraising planning with Janine.

Celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary at Marcus Cafe. <3 (Which was followed by watching the Dirk documentary, because we're so sexy!)

And an anniversary rose from my honey.

Candy souvenirs from Mary's baby shower! Candy!

A living room full of kids.

And a living room with sleepy kids. ;) (I can't help myself...)

Rose popsicles!

Many doctor's doctor's appointments with Sadie for her precious skin. :/

Screens on screens on screens! Followed by...

A long-overdue trip to the park on an unseasonably cool afternoon... 

Happy hour at Alamo Drafthouse. :)

Charlie (the robot) "playing" with one of our Disney World toys...

FaceTime on the first day of school!

Short hair, don't care. :)

And a (grown-up!) Labor Day pool party, with all of our favorites...

violet chachki with ceej!

So this took a while to get on the blog! ;) It's a bit of an understatement to say that I (and Meghan!) are really into drag and RuPaul's Drag Race. We. Love. It. LOOOVE. 

This summer, good ole Instagram informed me that the incredible Violet Chachki (!) would be coming to Dallas (!!) with Alyssa Edwards (!!!). A little too good of a deal for me to pass up! I texted CJ furiously to see if he would be down, and next thing I knew we were at Brick with friends (like Kent!)! ;D

The show was fantaaastic, and CJ and I fell in love with a performer we'd never seen before, Toni Andrews. That. chick. was. awesome. (See a video of her dancing to Madonna below - GIRL CAN GET IT.) Meghan was consistently annoyed as I texted her pictures and videos the whole night (girl was so close to being able to go, but wasn't 18 just yet!) - but what are good step-mother's for? ;)

MY GIRLS.

A couple of videos below. The first one is a compilation of all the videos I took throughout the evening (snippets big and little), followed by Violet's beautiful grande finale and an INCREDIBLE dance by Toni Andrews. FUN FUN FUN. :D

family vacation in oklahoma! part two

The remainder of our trip in Oklahoma was equal parts easy-going and super busy! All the boys went fishing one morning (more fishing!) and so the girls and I got all dolled up for a little trip to get our "old time" photos taken. The previous days were so sweaty and action-packed, it was nice to have make-up on again, even if just for a second! :) We went to a nearby creek for some swimming before heading out to dinner that evening. And the next day we drove to Arbuckle Wilderness!

Richard with the rainbow trout he caught (that Nick ate for breakfast! ;P)

Our old-timey photo, hahaha. Nick & Meghan got one, too!

At the creek! The littles immediately made a million friends and had a pretty epic "splash war" going on. We were just trying not to freeze to death because that water was chilly. ;P

After a nice little lunch at a local bistro (seriously!), we headed to Arbuckle Wilderness. This was considered an imperative stop on our trip, as the kiddos went there years ago and just had to go back! 

Arbuckle Wilderness is essentially a petting zoo, but you travel along a route in your car. There were all kinds of animals (or "AMI-NALS!" as all the kiddos kept saying ;P) - llamas, emus, ostriches, horses... and you can feed them all right out of your car! (Plus, the animals are not shy about sticking their heads inside the car to get the food, and we had 1 or 2 cups stolen right out of our hands! Needless to say there were lots of screeches and squeals the entire time. ;P) 

This dude was one of my favorites. :D

Llamas!

Emus!

Oh, hello!

And they will follow you to get that food!

A very friendly camel. :D

Emmy feeding the geese. :)

Buffalo!

And one of the biggest horses I've ever seen.

Seriously!

Have to admit, the longhorn was my favorite. He was so beautiful!

Meghan & Nick were so excited for this giraffe. (Feeding them is so crazy, their tongues are crazy big!)

Love this picture!

After our little stop at Arbuckle, we finally headed back home. It was such a fun little family trip! Big thanks to Debbie & Aaron for taking care of our fishies and mail while we were out. :) Next up is our honeymoon/1st year anniversary trip for me and R (sans kids!) and we're really looking forward to it.

(You can see part 1 of our family vacation here!)