We spent the holiday at our friends, the Hubregs house. It was a fun filled day consisting of swimming, friends, and food (Lily ate hers from the floor. :)). My kind of celebration. The kids swam for five hours straight then came home and promptly fell asleep at 6:30. Good good times.
Attempting to surf.
Our sweet boy Luke. Whom even took off his water wings and swam a bit. It looked more like drowning but it's progress.
Owen William.
Balloon wishes; Owen wished that he could be taller than everybody. I think he's going to get his wish. 
Some muscle flexing prior to pinata, of course.
Whoa, watch out for that bat! The pinata has become a Mead birthday tradition. But Mr. Mead suggests that we retire it as a tradition due to outbreaks of conflict.
Presents! Hooray! Many many thanks to my wonderful friends (whom obviously are mad at me) for giving Owen such great gifts such as; skateboards, color-tinted water guns, four different types of Nerf guns, etc. I will try to repay the favor in the future. :)
My happy birthday boy. Happy birthday to you...eat more chicken. This is the version of happy birthday song that these clever children came up with. You can't tell them that they aren't funny.
Lily with her surrogate sister, Jillian.
This is how we spent the birthday party. We're just glad no trips to the emergency room were made. Most of the kiddos we're dropped off but a few of my friends stuck around to help out. Upon Chad's arrival at the pool he said, "Are all these kids here for our party? I didn't know Owen had so many friends!"
New bike from Mom and Dad. Love you Owie!
Chad was out of town this weekend getting in some quality 'boys time' with his law school buddies. So the children and I did our own thing this weekend. Which obviously means hanging with my girlfriends and their kiddos every possible moment. I didn't get any pictures of all the fun we had, but rest assured fun; we did have (swimming, bbq's, dancing, field day at school, gossiping, night-hide-in-go seek with the benefit of night vision goggles).
We also got a new roof! Yeah for Texas storms and their hail! It was bustling around here for a couple days and Luke was absolutely desperate to go and "help".
Piggy back rides for the little lady.
We partied so hard that Lily couldn't even finish her lunch.
I had my first child. Owen William. He came into this world at 12 lbs. 7 oz. He looked like a toddler. I loved him instantly. He forever changed and refined me into a better woman. Having children has been the single most important/best thing I've ever done. I wouldn't say that I've loved every minute of it (motherhood can be challenging at times) but I would definitely say that I've loved it every hour.
Owen and I today, he is growing up everyday. I keep trying to talk him into staying like this forever but he says that he can't and he wants to be adult. So that he can get his motorcycle (I'm working on convincing him that motorcycles are dumb...hasn't worked yet).
Happy birthday my first son, I love you. Your such a good boy, I am so proud of you.
Name this movie line. Get in my belly!
Our table dancer. She is part girl part monkey. She likes to climb everything and see how high up she can get. Chad will often comment to me, "I thought girls weren't supposed to be like this!" To which I reply..."me too..."
She is also quite cerebral at times.
Contemplating puddles, rain and loving the occasion to wear sassy boots.
She often will look over at me and give me a thoughtful look. I can almost picture her fifteen years from now trying to manipulate me. Awe, good times sure to come. :)
This is not from our recent "girls trip" but was just too cute to not include. When Lily smiles she uses every muscle in her body to make it as big as humanly possible. Oh, and she LOVES spaghetti...who doesn't!
This is Lily on the plane from Dallas to Kennewick. She just loves being confined, still and quiet.
She's thinking why is my mother doing this to me. Funny thing because I'm thinking the same thing about you, chica.
Oh, the drama...
Finally, with the Tinkerbell cell phone in hand she falls asleep...for 28 minutes!
Lily had so much fun playing with my brothers that she hardly missed hers!
Here is Justin and Josh at the airport just as he was getting home. Justin had a great mission in the Philippians and loved every minute of it. We had fun seeing him all grown up. I still can picture him running around in just his diaper. Such a goo baby!
