Baseball, Friends, Atlanta, Mother's Day and another Ear Infection

Ok, going back in time a few weeks, we had a great visit with our friends from Dallas, the Nelsons, and the Browns. You know how there are friends that you don't see as often as you'd like, don't get to talk to as often as you'd like, and yet every time you see them, you have a great time and catch up as if it's been no time? That's these people. They have always supported us and encouraged us - made us laugh, made us cry. The highlight of the weekend for me was Paul, Dionne and Douglas singing together in church just like the old days :)We spent some time at the outlet mall where Kinsey totally fell in love with Anna. Anna was so great with both kids - she is a real sweetie. Then we had a yummy dinner at Pok-E-Jo's BBQ and celebrated Terri's birthday. Tag had a blast :)
Next it was off to the Baseball game. We got to meet up with several friends from church who have the same game tickets we do. First stop - cotton candy!
Tag had some fun with all the attention.Kinsey got new bows for the occasion :)We got to watch Jacob climb the rock wall...
and the church kids all had a good time playing together. This is Zambia and Emry, two precious babies born around the time of Tag. They were so cute. So then I was taking an innocent picture of Tag and didn't even notice what was going on in the background until I went to post this. This is a friend of ours Bret and his 1 year-ish daughter Truly. Not really sure what he was doing here but I had fun sending the pic to his Mom for her to guess :)
Here's our whole fam - very rare to be captured together in one photo :)
Douglas and I were very blessed to go to Atlanta last week for a Children's Ministry Conference called "Orange". It's based around the idea that if, in a given year, we represent the time parents have with kids as red and the amount of time the church has with kids as yellow, we want to strive for a partnered effort (orange) - working with parents to help them share and live the reality of Jesus Christ with their kids so that Sunday isn't just a once-a-week experience. It was such a great time to be with and learn from people who are passionate about children. We went with Nick (our Family Pastor) and his wife Jada (produces our kids' experience on Sunday mornings) and their daughter Emry, Heather (our preschool ministry coordinator), Aimee (Nick's assistant), and Jacob (our new youth pastor). I coordinate elementary ministry, and Douglas is going to start working more with the music/worship side of the kids' Sunday morning time. I was overwhelmed and really excited by the inspirational ideas and challenges presented there. My dear friend Barie did not get to go with us, but at the last ministry conference we went to in Atlanta, she taught me about the hunt for the free stuff. It's a lot of work, but someone had to do it. There are vendors everywhere with great freebies. It's really nice to have a 3 year old who wants you to bring her back a present but really has no idea (and doesn't care) if it's something you picked up for free at a vendor booth. She was really excited by everything. Here's our loot :) And if you hear from my co-conference goers that they were embarrassed by my quest for the free-stuff, just realize that there's a fine line between embarrassment and desperate envy. No one else had such a heavy carry-on for the ride home :-)

We rounded out the trip with a trip through the Georgia Aquarium. Nick and Jada told us it was amazing and they were not exaggerating. I'm a sucker for pretty fish swimming around :)
Here's Heather in the hands-on horseshoe crab pool. Emry really enjoyed herself, too :) Nick decided to play fish for a while.
There is an awesome tunnel where the whale sharks will swim right over your head!We ended up in this great room with a gigantic window - could've stayed there for days just staring! The coolest was getting to see the 4 whale sharks swimming by. Here's Douglas and Nick taking in the view. We had a blast.


So there are too many "fish shots" to post them all so I'll post a couple of favorites and then do a slideshow.
I cannot believe the graceful-yet-deadly beauty of jellyfish. These were absolutely incredible.
Also deadly and beautiful, the Lionfish......and whatever this guy is. Really wish he could come live with Dorothy. Slideshow:

And finally, the most frequent activity seen on the trip: Thanks to Nick for an awesome trip!

Some Kinsey and Tag cuteness:
She loves to read magazines and books on the toilet. Her favorite is the Crocs catalog. Tag is loving the walker and is getting pretty good at it.Today our church put on a beautiful brunch for Mother's Day. Nana and Kinsey and I went and had a really nice time.
I even wore a dress and Kinsey wore her special birthday-princess dress which of course twirls perfectly. Kinsey was over-the-moon excited that her sweet friends were there, too. It's nearly impossible to get Kinsey to give a normal smile so this is the best picture of the bunch. Here's Aubryn, Emma, and Kinsey. Tag has been sick for the last few days (darn ear infection) and has had some major downs and just a few ups. He spent most of Friday and Saturday on the couch like this (sometimes with Kinsey, sometimes without). But then yesterday afternoon he woke up from a nap in a great mood and I figured I'd better capture some silliness while I could. He's been napping in his swing while his ears hurt and he's technically reached the weight limit for it, but since his appetite is down when he's sick, I'm hoping maybe he won't break the thing over the next couple of days. Then he got silly on the changing table.He is so stinking cute - I can't believe all the words he can say now. "Night night" is "nigh-nigh", "Go" is "go go go go", "Uh-oh" is easy to understand, and last night he said some version of "Cheerio" over and over again.
I let him have some freedom to crawl around this afternoon. I really really thought I had closed the bathroom door. That's kind of a requirement these days. Apparently I was wrong. I came looking for him and saw him sitting in the hallway...next to the open bathroom door...looking slightly sheepish with some wet toilet paper on his arm.Seriously eewww.

Tag is feeling better today - slept through the night last night (Happy Mother's Day to me...) and didn't have fever but twice so far today. Yea!!!