This week

When part of your family is in town once every couple of years you have to take a family photo.  If you have never taken a family picture with 19 people you should try it.  Oh, and make sure 9 of them are 10 and under.  Thank goodness for talented photographers in the family who know how to make head swaps.  But honestly, is this not a Christmas miracle?!?  Sweet picture, huh??

The evening we did these my boys were patient and allowed Liz to snap a few, but dessert was waiting so we had to go.  The next night we went to Dan and Tami's for dinner and he snapped a few of the boys for just me.  

Could you not just eat him up?!?  He will be 5 in October and I can't talk about it.  

 They look so sweet.  You would not even know they are covered in black dust and dirt and msoquito bites.  Sweet boys.

 When we went over for dinner this sweet girl drew a picture for me on the ground.  No one does this for me at my house.  It was pretty sweet.

 The next day my boys went to Jackson for a little time with Mimi and Tee.  While they were gone I had a little girl time with these cuties.  We had their hair and nails done, went to a tea room and then had ice cream.

 Here we are at the tea room in Arlington.  They brought the girls their own cup and saucer with a musical tea pot.  It was magical.  Magical.  You should have seen their eyes.  They even cut K's sandwich in flowers...a detail that was not overlooked by her.

 Of course the ice cream had to be pink.  Pink is the best at the other Shackelford house.

 Two of my sweet boys have birthdays in August.  My crew is going to be out of town on their birthdays so we had a celebration on Saturday...complete with an ice cream cake!

 Clayton loves Legos.  He got an Architecture set for Frank Lloyd Wright's house, Falling Water.  He built it in two days.  It is now prominently displayed in our playroom.

I mentioned earlier that the boys went to Mimi and Tee's.  The reason they went was so Fred and I could go on our annual staff retreat.  We had the best time.  We planned the upcoming year, ate at a few good restaurants and even had a sunset boat ride.  It was beyond fabulous.  Here are a few pictures from our boat ride.  

This is our last week before school starts back.  I'm in mourning.  We have saved a trip to the water /amusement park for the last weekend.  I've checked the forecast and things are not looking too good, but we're going to make it work!  We'll squeeze one last drop out of summer before the grit and grind of school begins.  

Clayton's ever budding vocabulary quote of the week, "Jack, your flatulence is not appreciated in the car."  Yes, I had to google how to spell flatulence.  Yes, Jack just grinned and continued with his flatulence...in the car.  Mom.of.boys.