Our weekend in Shreveport

We got to travel to Shreveport this past weekend to meet sweet little Bently McGregor and he was just as tiny and precious as I would have imagined!! I knew the kids would be so thrilled to get to hold him, but they really surprised me at how much they wanted to be with him. Tag especially took to his little cousin and we've been talking to him about how he will need to be a good role model for little Bently as he grows up! :) On Saturday, my mom, Aunt Laurie, Sister, niece and cousin all drove up to Shreveport too for some shopping at the Boardwalk. We had a great time and as always, whatever time I get with my family is never enough. Saturday night Tommy's mom and dad came up also and the whole Banks clan got to go out to eat at Posado's (yumm!) for Ma C's birthday! It was nice having all the Banks boys and their families together and afterwards we went back to Mark and Amber's for birthday cake and ice cream. Then on Sunday my mom and dad came to visit us before we headed out. I was so glad I got to see my dad....and so was Bella! She had gotten teary eyed when I told her that we probably wouldn't get to see Poppy this trip...so it was wonderful that they came on Sunday! Then we stopped off to love on Bently one last time before heading back to Tulsa again. Thankfully we had a much better trip home than we did coming. Tag was so carsick Friday we kept having to stop, clean him up and clean the car and let him rest some. On the way back to Tulsa though, Tag's Dramamine helped him sleep about 3 hours of the trip...and Bella slept right along with him! Whew...what a relief and what amazing little travellers we are blessed with! Guess they're just used to it by now! The kids really did not want to leave this time and that makes the trips home even harder. The goodbyes are always hard and the kids are getting more aware when I cry (I told Tommy I'm just not equipped with that mechanism that will allow you to just tell yourself to NOT CRY!). But I think no matter how old I am, I will always cry when I have to leave my parents. That's just a sign of our relationship tho and how much I love 'em! =) And like I told the kids...time is just flying by and we've already almost been here for 6 mos! Soon we'll be moving on along once again!

I have lots of pics from the weekend and I'll just let them speak for themselves!

Tag holding his little cousin for the first time!

Cute boys!

Tag kept saying he just wanted to squeeze Bently!

Beautiful Bella Rose holding Bently for the first time!

Babies always look smaller when they're in Tommy's arms! ;) I love seeing him with a baby, he's always so gentle and sweet.

First time to feed him a bottle

I love this picture...it sums up the whole weekend pretty much. All eyes were on little Bently!

Bella Rose was quite the little momma and will one day be a fantastic big sister!! (one day...but not one day soon unfortunately!)

Burping the baby

Love this...just melts my heart!

At the Boardwalk!

The kids with my niece Katelyn

Bella picked tiny flowers while we waited for our table at Saltgrass

Gorgeousness!

Me with my sister Cherie, aunt Laurie, cousin Samantha and my mom!

I downloaded another PhotoShop trial and have been playing around with these pictures! ;) This one is just a great picture that Amber took!

Sweet sweet!


Ma C with her 3 grandbabies!

Brandon and Erica at Posado's

The new parents! They don't look too sleep deprived do they for parents of a barely 2 week old baby?! I don't know how they're pulling that off! ;)

Our family + 1!

The Banks boys with Momma Banks!

At the hotel with Poppy on Sunday

Nana and Tag at the hotel

Too funny! Bell in Poppy's glasses

As you can tell it was a GREAT weekend.....and a very FULL weekend! But we wouldn't have it any other way!

Splashing in puddles...

While we were home it did a whole lot of raining. :( Being sick and indoors because of rain was in NO WAY how we intended our visit to WM to be!!! But one day the kids were feeling a little better and I decided to let them out to play in the puddles. They surely had a blast and I was glad to let them out to burn off some energy and do something they normally wouldn't be able to do! The mudhole they are playing in has been there for as long as I can remember. I remember having our baby ducks that we got for Easter one year in this hole when we were little. =) And yes, I do realize just how "redneck" this type of fun is!!!

I'll start with some "Before" and "After" pics of them! :)

Tag - Before.................................Tag - After

Bella - Before......................Bella - After

I think he's telling her to jump in the puddle with a really big jump! ;)

Ya gotta ride the scooters through it!

Miss Priss Pot

When Savannah and Abbie got home from school they joined them

Crazy kids!

Croquet anyone??

WOW!! But at least they had fun!!

I'm baaaack....

I know I haven't blogged in a while....a while for me anyway! I thought I'd start with our trip to La. a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures taken from our visit. (I had to steal these from my mom in fact!) I did take pictures one day when the kids played out in the water puddles....which will be in a later post... We had a great visit despite all 3 of us getting sick and it raining the whole time. :( I found that it's really hard trying to visit all the people you need to see and get things done you need to do while in town in just a week's time. Then cut that down to just 2 days after we were all sick....we didn't leave the house again until Friday and we left to come back to Tulsa on Sunday! Oh well, whoever we didn't see this time we'll see next time! =)




Tag & Bell at my mom and dad's

Tag holding a bug keeper with some sort of critter in it he found at MaC's and Pop's house! :)

Bella loves to help Poppy with his computer work. She pushes the buttons for him... ;)

I'm sure they're watching Spongebob!

Eating a chocolate sucker from his Halloween goody bag MaC had for them!

The kids with my mom

Piled up with Poppy!

Tag with the Caples' new kitty that Vannah named Isabella! =) Made my kiddos want a pet even more than they already did!

I was bored on the long car ride home

I don't want to see this stretch of road again for a while! (except maybe to come see little Bently!)

This is the word "Jesus" writtin in rocks on the side of one of the hills. Such a great reminder of who we should be thankful to when we are driving along.


When we made it home Daddy had a surprise for the kids! He had decorated the house in Halloween and had them some goodies! I can't say enough about how amazing Tommy is! He also did something like this for us when we lived in Maine. The kids and I went to WM for a visit and when we came home he had balloons EVERYWHERE! Here is a pic of all the balloons in Maine...



As you can see on the floor...Tag had already been popping them! ;)

And here are some pics of the Halloween welcome home we got...

I ate most of those Halloween cookies with the purple icing...one of my most favorite things!


Didn't he do great with his decorating?!

Bella got this mask that glows in the dark

Tag's glow in the dark mask

He had them a decorate your own cookie kit. They loved this!



Even Daddy decorated his own cookies!

And he also had them these kits to make Halloween door hangers.





I think Daddy should get a BIG pat on the back for making us feel so special when we came back home!!