Lunch with Emma- happy almost birthday!

Emma's birthday is tomorrow and we usually make sure the day is all about her, but they are at school and Bailey has a softball game tomorrow night so we celebrated by going out to eat and singing "happy birthday" today! MeMe and PaPa stopped by again on their way home from camping and had lunch with us at Escalante's in Town Center and then we headed home for cookie cake. Yeah, Emma! Happy Birthday my almost 8 year old girl!

The kids are going to have a combined "party" after school is out this year. I did that when they were younger, but haven't done it in a few years. I feel like birthday parties get so overdone sometimes and our children are so blessed anyway. I told them last year that we weren't doing BIG birthday parties this year and that we would do a party together for Bailey, Emma and Jackson when school let out. I am trying to rent the pool here in the neighborhood for the party and I think that will suit everyone's taste- just perfectly!! But today I thought it would be fun to have a few friends over to celebrate and since Jerrod had heated the pool yesterday- Emma thought we should swim. She invited her favorite neighbor friends (4 kids from the Templin family so our two families together make a "party") and her friend Raney got to come over, too! Nothing fancy whatsoever- left over cookie cake from earlier and mac and cheese for everyone. It was the first swim for the season...boy, we are ready to open the pool for good! As you can see, they had a ball splashing around!!