Annual Girls' Weekend 2011

***Warning...this may be a repeat if you follow any of my friends' blogs! Oh well!***

This past weekend Brylee and I drove south of Houston to meet up with my best college girl friends for our annual Girls' Weekend. For the last 5+ years since we graduated from ACU, we have gotten together annually to spend some good, quality girlfriend time together.  We don't plan many activities for these weekends.  It is so nice just to be together and laugh, cry, and pray.  This year was especially fun, yet different, because we multiplied with babies over the last year!

 Kathrine, Wendi, Allison, Jenny, Brittnie, Jamie, Ashley

 Emma (2 years-Ashley), Brylee (10 months-Jamie), Madelynn (5 months-Jenny), Jake (3 months-Wendi), London (2 months-Kathrine)

 My child is having a hard time sitting still these days, so when we take a group kid picture on the couch, I had to lunge and keep her from falling a few times.

 Like I said...on this particular trip, we didn't do or plan much because we were all trying to keep up with our children. We stayed at Wendi 's & Brittnie's houses, and all arrived some time Friday.  We had dinner in, and spent most of the evening catching up. Saturday morning, we casually got ready, went for a walk to the nearby park, and then let the babies take morning naps. We did venture out to the mall for lunch and a 5-baby-wide stroller walk.

 Brylee did her fair share of making a mess on Wendi's floor.  I never realized how much of a help our dog Paisley is at cleaning up Brylee's mess until my daughter eats at someone else's house without a dog. I spent more time than usually cleaning up the floor!

 Kathrine's sweetie, London, did so well for being so young! I'll brag on her for a minute to say she has the softest, most olive skin you have ever seen! (The complete opposite from Brylee's fair and very dry skin!  We'll blame her daddy!)

 Wendi and Jake were such good hosts this weekend

 Jenny is the only one who has two children so far, although she left her oldest, Jude, at home with his daddy. But it just must not have felt right for Jenny to have one arm free, hence both arms full of babies!

 Emma is such a good little toddler, although her shyness may be beginning to shine

 And my sweet Brylee had such a good weekend, did amazing on our car ride down there, and spent her time exploring Wendi's floors!

 Alli & Britt did their best at keeping us all sane, especially during the moments when all 5 babies happened to be screaming at the same time.  Luckily, this only happened about once or twice the entire weekend!

 

 London and Brylee are about 8 months apart, and boy what a difference 8 months can make! It's hard for me to even remember that phase!

We had such a good time just being "family." I can't wait to continue 'growing old' with these girls and watching our kids become friends. Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with these life long friendships!