Memorial Day

I was looking at the calendar a couple months ago and realized that Memorial Day falls right in between my birthday and my sister-in-law Haley's birthday, and that my brother, Jordan was actually off work for Memorial Day weekend!  So we asked if they wanted to come up and see us.

Well, my parents were not about to miss out on spending time with their granddaughter, so they were up for a weekend here as well.

With all our of out-of-town immediate family coming, I knew my brothers that live in the area would probably want to visit also, so we ended up with a house FULL for Memorial Day weekend.

I honestly wish I had taken pictures of all the food that we made!!  Whenever my family is all together, you can bet there will be some good food!!  On Sunday night we had chicken teriyaki, fried rice, stir-fried water spinach, homemade egg rolls, shrimp dumplings, and some rainbow slaw.  I don't have a single picture of all that deliciousness because I was putting Henry to bed right about the time everyone else was eating dinner, and that food did not stick around long!

I do have pictures of cake however! Because Memorial day fell right between Haley's birthday and my birthday, we decided that we would make birthday cakes and switch! ;)  Haley made the absolute most heavenly coconut cake I've ever had!  It was soo incredibly delicious!!  I'm very thankful I waited to look at the recipe until after I was done eating it! ;)

I made vanilla cakes with strawberries, whipped cream cream cheese icing, and white chocolate.  Yum!!

On Memorial Day Jonathan got up early and made pulled pork in the crock-pot and for lunch we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, grilled corn salad, leftover rainbow slaw, and my momma's potato salad.  Delish!

Other than eat, we spent all weekend around the house.  Henry got to play with his cousin Adelaide when one of the two wasn't napping.  The last time we saw her was the day after Henry was born and we were still in the hospital, they've both grown so much!!

 Miss Kitty spent the weekend sleeping on a bed of everyone's shoes by the front door.

Remember when I made the owl taggies for Henry and Adelaide?  Well, Henry has yet to care anything about his, but Adelaide loves hers! :)  Here she is munching on it!

Isn't she gorgeous?  I love her big, beautiful eyes!

And since the whole family was in the same place at the same time we had to take some family pictures!  I was doing lighting tests, and ended up with this one of my dad and brother Joshua that cracks me up:

 Here is the whole crew:

 And here is an outtake picture, that's not great, but it makes me laugh.  I get all these group shots, (and most of the pictures of me, husband, and Henry), with the use of a tripod and a remote for my camera.  It works well, but I still have to do a lot of running back and forth to check lighting, make sure everyone's in the shot, see if we've gotten a good picture yet, and so forth.  Well, one time I set off to check the camera and was immediately jerked back!  Henry had a big hand full of my ponytail and was not letting go!!

 Miss Adelaide Elizabeth.  Man, if looks could kill! haha

My youngest brother, (I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying "little brother" when referring to him and Joshua, because they're almost a foot taller than me!), his wife Haley, and Adelaide. 

My parentals.

My middle younger brother Joshua, and his girlfriend Catie.

They're so incredibly photogenic!!  This next picture is my favorite though! ;)

Me and my brothers.  From L-R, Jordan, me, Joshua, and James.  Yes, we're all J's. ;)  For the record I had on 4 inch wedge sandals in this picture.  That's how short I am. haha

The husband, me, and sweet Henry with a crazy look on his face.  It was a little warm and bright outside.

Joshua has a collection of old cameras, and he actually uses them!  So while I was taking pictures with my DSLR, he had this monstrosity out! haha I love it!

As evidence from the above picture, Joshua is interested in photography, and my brother Jordan is too.  They always harass me because I "don't know how to use my camera", (I'm getting better though!!).  I caught both of them playing with my camera and new lens during the course of the weekend, but didn't think anything about it.  When I uploaded the pictures to the computer though, I came across several I know I didn't take!  This was one of my favorites. :)

Hooray for family and holiday weekends!!  

Jennifer