Weddings and a birthday party

I'm itching to get back to blogging after a long summer stretch of minimal posts. It was a wonderful break but I have no plans to quit documenting this lovely little life we have, so here's a summary post of the last few weeks.

This is our wedding season, for sure! They bookend this post, starting out with a wedding for my sweet friend from childhood, Katie. I didn't get a great picture of the bride and groom, but I did get a few mediocre pictures of the girls with their pretty dresses. Josie and Amelia each had dresses that seemed timeless with the neutral colors while Audrey's dress screamed 1960's. Having girls can sure be fun.

Daddy doesn't care much about accessories, so her headband was wonky for much of the night. #girlproblems

The next day, we celebrated cousin Clara's first birthday. The party was at 11 AM which was great for the energy levels. Nobody was sleep deprived yet and there was room to run around in the big garage at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Josie had a ton of energy and was kind of bouncing off the walls, but overall their behavior was pretty good. It's hard to contain a group of kids in the same room for a couple of hours without having meltdowns. We managed to get a few pictures of all the kids there (how that happened is clearly a miracle) and enjoyed lunch together as well. Hubby was duck hunting, so the girls and I represented our family until he was able to join us towards the end.

This girl is so happy most of the time. It's so fun to watch her grow up and become a toddler. Although I kind of already miss her babyness!

 The next big event was another wedding, this time for hubby's cousin, Sam. It was in Bismarck, so we headed down on Thursday night to get a better handle on Friday's busyness. We are never sure what is best, driving down the day of the event with over tired kids from all the activity, or giving ourselves another night there so we can have a calmer day. In this case, I don't think it would have mattered. Audrey got a cold that night and was miserable. When everyone is sleeping in the same room, it's hard to sleep with one kid wailing. It was a long night, but we were expecting that.

Doesn't Jo look comfy here? Sleeping on the way to the hotel on Thursday night.

On Friday, we groggily ate breakfast and swam in the pool. Audrey, despite feeling sick, swam like the little fish she is, and Josie finally warmed up to the water enough to at least be carried around by daddy. Swimming lessons are needed soon for her. She has some legit water fears. The pool water was fairly cold so we all didn't last long. Amelia managed to stay in her little floating device for at least 15 minutes. None of my girls have managed this let alone in cold water, so she gets major points (as if we keep score!). 

I desperately needed a coffee and hubby needed a tie, so we headed across the street to the mall and did some family shopping. It was actually pretty fun and a great use of the time we had to kill. I got my coffee and the kids got to play in the kid area which was set up like a mini kingdom complete with a dragon and castle. They were just itching to get in there so I'm glad we had time to indulge them.

After the mall, we drove around for a while and realized that all three girls had fallen asleep. Bonus naptime for the win. Although our night had been rough, this was really the best use of our afternoon time. We decided to do drive thru lunch and called it an impromptu date since the girls slept through it all.

Once the girls woke up, they got to eat lunch,we all got ready and headed to the church. They did well sitting through the ceremony thanks to our trusty "only for special occasions" backpack full of goodies. Josie was amped up like nothing else. Here's the thing with this girl right now. Weddings are the best thing in the whole world. People, dancing, twirly dresses, delicious food, there's really nothing better. To add to all of that, her favorite "other cousin" as she likes to call her (second cousin), Cora, was there too. Cora is less than a year older than Josie and they get along as well as two strong willed girls can. They ended up sitting together for dinner and spent the majority of the dance within three feet of each other. There was a bit of drama towards the end, but I think they still think highly of each other. Such is life with little ladies.

Audrey's fake smile here gets me every time. Also, the smoothness of this wedding + little kids would not have been possible without Breanna, hubby's cousin, who constantly jumps in to play and help with the girls. Plus, she's the sweetest!

Remember Josie's love of all things wedding? Another part of that is stealing the bride. Both weddings this year, Josie has run up to the bride, taken her hand, and dominated her attention for as many songs as she can. I intervened after two or three because we all know that is only cute for a short period of time. The bride was gracious and kind, but Josie has to learn manners. :)

We stayed at the dance until at least 9:30, then had another terrible night of sleep thanks to Audrey's constant waking and wailing in her sleep. After breakfast, we hit the road back home with Josie having crazy high (over tired) energy and hubby and I both suffering from hangover like symptoms (we didn't have hangovers though, such is life as parents, amiright?). After an hour and a half, we stopped in Jamestown at Frontier Village, a mini old town that is free and right up our alley. We will definitely be going back. I mean, it's the home of the world's largest buffalo (Josie's most favorite animal of all time).

That was a lot of activity for these little ladies so I still say that they did very well. That's life with three girls under five. Busy, unpredictable, and surprisingly fun.