Firetrucks and Chicken Fingers

Our favorite twins, Stephen and Richmond turned four with a Firetrucks and Chicken Fingers birthday party on Saturday.  What fun!  This was the first fire station tour the girls have had - they've both been inside the trucks when the it's fire safety week and the firemen bring the trucks around to their school - but the station was a real treat!  Caroline had fretted much of the week about the firetrucks - "they too loud mama" - we had assured her no sirens and boy was she glad there wasn't!

 All ears as they began their firehouse tour....ha!

 The trucks, the trucks - squeals of glee echoed through the station!

 Catherine Ellis in the cab of the firetruck

 Little Mama checking it all out

 Testing the lights

 Group shot - how cute is this bunch!?

The firemen were great - gave a quick tour of the station and then got down to business, touring the trucks, flashing the lights, all that good stuff!  The kids had a blast!  Next we were off to Otey's - one of our favorite places in the world wide world to eat - for chicken fingers and cheese fries.  Yummy!  What a fun birthday party!  We sure love those Brown boys - happy fourth birthday Stephen and Richmond!

 Mr. Tucker and Caroline being silly as usual

 Happy Birthday song and blowing out the candles!

 Me and birthday boy Stephen aka Baby A

Caroline, Catherine Ellis and Richmond having a blast!

Chili Cook Off

This was our second year to attend the Exceptional Foundation Chili Cook-off which raises money for special needs children programs.  Last year it was barely 30 degrees and pretty miserable.  We stayed about 30 minutes tops.  This year it was a beautiful spring day with highs in the 60's and a great time to be outdoors.  We stayed for hours and enjoyed all of the great activities.  

Caroline admiring her face painting

Catherine Ellis asked for a dinosaur of course!

David has been a member of Good People's (a local brewing company) chili cook off team for two years now.  He gets up at the crack of dawn with four other guys to cook chili and pass it out to hundreds of people.  In fact, their chili was so good this year they won Participant's Choice.  Catherine Ellis was so pleased that her Daddy "won first place."

Yay for great chili cook-off weather!

If Mr. Tucker is around - no one else matters

Eating some of Tucker's great chili

Good People's tent was right across from the kids play area, so play we did!  Stephanie joined us for the fun and helped me chase kiddos all day - thank you Steph!  What a fun spring day!  We're already looking forward to next year!

We ran into some pretty princesses on our way out!

The Liles Ladies

Our most favorite Virginians came south for a visit last week and boy were they a sight for sore eyes!  We always love seeing the Liles family and treasure every visit we get - but man does it make us miss them more!

Allison headed south with Pailet and I got to spend some great time with the Sunday night, but it wasn't long enough - each visit always leaves me wishing they were staying around longer. I got to see Pailet right before bedtime and hear all about her recent Disney World trip - all the princesses she met, the fun rides and magic of Disney - and steal a few hugs and kisses before she headed off to dreamland.  Then Allison and I got to have a yummy girls dinner and quality time to catch up.  I needed a good friend session after a hard week and Allison has a way of always making me feel better - no matter the circumstances. Love you sweet friend!

 Aren't they the cutest princesses?

 Mama was SO proud of her outfit - earrings and heels to boot!

 These three are so much fun

AND - we got the best treat ever - it snowed again (in Virginia, not here, thank the Lord!) for the zillionth time and Allison and Pailet got stranded in Birmingham for another day - YAY!  So we had an impromptu dinner and princess party - no better way to kick your week off than a princess party!  We sure missed Hill and Eric, but obviously we Cain ladies (and David!) love us some girl time!

 LOVE this one!

Only thing missing is Allison - thank you for visiting us Pai Pai and Allison - we love y'all!

Lillian Grace Bates

We finally got our hands on Lily and it was SO much fun!  Catherine Ellis and Caroline are in that stage of life that has such a fascination with babies - Caroline especially.  I've mentioned that we have a lot of babies in our life right now and it's heaven on earth for our wee ones!

Lily is SO tiny!  She's close to seven pounds now, but was born just a tad over 6 lbs.  Sweet, tiny, precious little thing!  She's a great baby and seems to be laid-back at this point in time.  One of the best things about babies are that they are always changing - it will be fun to watch her grow over this first year of her life for sure.

My brother and Kim are doing such a great job and seem to be pros already at this thing we call parenthood.  I'm so proud of them!  We drove down to take Mom and spend the afternoon and it was just delightful.  We took a ton of pictures and as you can see Caroline certainly hogged Lily most of the visit - little mama indeed!

Little mama in her element! 

 Caroline would barely let Catherine Ellis sit next to her!

Giving Lily a big ole bear hug! 

 Meme, Catherine Ellis and Lily!

 Caroline pouting because she's not holding Lily ....

My favs - Meme, Catherine Ellis, Caroline and Lily

Pan Can Run

This was our third year as Pan Can Run participants and it was the best weather day yet!  What a gorgeous day it was for a short run.  Catherine Ellis loves to run so we always bring her along for this one - and honestly she's big enough now that with her and Caroline both in the stroller it's a real haul for me!

The run is a fundraiser for pancreatic cancer research and in honor of Holly's dad, Mike.  We've been praying for Mike for almost five years now and he's done so well!  He's positive and full of hope - with many loved ones lifting up Team Caraway!  We sure love them!

Catherine Ellis was signed up for the one mile fun run, but she wanted to keep going  - imagine that!  Her Daddy was a real trooper and ran with Catherine Ellis - carrying her the last mile and a half - during the 5K. She was SO proud of herself - it was her first 5K and she did really well!  For a four-year-old, she's got mad running skills!

We were too busy having fun so we didn't get a lot of pictures - you'll just have to take our word for it!

 Proud Catherine Ellis and her hero Daddy!

 Caroline and Holly  - had to steal an Instagram pic to get this one!  So cute!

Baby Brooks is getting so big - such a cutie!