Coee's First Fourth of July

Coee experienced her first Fourth of July, which is always marked by a golf cart parade through Terrell's parents lake neighborhood. This year was bigger than normal, probably around 150-200 people. After the parade, we all gather at the pavilion and have yummy homemade ice cream and desserts as well as games. Unfortunately, this is the first year that we have walked away without any bragging rights (unless you count Jill's "most egged" award after the egg toss contest).

Kendra, Paige, Coee, Jill, Carson and Cameron.

Our "float" entry. Don't overlook Terrell's COOL hat!

Trey and Dillon are silly-stringing the retiree spectators.

The "Grand Poo-bah" making his victory lap.

An apple with Dillon

Coee loves apples. You can literally just hand her a whole apple, and she will eat it until it is almost gone. I found her and Dillon having an apple snack on the couch on this day. She thinks that she is one of them. She an Trey have even started fighting "like brother and sister." It usually starts because he is trying to protect her ( a bit of a mother hen) and she doesn't like it. She even grabbed him by the nose with her sharp little finger nails once and gave him a bloody nose.

Trey and Dillon continue to love her with more passion and compassion than we ever expected. Dillon even recently told a friends mom "Life is not worth living without Coee."

Fun Day at Meme's

We went to Meme's house for a fun day last week. She invited all of her grandkids and told the "big boys" they could bring friends. We ended up with five nine year olds; Ethan, Baily, Dillon, Trey and Landon. We spent a large part of the day watching them riding the tube. We also put up a huge water slide, had corn dogs, snow cones and funnel cakes. It was a really fun day. (As we say over and over; poor kids. They don't get to do anything fun. :))

Tubing

They liked the rough waves.

Tristan and Coee having lunch.

Great Grandma's Girl

Coee's middle name is Catherine, after my maternal Grandmother ("Grandma"). There have been many many times that I have wished that Coee could have met Grandma, and Grandma could have met Coee. I know what she would have done. She would have sat and watched her with her hands over her mouth. She would have held her and rocked her, and loved her. She would have made those noises she made playing with Trey, Dillon and Ethan. She would have LAUGHED at her, because she is really funny.

Tonight, we went to a 50's Classic Diner event at church. The choir sang music from the 50's through the 80's. The Blues Brothers were there, as was Elvis. We had cheeseburgers and hot dogs and COKES in the old fashioned GLASS bottles. Coee decided she wanted the last of Dillon's so we let her turn it up for a "swig" - as Grandma termed it. Grandma always had glass bottled cokes in her refrigerator. There is no telling how many cokes she drank in her life time! When Coee turned that bottle up tonight, I so wished that Grandma could have been here to see her namesake do what she did so many times in her life. It brought a tear to my eye, and does again as I type.

We miss you Grandma!