Babes of Summer

I thought I'd never do this but after a little persausion from a few people, I entered Kinley into the "Babes of Summer" - cute baby contest.

Initially, I didn't care if she won but knew that I could buy a couple pictures if nothing else.

Well...we went last Saturday & waited for an hour and a half to have her picture taken and then when I went to buy "a few" pictures, the price was insane!  (but of course I bought them).

Anyway, now that we've invested some time & money, we want to win!  :)

We would LOVE it if you could give her a few votes.  Here's the link (she's #14):

Kinley #14

Voting is unlimited so just reload the page & vote as many times as you'd like until next Friday, August 3.

Blogger friends - share this on your page if you have time!

Jake & Kaylen's Wedding

We arrived in New Braunfels, TX on Friday afternoon, checked in, and got ready for dinner/the after dinner cocktail party for Jake & Kaylen.

We ate at the Gristmill Restaurant in Gruene, TX - a cute little town in the area.  We sat out back which was unexpectedly pleasant compared to the HOT temps we've been used to.

This little peanut was exhausted after traveling all day so she snoozed in the car and at dinner.

The Jeffers Fam

Laura & Beth

After dinner, we moved onto Dry Comal Winery for the cocktail party.

(I love the decorations - white lights, burlap, and succulents!)

We had a really relaxing night, catching up with family and sipping frozen sangria.

Kinley was ready to party after the good nap she took!

She wanted to dance like the big girls so I set her down & she shook her little booty!  If this is a peak into her future, I'm sure we'll have a little dancer...I can dream, right?  :)

Wedding day:
We had a little cousin bonding time on Saturday morning.  Presley & Kinley really liked playing and giving hugs!  I also learned that I need to teach Kinley not to grab or pat other baby's heads, lol.

Then we decided to hang out at the pool and get a little sun that morning.  The pool at the hotel was awesome and had a zero entry feature that was like walking in from a beach (minus the sand).  This is now on my "dream home" list. 

This little fishy got tired of swimming and took a good nap in the stroller.

 Our family basically overtook the pool.  We tend to overtake anything wherever we go!

Here we are all pretty, waiting for the shuttle to take us to the wedding.  Check out my big girls shoes - love them!

The winery was beautiful and the ceremony was really sweet.  Jake & Kaylen lucked out and a big storm missed us so they still got to have the perfect wedding outside.  Did I mention that an outdoor wedding in South Texas is HOT?!  Well, it was, so Kinley was our designated fan girl.  :)

After the ceremony we took the opportunity to get a family picture and then sprinted walked inside for the reception.
Scott was really missing his girls so we had to take a photo to send to daddy.

The decor for the reception was awesome.  Kaylen didn't forget one detail - I just love weddings like that!  These pictures are huge but I wanted everyone to be able to see the cute details of their day...

We had to get a picture of the newest "grands" in the family - all girls!

Ava, Kinley, Presley, & Cheyenne

The Jeffers table!

A few more photos before dinner...  I have to add that someone told my brother that Kinley's eyes matched "daddy's shirt," ha!  He just rolled with it and laughed.

My grandma and her 7 kids.  I love when we can all get together!

Kinley is waving goodbye because she's in her pj's, ready for bed!  She did so good and stayed up for quite a while before falling asleep in her stroller.  We even had to take the early shuttle at 10:30, talk about feeling old!  ;)

I'm sure this isn't surprising but there were plenty of cowboys at the wedding and boy could they move!  They boot-scooted their women across the dance floor all night and I was SO jealous!  Not that my man can't dance...lol.  Craig & Laura were trying to learn how to "2 step" but Craig was looking a little robotic so a bridesmaid decided to help him out (top left).  Too cute!

We had SO much fun dancing with our family and trying to learn to dance like the Texans!  Towards the end of the evening they put on some Miley and J-Bieber so we had to show off our dancing skills then. ;)

In our family, a wedding never ends at the reception so we went back to the hotel and put the babies (and grandpas) to sleep and continued to party in the lobby.  We don't get these moments too often so when we do, we make the most of it! 

What a FUN day!!

We're headin' to Texas y'all!

On Wednesday (7/11), we packed up the car to head to Texas for my cousin Jake's wedding.  I'm not sure how, but we got 6 people and a weeks worth of luggage in the back on my moms car.  I felt like a sardine & poor Cora was stuck in the back on her birthday!

We stopped for lunch at Fazoli's and Kinley loved the pasta!

Our good little traveler.

 We drove from 6am - 6pm and made it to Allen, Texas, just North of Dallas.  We met one of my best friends from Rochester for dinner since she now lives around Dallas.

Waiting for a table, being cute.

Kinley tried her 1st lime at dinner and made the funniest face.  Once we got the camera out she didn't seem to mind though so no funny pics.We were also celebrating Cora's 18th birthday so the waiters had to sing and embarrass her, haha!

 

 

Me, Kinley, Katie, & baby Albsmeyer - due in December!!  Looking at this picture just makes me think, "wow how times have changed."  Katie obviously didn't have a drink and I almost didn't finish mine because I was wrangling a baby.  The old us would have sucked them down and ordered more just to pre-game, ha!  Eek, I'm super excited for her & Joe!

After a long day, we settled in at the hotel and got some much needed rest.This was just the beginning of Kinley never going to bed on time, but hey, it's vacation! We got up the next morning and hit the road to San Antonio.Driving through DallasBeing such a good girl! I'm sure we're cursed when it comes to picking gas stations - this one was gross but had great souvenirs! (haha, poor Kinley)Showing off her 2 toofers. We finally made it to San Antonio around 3 so we checked in and went to the roof for a quick swim.

Our hotel was right on the river so we enjoyed the Riverwalk that night.

 We walked around for a couple hours and stopped to eat dinner.  Luckily, we sat under umbrellas because it started down pouring half way through dinner.

 Our hotel was an old bank and there were still vaults in the basement so we had to snap some pics for my banker mom.

That night, we went up to to swim and hang out in the hot tub - what a view!

 

My brother did such a great job booking hotels for our trip!

My sister surprised us the next morning and flew in for the weekend. 

 We had to show Beth the Riverwalk, too so we walked around a little & grabbed some lunch.

 Multi-tasking mama.

 Apparently, the pigeons were hungry for lunch, too - yuck!

After lunch, we said goodbye to San Antonio and drove over to New Braunfels for the wedding festivities.