When Friends Are Family

My family is crazy blessed with lots of friends.  Some of these friends are really more like family.  Whether they want to be or not :)We love them. 

A couple weekends ago we spent a whirlwind trip with one of these groups of family friends.  When I say whirlwind, I totally mean it.  Picked up Scotty Boy from work on our way out of Tennessee and ended up in Dallas, TEXAS sometime around 1am.  We then left the Lone Star State Sunday around noon and found ourselves pulling into our casa around 9:30 that night.  See?  Whirlwind.  But So Worth It!

Around midnight on the way there, this happened:

Total car crash, the good kind.

When we got to our room, these were waiting for us:

Some Mexican delights that we have come to love :)

I had to make a run to the store with this lady for some "essentials" and stuff we forgot. Clearly we needed to wheel our groceries in on a cart.  Clearly we are friends for a reason.

Now what actually brought us to Big D is this little lady and her brothers.

They didn't know we were coming and the look on their faces was priceless when they opened the door to find all this crazy on their front porch.  Scotty Boy turned to me and said that made the drive so worth it.

It is tradition in Mexico for the parents to pick Godparents for their child at Baptism, and then the kids pick Godparents when they make their First Communion.  We have lots of theories as to why this is.  One, maybe the kids in Mexico can be really naughty and need extra moral guidance? Two, maybe the parents don't make great choices and so the kids can rectify it by picking their own, probably superior, Godparents when the time comes? Whatever the reason may be, I'm glad they do!  Now, our friends have 3 beautiful kids, but clearly their daughter is the brightest, she picked us.  (or, maybe this is the first of many bad decisions she will make? time will tell.) In all seriousness, we were honored.  She is lovely, delightful and super fun and we wanted to be there to celebrate her big day along with her two stinky sweet brothers.

Crazy bonus to the weekend?  Aside from their family who flew in from Mexico for the occasion, our fun family friends from The Woodlands came too.  We first met when we lived on the same street, and believe me, we reeked a lot of havoc when we were neighbors - the good kind of havoc.  The fun kind.  I believe there are some charred streets and scars to prove it. 

So, 5 families of friends who make up this big crazy family.  Between us there are 12 kids who range from 3-11 years old.  We've traveled together to snow ski, beach bum, camp, play in Vegas and see NYC.  We meet for celebrations, parties, and for no reason at all.  We buy each other things like Beaver Nuggets from Buc-ees (the world's best pit stop), Whataburger coffee mugs, and the best tequila and rum around.  Thank goodness there is a pilot and doctor among us.  We constantly seem to have ailments and I'm pretty sure we are going to have to flee the country one day, I'm not saying that's the only reason we keep them around....

We had a lovely time celebrating at the home of our sweet friends, eating good food, watching the Kentucky Derby, swimming, sliding...

 Only a few pics of the kids as they were way too busy having fun to pose for shots.  My Hazel Monkey did stop long enough to make an appearance with a doodle bug on her nose. 

My honey had to fly out in the middle of all the fun to a conference in San Diego :( but I was so glad he was able to be there for some of it!

We are very thankful for our very lovely hosts.

And very thankful for the blessing of being able to celebrate such a special occasion with our family friends.  I'm pretty sure God knew what he was doing when he planted us together.

On our way out of Dallas, we went the opposite direction of home so that we could stop by and see a sweet new baby.  I'll drive many a mile to get my hands on some new babies :)  My bestie since the 5th grade just had her 4th baby and she needed me to hold her, although I had to fight my girls for her.  She was only 6 days old - yum!!!!!!!!

She loves me, she told me so.

On the road out of Dallas, we snacked on these

And did a happy dance when we stopped in Texarkana here

We had a lovely whirlwind of a weekend, can't wait to meet with our family friends again - next time, Seaside Florida!

HELLO MONDAY: A Mother's Day Montage

Hello Monday:  A Mother's Day Montage (minus music)

Hello day filled with iPhone pics.

Hello Breakfast in Bed complete with chocolate chip pancakes that spell mom, courtesy my 9 year old.

Hello cute breakfast in a bag from little Roo.

Hello "be super careful when you open this" present.  "No, mom, really!  be SUPER careful!"

Hello water balloon that was wrapped and opened in my bed :)  thank you for not popping.

Hello handmade mermaid from Hazel Monkey - made out of shredded newspaper in the blender.  I'm in Mermaid love!

Hello "Mom" power point presentation because my girls are of "that"generation.

Hello super cute new duds from Anthro, because my husband knows me.  I don't know that I will ever take this cardy off - it's my new favorite thing.

Hello super relaxing drizzly day filled with playing legos, reading, snuggling, my favorite veggie sammie, a special delivery coke from McDonald's (because they have the best coke in all the land) and a clean kitchen cleaned by someone other than me.  And if I wasn't full enough...

Hello dinner!

Hello Blue Moon with a perfect orange slice.

Hello BANG BANG shrimp - Hello yummers! No, I didn't make that up, that's really what they are called.

Hello "we ordered this in your honor - it's edaMOMe!"  Hello girls that crack me up and I love to pieces because they are total goobers like their mom!

Hello Scotty Boy!  He's my perfect match. 

Hello Yes I Saved Room For Dessert.  Creme Brulee, the bestest dessert in all the land. Yes, that's some delicious homemade whipped cream on top. 

Hello to a fun 9:30 on a school night water balloon busting on two unsuspecting girlies that I don't have pictures of because - well because there were water balloons involved.

Hello from a mother who's been blessed like crazy.

Linking up with Lisa for the first time for her Hello Monday!

Can I Get A "What What" Wednesday?!?!

Ok, so many things happening in the land of Brady!  Lovely things, funny things, silly things, new things....get my drift?


We are blessed with happy things :)


So here are just a few:

Hazel Monkey auditioned for the talent show and she and her sweet friend did a duet.  Her friend sang while she played the violin.  Love the guts it took for them to perform in front of their whole school!  Brave. Awesome. Girls. (and so stinkin cute!)

Y'all!  I totally tried something new!  Beverage Cart Driver.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty good at it.  Like, I was kinda a natural.  My friend Lynn and I tooled around the course making people happy with frosty cold hydrating liquids for our school's golf tournament.  Turns out, everyone is happy to see the beverage cart ladies! We even picked up a hitch hiker while making the rounds - turns out a traveling confessional could be pretty popular!

Daisy Girl Scouts are adorbs, who knew?  Love her feet :)

Y'all!  This is one of my birthday presents!  Love to label up some goodness!!!  My people know me well.

Went to the Grizzlies Game with these lovely people!  Watched us some b-ball, holla!

This guy (or girl) has been hanging out on my back door at night.  I leave the light on to attract some dinner.  FYI, I don't like frogs - but I don't think they should starve either.

Hope this lasts forever and ever and ever.  Barbie Beauty Shop. 

We are total book worms, me and my girlies.  Had some Barnes & Noble gift cards so we totally loaded up.  That stack has shrunk significantly.  This is one of my favorite pictures in all the land.

Y'all!  This is a SNICKERS donut.  I kid you not.  It wasn't mine, it was a friend of ours.  Did you hear that?  SNICKERS donut!  What What!?!?

 Scotty Boy and I had a super fab date day!  You've gotta do this.  He took the day off of work while the girls were at school and we had a super fun time.  Hung in the media room, out for lunch, shopping - total treat.  Get you up a date day before summer break!

Love our night time devotional :)  We rotate what part we play.  Bible story, devotional, verses, prayer.  Best way to end the day.  Bonobo (the monkey) often joins us.

 So this kind of thing seems to happen quite a bit.  She fashioned herself a new hat, I should have worn it on Derby day!  Along with some blue bell (the best ice cream in the country) Krazy Kookie Dough and you've got yourself one heck of a Monday night!

My sweeter than sweet friend K May made me these a few years back.  I used them to serve a salad at a brunch I hosted this week (p.s. hosting brunch is the best, it's a morning party!) and got so many comments on their awesomeness.  Aren't homemade gifts the BESTEST?

We spend a lot of time at Home Depot and Lowes.  I'm doin a little reno. These crazies always find a way to entertain themselves.  Crackin themselves up in the lumber department while chillin on our cart.  This was followed by a game of "kick the debris" - good times.

This is a sneak peek at my little project :)  THIS PICTURE MAKES MY GUTS HURT I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Working on a fun new space - hope to share it in a couple weeks!  FYI, found this shiny giant brass chandelier on the side of the road and I made this magic happen.  Doin the happy dance right this very second!

Also made a crazy quick trip this past weekend, a little Texas Tornado - post to come!

That's a quick recap of all things Brady for the "what what" Wednesday, "what what" have you been up to?