Ninety Years of Bill Brady

The second weekend of June, the Houston faction of the Brady bunch packed up our boots, babes and bags to head to South Bend for an epic birthday party.  On June 8th my incredible Grampa turned 90 years old.  Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting him knows that he is one-of-a-kind and to say that we are blessed that he is ours is absolutely the understatement of the century.  On Saturday June 11th, we threw a bash in his honor.

We had far too much fun and there are far too many stories, pictures and laughs to recount them all.  I don't see myself stringing together another 30 minutes on a lunch break for quite some time, so I'm going to try to squeeze it all into one post.  To help aid your understanding, I'll break it down into the phases of any good party experience.  Here we goooooooo...

THE GETTING READY
So, this was our first trip on a plane with the girls.  This big milestone was to immediately followed by their first time in a rental car and a 2.5 hour drive from Chi Town to the Bend.  Are you jealous yet?

To keep the Martin Family Income Statement afloat (this is an actual excel spreadsheet that my husband produces, by the way), we snagged tickets through Spirit.  This meant awful flight times, an extreme amount of time Googling travel hacks and an absurd amount of  time spent worrying by Ryan & I.  I am pleased to report that it was all basically for naught though because the girls did extremely well on the plane.  The car ride was a different story, but hey- all's well that ends well, right?  (The Hertz employee who was left with Brynnie's crumb-filled carseat may feel differently.)

Grampa's 90th was at a barn and featured his line dancing teacher coming to show us all how it's done.  Obviously boots were in order.  I'm thankful I took this picture pre-packing because Brynn has yet to leave them on for long enough to take another one.

They're looking a lot more awake than I was feeling at 4:15 am.  (Parent Tip #437: Leaving them in their jams does not incite sleep.)

The grass is always greener on see-see's (sissy) side.

This photo was taken approximately 2 minutes after take off.  At 3.5 minutes after take off, Ryan opened a bottle of water and the pressure caused water to spray all over Brynnie, waking her up, never to return to sleep again.  (Ok, maybe she did sleep at like 7:30 pm that night.)

THE PRE-PARTY

This picture was taken about 3 minutes after we got to Grampa Brady's house.  If you know my Em, you know what a feat it was that she warmed up so quickly.  I was so proud of her.

Another day, another state, another tool to be used.  Here's GC cleaning up Miranda & Trav's barn.

Be still my heart.  Watching these 7 (Brynn was napping screaming inside) brings back so many irreplaceable memories I have as a kid with my Indiana cousins.  Left to right we have Ellie (1), Ava (9), Stockton (1), Shiloh (6), Tripp (5), Lucy (3) and Emery (3).

I think I have roughly 1,000 photos of this event on my phone.

Lucy looks skeptical of Em here.  I don't blame ya, girlfriend.

Pawpaw Jim and Pawpaw Tom teaching Ellie about the important things in life- like tools and tractors, I'm sure.

Caddy & JJ getting their swing on.

This looks totally natural, right?

Sharing invaluable insights on Peppa's First Sleepover.

One of the days leading up to the party, the men took the children to the zoo while the women crafted.  It appears it went well.

Em was really working on getting Pawpaw Brady to eat out of the palm of her hand.

THE FIESTA

My little cowgirls.  (Brynn, I'm going to charge you $14 for those boots once you get an allowance, child.)

Miranda makes Martha Stewart look like a slouch when it comes to crafting.

I wish I would have taken a picture at night.  I was, however, otherwise disposed as you'll read later.

You have a fake on you, cousin Ashleigh?

Baby's first red solo cup.  Put it in the scrapbook.

So this is the line dancing portion of the evening.  Please take note of how much harder Ryan seems to be working than everyone else.

The line dancing version of running man?

Brynn showcasing some moves she did NOT get from her father.

The Pawpaws playing grill master.

Boot cake to pay homage to Grampa's love of line dancing.

And an Eiffel Tower to pay homage to his years (and years and years) of teaching French.

I am pretty obsessed with Miranda & Trav's property.  The barn is where we held our shindig.

My Grampa is truly the coolest.  It's impossible to look at this picture and not smile.

Mamcita and Patty making sure he gets all those flames out.

I think maybe I was meant to be a farm girl in a different life (but without the early rising, manual labor stuff).  Did I mention I was obsessed?

Cheers to 90 incredible years.

The whole crew.  Left to right: Paul, Stockton, Kara, Travis, Miranda, Shiloh, Ava, Ashleigh, Kyle, Ellie, Lucy, Nonnie Jan, Pawpaw Tom, Tripp, Grampa Brady, John, Nennie Jean, Matt, Nonnie Kathe, Emery, Dad, Me, Ryan, Brynn, Julie & David.

THE HANGOVER/STORIES FROM LAST NIGHT

Memorial Day Weekend 2k16

Hello from the other side.... of summer.  I suppose now that it's nearly O-V-E-R I should get to documenting it, huh?  You know my M.O. when it comes to the summer holidays.  I spend too much time relaxing, gorging and chatting which inevitably leads to horrendous documentation and a random smattering of photos.  I regret to inform you that summer 2016 I did not turn over any new leaves.  Let's get to it, shall we?

Right before the holiday weekend, Conroe and its neighboring suburbs were hit hard with rain.  The lake level got up higher than it's been since my parents have owned their house there and it was breathing down the neck of historic levels.  This was very unfortunate but led to this awesome picture of my Mom rescuing Matt's canoe (kayak?).  I have no doubt she'll be SUPER pumped I put this in.  (Love you, Mom!)

This was the view from my parents' walkway down to the dock on Saturday.  You can tell by all the mud that the water came all the way up to the edge of the walkway.

My tribe*

Cheese?  Nah, I'm good.  Cupcakes?  Gimme, gimme.  That's my GIRL.

Clearly we had offended Emery.  Probably by refusing to let her play on the iPad.  As any good sister would, Brynn supported Emery's cause by laughing.

Probably talking Pawpaw into downloading the YouTube kids app.  These two are trouble.

Brynn's love for da-dawgs knows no bounds.

I hope you all had equally family-, fun-, and food-filled weekends.  The sincerest of thanks to all those who have, do, or will serve.  Nothing would be possible without you!

* The use of this term is in no way meant to imply my agreement to Ryan's self proclaimed Native American heritage.

S is for Sister: Installment 6

With another quarter of Brynn in our world's also came another 3 months worth of sisterly bonding.  The entire length of which was spent sharing a room together in the apartment, so bonding was their middle name.  "Cause space is just a a word made up by someone who's afraid to get CLOSE, ohh ohhhhhh."  Oh, pardon me.  I got carried away.  Let's skip to the pictures before this turns into karaoke hour, huh?

The cutest patrons I've ever seen at Sherwin Williams.  I wouldn't ask them about Repose Gray vs Colonnade Gray though.  They weren't so helpful.

I caught the very tail end of these two plotting to get some snacks Daddy and I had hidden on a shelf we believed they could not reach.  That step stool wasn't our best purchase.

Emery Tip #1,097:  Nothing makes you look more like a professional firefighter than an absurdly low center of gravity.

I can't even.  How cute are these two?!

I dunnooooooo.

Dance party.  (If this picture were 0.2 second later, it would have been a Flash Dance party).

Teaching sister the delicate art of jumping on furniture.  Important part of the lesson is making sure to choose an evening late in the week, after dinner and bathtime, when Mom and Dad are too tired to really argue you on it.

Running around like hooligans in Em's room.

In case you are worried it's all butterflies and rainbows.

"See Brynn, this is where you press the button to purchase something without Mom and Dad knowing til they get their next ATT statement."

We loooooove us some Great Harvest.

I know it's dark.  I know Daddy's beer ruins this picture.  But those sweet, sweet profiles.  I never, ever want to forget them.

Checking out the animals at Clay's. 

Chim chimeny, chim chimeny, chim chim charooooo!  Emmy Poppins at your service.

Nothing makes you feel comfortable when you're out and about solo like receiving this picture from your hubs at home.  Parenting like a boss.

Probably not the last time these two conspire to break into my purse.  Thankfully I don't think they can forge my signature.... yet.

Take my hand and follow me to the Promiseland, weary birthday party goer.  A land filled with red, white and BBQ sauce.  A land where people say, "my pleasure," to your every request.  A land called Chick-Fil-A.

I can't decide if I should be more confused as to how our toy coffee pot made it into HEB or alarmed that my children look so jazzed up about coffee.

Brynn demolished this.  Neither the ice cream, nor the spoon, stood a chance.

I would bet an all expenses paid trip to Target that the last word before this picture was "MY!" (mine)

Babies having babies.  Welcome to the fam, Bebe/Twinkle!

Em: Do you think they know we lined our pockets with peanut butter crackers before they finished getting ready?  Brynn:  No.  Gah, we're good.  Hope they don't check the car seats after we get out at school.