Celebrating Early

Since we were all together, anyway, we decided to celebrate the birthdays of these two sweethearts in Gammie's arms...

Ava and River were born a day apart!

 We started with pinatas.

One for the little kiddos...

Attacking the candy

 Then, one for the big kiddos...

Seth gladly tried to move it out of the way

 The cute little monkey was soon decapitated by Donnie.

Porter with his loot

 Then it was time for presents.

Seth grabbed the baby and sat down...

I think I may have another child that went to a different sibling...

River and Ava loved their presents!

And, their cupcake cakes!

Little warrior

So did the rest of us!

Robbie had me tie all those ribbons from the first pinata onto his hand...he also doesn't seem to mind his butterfly ring.

Happy birthday River and Ava!

Bonding

Porter is so good with babies.

The Living Planet Aquarium

Look who joined us!

The Martins came with the newest family member, Kade!

(Who happens to also have red hair!)

They joined us in time to tour the Living Planet Aquarium!

Watching the otters

The best fish picture I got...

Grumpa with Kade

 This stingray loved Robbie...



...it kept coming back to say hi.

They also had penguins :)

Who Needs Toys?

Taking the Clan to Grandma

We planned a picnic on a rainy day!

So, we took our picnic, and our fun to Grandma's house.

The kids had fun dangling this bat for Grandma to grab...

But, when she reached for it, they'd pull it away...giggling the whole time.

But, she caught it a few times!

We enjoyed spending our time together with Grandma!

Rob and Donnie playing...ankle bones? (I think that's what it's called.)

River especially enjoyed the musical robotic toys.

And, Jordanne, Grandma's oxygen machine...

...And Porter...

Jordanne loves Porter.

And, Porter loves her!

He lets her climb all over him without complaining.

That is, when he's not trying to tickle her.

Independence Day

The Seaman family came to town for the weekend.

Grandma Seaman has just been diagnosed with lung cancer, and everyone came down to see her and to celebrate her 85th birthday.

We wanted to show her how much she is loved, and this weekend gave us that opportunity.

It also gave us the opportunity to get the whole family together on the Slaughter side as well.

The fun all started on the morning of the Fourth at the Collier's!

Randy is healing from a bad bicycle accident...hope he heals quickly!

We had breakfast then went swimming!

Well, some of us, anyway.

Isaac spent most of his time having fun throwing water on everyone in the pool...

 Gammie had fun playing with and holding her grand kids

Rob...just didn't want to...but he wasn't the only one.

River played in the more shallow area of the water...

Missy and Savanna (who was my photographer while I was too wet to take pictures) didn't know we were going to be swimming, so didn't bring a suit.

But, others who were dry for a while joined the rest of the swimmers later.

Porter giving Lilia a kiss.

 It was the perfect thing to do on such a hot summer day! 

Drying off and warming up...possibly sleeping as well.

  Later, we celebrated more with yummy food and goodies... 

My traditional flag cake

...and fireworks, of course.

And, I'm not just talking about the ones that went on that night.

We also had some pretty interesting smoke views from the many fires in the mountains.

Happy Fourth of July!!

24 Weeks

At this last appointment, my new doctor found what all my other doctors weren't able to find--the reason I got my blood clots when I was on birth control and pregnant with Porter.

In other words, why I have to take the blood-thinner shots when I'm at a higher risk for clotting, like when I'm pregnant.

I have something called "factor 2 gene mutation".

It's really not anything new as far as information goes, just puts a label on it for the doctors.

Yay, I guess.

Turns out that four percent of people have it, but the majority of them never even know.

I don't know if you knew this next part, but redheads usually are major bleeders.

Not clotters.

So, yet again, I'm a walking anomaly.

Or in this case, a mutant.

Too bad not a mutant like this:

source

In other news, everything is going great with Lilia!

According to the doctor, this will be a normal and "boring" pregnancy.

Maybe boring for him...

But, a bit of normal is definitely good.

24 weeks