The Hardest Goodbye of Them All...

 When Mommy says this is the hardest good-bye of them all, she means it literally.  Mama is a pro at good-bye's.  South Carolina will be her TENTH state in 29 years!  That's a lot of moving, a lot of good-bye's.  But none has ever been as hard as the good-bye that's coming this afternoon, when we say it to Mary Lou.

 No matter how Mommy tries to express what Mary Lou means to us, words just don't seem sufficient.  We love her like family - MORE than "like" family.  She's been with Mommy every. single. day.  She's never, ever judged Mommy for being a working Mommy, a beta Mommy, a Mommy who drops the kids off in tears because it's been a bad morning, a Mommy who doesn't have kids with perfect hair and clothes, a Mommy who doesn't have a perfect record as a Mommy.  She's never criticized - EVER.  She's only helped, loved and been there.

And Mommy is a mess right now because in just a few hours she will be picking us up from Mary Lou's for the last time.  To say that we would ever find someone like Mary Lou again would just prove you have no IDEA how much we love Mary Lou and how important she is to us.  Mommy couldn't have done ANY of this without Mary Lou.  That is no joke.  Not even a tiny exaggeration.
I love you, Mary Lou.  You will always be better than "like" family to us and we will always love and appreciate what you do.  I believe God brought you to us because He knew how much we needed you.  He especially knew how much Mommy needed you (that's me, really - I am just so used to writing the blog in Lilly's voice).
So don't be surprised, Mary Lou, if Mommy calls you over the next few weeks to ask you "HOW THE HELL DO YOU DO THIS!?!?"
We love you.
Thank you for everything.
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Good-bye's SUCK

 That's right, Mommy said "SUCK" because this whole week SUCKS.  While we are very excited for our Greenville adventure (we really are!) there is nothing fun about saying good-bye to the friends we've grown to love over the past four years.  Mommy is sick and damn tired of good-bye's.  Mommy promises us we will never have to go through this again.  She's had a lifetime of good-bye's and they don't get any easier - in fact, they've never felt harder.  Probably because we've known her Mommy Friends and their little ones almost their whole lives.  It's hard, and it sucks.

 Today we said good-bye to Mr Aaron and Ms Jill and their beautiful babes Josie and Bailey.  Did Mommy ever tell you how they met Mr Aaron and Ms Jill?  At Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover Class!  Mommy knew she and Jill would be GOOD friends because Jill was pretty vocal about how she does everything "wrong" according to Dave Ramsey standards whereas Mommy was silently concurring with her every point.  That, and she's just hilarious and super fun to be around.  What more could you want in a friend?  Funny and fun!  Caring, attentive, helpful - a good, good friend and her little girls are both EXACTLY a year younger than me and Anna respectively!

Mama's a little puffy-eyed in this picture, but it's still a good picture.  You see that beautiful necklace Mommy is wearing?  A gift from Ms Jill.  She knows Mommy so well! :)
We will miss you so much Josie, Bailey, Mr Aaron and Ms Jill!  But we know we will still be friends and we will still get to watch those beautiful girls grow.  It will just be from a little further away.
Thanks for your friendship.
*Sniff**Sniff*
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Goodbye's Are Hard (Especially for Mommy)

 Our first Kentucky Good-bye came yesterday and it was a hard one.  We said good-bye to Mallorie and her baby brother, Marek - our friends we met at Mary Lou's.  This was so hard because we've known Mallorie Anna's whole life!  Mommy said it was harder for her because Mallorie's Mommy, Melanie, is one of Mommy's dearest friends and the older you get, the harder it is to say good-bye, and Mommy is really old.

 Mallorie taught Anna many important things like - how to stand your ground (firmly, very, very firmly), and how to make your Mommy and Daddy laugh.  I love her for being fun to play Princess with, I wish she would know where our new house is so she could come and play dress up (my very own words!)

Mommy did take some more recent pictures, but I told Mommy this was my favorite time with Mallorie when we went to the Disney store and played dress up and our Mommy's bought us stuff.  Mallorie (and Marek!) we will miss you both so much!
Ms Melanie, Mommy will miss you, too!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

Dear Daddy - I Know I'm Your Favorite...

 ...Happy Father's Day, Daddy!  I know I'm your favorite because you love my tenacity, my passion and my fierce emotions.  I know you love it when I shriek my passion in your face and throw things across the room at you.  You especially love how good my aim can be.  You taught me that!  And as I get older you will teach me other very important things like how to swing a golf club and a baseball bat and then - watch out World!  Don't mess with me or my Daddy or I will show YOU how good my aim can be!

 Daddy, Happy Father's Day!  I know I'M your favorite because we have the same eyebrows and I want to be a Doctor when I grow up so I can help you work and you won't have to spend so much time away from home because 40 hours a week is a whole heckuvalot when you are 4 1/2 years old!  You tell me that if I want to be a Doctor like you I have to read a lot of books so I grab all of my Princess books for you to read to me and you love that!  So really, Daddy, we know who's your fave!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy I'M your FAVORITE because I'm your BOY and how can you help but love me best because we both have NUTS and boys love to play with their NUTS!  Recently I discovered how fun my NUTS can be which makes diaper changes awkward for Mommy but *wink*wink*nudge*nudge* fun for me!  So, Daddy, eyebrows and attitude aside - who's really your favorite?  We both know the answer to that!

Aw, shucks, Daddy we know you love all of us a whole LOT - a whole HELLOFALOT daggone it!  And we love you, too!  And we think you are the BEST DADDY in the whole wide world!  And we think you must have learned how to be such a good Daddy from our Grampa and our Duda - and Happy Father's Day, Grampa and Duda, too - thanks for making our Daddy the world's superest, awesomest, coolest, funnest, lovingest Daddy our world ever has known.
Happy Father's Day, Daddy - YOU'RE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack
P.S. Happy Father's Day, too - Uncle Sean and Uncle J - we love you!  xoxoxoxoxo

The Rehearsal! Dinner!

 I have to forewarn you, the camera died in the middle of dinner - and the memory card filled up - because Mama's a planner like that.  So our Rehearsal! Dinner! pictures are limited.  However we got the three most important people in attendance - us. And that's what you come visit us here for, to see us, right?!?

 Aren't we a couple of handsome fellas?  I'd say so, Jacky comes from a long line of handsome fellas, which of course, is a wonderful thing.  We also hear some of the fellas in the family are pretty smart guys which is also a wonderful thing.  What would be even more wonderful is if all the smart, handsome fellas in the family were also rich but these are tough times we live in.  We'll take handsome and smart.

 The Rehearsal! Dinner!  was great, the food was awesome, particularly the Cesar (how the hell do you spell Cesear salad!?!) well salad, the salad was great.  Can you believe a 3 year old loves salad?  It's mostly the dressing she likes, but she'll eat it and Mommy will take that.

 We love visiting with Uncle Dan so much, he is so fun.  He gets silly with us, he plays with us, he gives us candy and sugar and food with chemically enhanced colors that don't exist anywhere in nature filled with additives and preservatives that Mommy can't pronounce and it's all together awesome, because we're kids and we dig that shit.

 Here is Teti with her man, Mr. Bryan.  Hello, Mr. Bryan!  Mr. Bryan scolded Mommy this wedding weekend, so you know he's comfortable with the family when he can rightfully scold Mommy.  Add him to the long list of people who have to tell Mommy what's what every now and again.  We do this on a daily basis. 

 We look so much alike, don't we?

 Nah, that's okay, I love you anyway, Mommy!

 This part of the Rehearsal! Dinner! was fun, because Duda got up to give a speech.  Duda loves to speak in public and give speeches.  He takes them very seriously.  His speech was...

 ...an opportunity for Anna to run up to the microphone!  Here we can see he is emphasizing some point about...

 ...how great it would be if I joined them! "Hello everybody!  Hello everybody!  Hello everybody!"  we love this microphone business!  It takes our voices which are already very loud and makes them - very much louder!  This is awesome!  "Hello everybody! HELLO EVERYBODY! HELLOOOOOEVERYBODY!!!!!"  Wait, was Duda saying something?!?

This is the last picture Mommy got before the camera pooped out.  We think everyone enjoyed the Rehearsal! Dinner!  but we enjoyed it most!
More, more, more pics to come!
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack

The Rehearsal!

 What a WEEK we had last week!  We have over 300 new pictures so we are going to have to post in phases!  We'll start with The Rehearsal!  It was at Ms Aunt Rhonda's house (who has a pool - we will prolly be spending LOTSA time at Ms Aunt Rhonda's house! ;-)  You can see above Anna is a little skeptical about the whole thing...  Of course we arrived at The Rehearsal half an hour late (incidentally was exactly how late Mama was to her own rehearsal - but when you're the bride you can do that, when you're the Flower Girls, well...hmmm...beg forgiveness!)

 Meet Miss Allerie!  She's wonderful, she's AUNT KIMBER's cousin and Ms Aunt Rhonda's baby girl - love her!  She was the Maid of Honor in the wedding.

 Do you like my arm warmers?  I found them in a trunk of dress up clothes that were Mama's old dance costumes.  They added a certain Joie de Vivre to my Flower Girl Rehearsal ensemble so I went with it.  That was a battle Mama and Daddy figured didn't need to be fought on this beautiful day!

 Do you know who this is?  It's AUNT KIMBER!!  Look at that glow!  You can't put that kind of glow on with make up!  That's an "I'mabouttogetmarried" glow!

 And Jacky was SUCH a good boy during all the festivities!  Let's get this Rehearsal started!  First up - flower girls!

 Don't I look like I have been waiting for this moment my whole life!  If blogs had sound, you'd hear Anna wailing!  We tried the one-at-a-time down the aisle - and you can see how that worked out...

 ...or didn't.

 No matter - we'll just say a million silent little prayers that that doesn't happen on wedding day!

 Mama loves this picture so much she's going to frame it.  Doesn't Uncle Mark look so handsome?  Doesn't Mama's hair look GREAT?

 I got an idea!  Maybe if I hold Anna's hand and we walk down the aisle TOGETHER!  Yes!  THIS will work!

 All better!

 Meet Ms Aunt Rhonda!  She LOVES Jacky!  She's so sweet, we are so excited to be an extended part of Aunt Kimber's extended family!

 Daddy was on Jack duty the whole weekend.  He was also the one taking most of these pictures.  Thanks, Daddy!  Don't worry, Mama will get you back for Uncle Matt's wedding weekend which is the next big wedding adventure we are looking forward to!

This may be the only picture of Mommy and Daddy with Just Jack since the day he was born.  We're around here somewhere - probably giving Miss Aunt Kimber some last minute wedding advice.  Like, make sure you go potty, don't hold it until the last minute or you might have an accident.  Or, if you don't get some rest today you won't be able to stay up all night and party tomorrow.  Our favorite though is, make sure you take good care of our Uncle Mark.  He needs it, or he will leave his stinky socks all over the floor.
Love,
Lilly, Anna and Jack