Brace Yourself---MORE Birthdays!

Sunday, after church and lunch, we headed over to Missy's mom's house to celebrate my niece, Eva Rose's, 6th birthday! She and the other bazillion kids thoroughly enjoyed playing with toys and filling up on cheese, crackers, fruit, cake and of course, ice cream! We adults thoroughly enjoyed sipping vino, snacking and catching up....Below, like uncle, like niece. I could not be happier that Wendy has my brother's spazzy personality.

"The Walker."

Wendy wasn't feeling too into this photo session, but y'all, guess what's special about this pic? This dress is 24 years old. I wore it when I was 7. AND! My grandmother, Ruth, made it for me. We walked Wendy, in this dress, over to my grandmother at church Sunday morning, and I think she was surprised, however, she does not remember making it. I wouldn't either! It's been a loooooong time!

Monday, yesterday, Wendy turned 4!!!!!!!!!! For her birthday, and it was perfect because James was off work for Labor Day!, we left Linc with my mom and took Wendy to Galveston. We swung by our old house in Dickinson on the way, to show her where she was conceived, however, we didn't use that word of course! Once at the ocean, we put her swimsuit on and tried to play in the sand, however nothing made that a very appealing choice. For one, it was drizzly, windy and somewhat stormy! The waves were crashing rather roughly, the sand was cold, compacted and covered in trash, and I had to use the porta potty, but this, we think, drug addicted couple were in there doing something that takes longer than using the potty or changing clothes. We saw them emerge from their respective stalls a long time later, each somewhat out of it and carrying suspicious baggies. So sad. Wendy freaked out by the vastly different appearance of this beach, versus the calm, soft, gorgeous, sunny ones from her prior home, so we quickly switched gears. The Rain Forest Cafe! We took her on the adventure ride, and the first time through, she was one scared kitten.....

Her little eyes darted here and there, and James did his best to point out that the snakes and gorillas were really just mechanical and like big toys.

Still, girlfriend was not too comfortable with it.

To make her feel bettah, I surprised her with a plush, "purchased with my loving heart," from the gift shop, and we sat down to eat!

Wendy was quite taken with a massive, bright butterfly affixed to the wall across from our table and marveled at how its wings would occasionally open and close slowly as if in rest.

Our waitress took this pic for us, and Wendy is seen here trying to hold up, not "stree," but FOUR fingers! All day long she asked, "I'm FOUR?! TODAY I'm four?!" Because her first birthday party was days early, she was thrown off a bit.

Two gals came around taking donations for missions and made these really cute balloon characters, so of course, we let Wendy get one.

She chose Hello Kitty.

I played the "mean game" with her and tried taking it for myself, but smart Woo Loo wouldn't have it! A fun thing we did was every now and then, I'd note the time, "Oh, James! It's 1:43, time to sing Happy Birthday to Wendy again!"

In keeping with the spoiled birthday girl theme of the day, we got her the souvenier elephant drink filled with cherries, which we had to dig out for her.

A lunch guest...

Then, the waitresses came around to present an icecream sundae and to sing Happy Birthday to her! She loved it! And, I was glad for her to have it as she'd done a fantastic job eating her popcorn shrimp!

James and I had fish tacos and he slurped an adult beverage, you know, the kind they have in the rain forests...

This one speaks for itself.

Yeah, so does this one.

All during lunch, all we heard was how much she wanted to ride the ride again. MAN! I so wish we hadn't let her, because last night, the night before her first day of pre-k, she awakened, SCREAMING several times, afraid of having a nightmare. I knew it!

This series of photos was taken by my mom. I love how they're interacting!