Fridays in Florida are ALWAYS more fun!!

So after Josiah got home from school on Thursday, I turned him over (along with Jacob) to David, and the two younger ones and I hit the road! The kids did GREAT on the drive down to Florida - we only had to stop twice!! I took us a little over 9 hours and we got to West Palm Beach a little before midnight. Callie VERY much enjoyed being queen bee in the car - getting me all to herself (since Caleb isn't all that demanding yet!) She talked my ear off and LOVED getting to watch HER own movies - My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake - not transformers or any of that boy stuff!! She was a hoot!

Friday morning, we woke up and had to run a few errands to make sure we were ready for the bridal shower on Saturday. First stop was the Party Store!

Callie ran over to see the "big Dora" right away! (Do you notice that she's wearing her "princess" shoes and a medal around her neck? What a mess she is!!

Caleb liked sitting in Josiah's high chair and wearing his bib....

...and trying out his food! He got to try some of Joe's Squash stash in Kelli's freezer! Not super thrilled about it, but not terrible!

And THEN....came a HUGE surprise!! I'm feeding Caleb in the high chair, and Kelli was in the backyard with Callie and Joseph. Kelli's house phone rings and I hear that it's my mom leaving a voicemail. So I grab the phone really quick to say hi to her. Mom asks what I'm doing, and I tell her that the babies had woken up from their naps, I was feeding Caleb squash, getting ready to run a few more errands for the shower, etc. Then she says, "Do you have room for one more for the shower?" I'm like, "WHAT?!?!" Mom says " I'm at Kelli's front door!" OH MY WORD - I was dying! I run out there, and there stands my mom - with her little wheelie suitcase! She TOTALLY shocked me! Decided last week that she was NOT going to miss Kristen's shower, booked a ticket, flew in, and took a cab to Kelli's house to surprise us! This coming from my MOM who does NOT like surprises...at all!!! I gave her a huge hug and then said "does Kelli know about this?" Mom laughed and said that she didn't tell ANYONE so I made her stand there while I ran to get Kelli. I told Kelli that "someone" was at the front and she needed to get the door...while I went to get my camera to catch Kelli's reaction to seeing Mom!

So here's Kelli seeing Mom at the front porch!!

And then Kelli squealed so loud that Joseph started crying....she is quite noisy and exclamatory! :)

And then here's Mom sitting down telling Kelli and I how she totally did this all on her own and at the last minute to surprise us. Note that Kelli is in shorts and a tshirt (it was BEAUTIFUL weather there that weekend) and Mom is in a turtleneck - it was supposed to snowed DC that morning!!! Man, we were just so excited that Mom was there!!

These boys are hilarious together. They are 3 months apart, and we always have so much fun putting them together!! Caleb is on the left, and Joseph is on the right.

Callie got in the mix for a while - she sat right there in the middle and was going back and forth rubbing each of their heads....

Then Kristen came over after work, and we had fun surprising her with Mom too!! We had Mom hide upstairs and then she called Kristen on her cell phone and was saying how sad she was that she couldn't be here this weekend....and then she walked downstairs and said Hi to Kristen in person!!! WHAT FUN!

And then after the babies were in bed, I had to do my long run that night (9 miles) because I knew that the morning would be too crazy with shower preparations. It was awfully nice running right alongside of the intercoastal...even if it was 30 degrees warmer than I've been training in!! I ran the first 5, and then Kelli met me and ran the last 4 with me...while we talked through our checklist of things for the morning! :)