"Ranching It" Part Two

As I mentioned in the above post, we all headed out to our ranch for a med school reunion.
Here are the families:
The Warminskis, The Hartzlers, Us Burkharts,The McAdams' and the Louis'


I simply loved spending time with everyone and learning from my friends who have turned themselves into super mommies!

Amy and Brinley (almost 3 months)


Rebekah and Henry ( a year and 4 months)

( with baby number two on the way! SHE is due in january!)

Sari and Witten ( 2 1/2 months)

Meagan and Luke ( 2 years 2 months)

As well as learning from my mommy friends, I got a good glimpse at what awesome doctor daddies we have in the group. What lucky mommies and daughters we are to have such great daddies! And Zack is so lucky to have such a great support system in doctoring and in daddying:

Rob and his Cowboy Witten:

Rocky and his beautiful girl Brinley:

Johnathan and sweet Luke

Tom and that cute boy Henry:

Bekah and Brinley had lots of catching up to do that weekend, being the best buds that they are.
We had plenty of photo shoots with their matching outfits:

We tried to get both of them smiling at the camera, but really that's a pretty tall order. When one was looking and happy, the other one was crying and looking for her mommy!

This was a pretty good one, and swear, only moments before,

Bekah was taking her turn at having a meltdown!

Bekah grew out of her first swimsuit, so she insisted on going out to get the same one, only the next size up for the ranch, and decided Brinley needed her old one so they could be twinkies:

Bekah was pretty upset one night and we thought that her and Brinley must have had a

little tiff,

Perhaps it had something to do with that cutie patootie, Witten . . .
A love triangle may already be forming . . .

Regardless, of what comes there way, they will be friends forever . . if their mommies and daddies have anything to do with it!( getting the babies to look the same direction all weekend long for the pics was difficult, here you see the behind the scenes look at how we did it : )
It was such a blessing to spend such quality time with our friends, getting to know their children so well and talking about the wonderful world of parenting! Many mornings were spent chatting on the porch giving us quite the opportunity to get a good use out of our hooter hiders : ).

We loved watching our own children hang out and get to know one another!

Henry and Luke exploring in the wagon:
Luke is going to be such a great big brother, he loved on the babies all weekend long!

And at the ranch, there is something for everyone, like

horseback riding, even Witten took part!

Meagan, Luke and Sari visiting the barn:

Rebekah tried to help Henry warm up to the horses, I am thinking next time he will be ready!

Until then, rocking is much more fun!

Swimming was probably Bekah's favorite thing to do:

She even started kicking in the water, something she had not done the first time we came out!


And as the girls held onto their babies in the pool,

the hard working residents, held onto their brewskies : ).

Of course, all that fun in the sun requires an afternoon nap:

You can also go exploring by foot, like

Louis (teehee, Louis!)and Clark here:

Or go mule riding to see the wildlife:


Henry and Luke really liked this early evening routine : )

The older guys also loved going out in the evenings for animal sightings:

Beautiful!

After the evening ride, we do lots of cooking,

And then, lots of eating:

Hanging out in the hot tub is a must do after we stuff ourselves silly with dinner and dessert:

We also did our best to squeeze in a much loved game of Yaddi Fat Sack:

We did lots of playing with the baby toys, whether we were a baby or not:

(Here, we have all the "Rebekah" labeled stuff together for a pic, even the "Rebekah's themselves!" Bekah feels so special to share the same name as someone that her mommy and daddy love so much : )

The guys always bring their old golf balls and they will hit them into the lake,

even Luke wanted to practice his swing:

The girls did lots of dressing up:

(Amy made that cute onsie!)

And all of the families did their best to have some family time as well:

Since Nora was an OT, she was able to help us learn more about all the cool developmental moments of our babies,

Here, Witten is showing off his swatting skills that he learned for his mommy!

Of course, Henry took advantage of this relaxing weekend to "catch up on his reading."

I don't know who had more fun, the kids, the parents or Nora and Steve, but it was special weekend for everyone.
Thanks Nora for all the great pics! She ended up being our "photographer" that weekend, making CD's for all of us! She took the job so seriousley that at one point she found herself falling into the wadding pool trying to get a good shot of the babies! All of a sudden, Nora was in the pool, shoes and all!

Here are the kids with Steve and Nora as we attempt to get a group shot of all of them, wearing the cutest little onsies with their initials on them that Amy and Rebekah made!

Thanks girls for making these! Bekah loves hers and wears it all the time!

Here is another pic of them so you can see the onsie's close up:

( Bekah loves hers, even though you can't tell in this pic!)

And here are their matching "boot" socks, compliments of Nora : ).

And most of all, thanks Steve and Nora for making it possible for all of us to rest and relax in such a beautiful place with friends that we love so much!

What an unforgettable weekend!

Wow, I can't believe I finally finished that post! Teehee, you probably can't believe that you finished reading it, it was so long! Thanks for hanging in there for anyone that did! : ) That was the "mother" of all posts! And let me just tell you how hard I tried to make the spacing right, and it still was so choppy! Oh well, I had to throw in the towel on that one!