All is right in my world again.

Because my Hare-Bear is back in my arms again! Wellllll, okay. Not technically in my arms, because he's not really the snuggly type, but you know what I mean. His Mamaw kidnapped kept him for a couple of days again. (I know, right? It's like the lady wants shared custody or something.) You would think that by his third vacation away from home I would be over my separation anxiety, but I'm totally not. It's so quiet around here when he's gone. And even though it seems like every day I long for a little more quiet and I could have gotten a million things done without a toddler in the house, instead I was mopey and not nearly as productive as I would have liked and found myself really missing all the noise and destruction and giggles and kisses that go hand in hand with my little hurricane of a child.  But I know he had a great time...he's been a chatter box all day talking about his adventures with Mamaw!

Before everybody left on Thursday, the kids got in some good cousin time.

We all loaded up and headed to Moody Gardens. Everybody loved the Aquarium and the Tropical Rainforest was also pretty neat. What wasn't so neat was the fact that the rainforest felt even steamier than our own armpit climate if that's somehow possible -- it sort of felt like we were ants under a magnifying glass. But sweating is good for the pores, right? :) It was worth it though. Harrison loved the butterflies and the birds and we even spotted a monkey.

Sadly, this is the only picture I got of our trip. It was right after Harper barfed all over my camera. I was very glad to see that my beloved Canon did in fact survive.

Wednesday was Rick's birthday.

He had a little help blowing out his candles....

And opening his presents...

And especially eating his cookie cake. Yes...the cookie cake was a big hit.

He's so special that he got to have two celebrations. Last night we went to a hibachi restaurant with a few friends. Japanese food = YUM.

Allen, Lindsay, & Jon

Garrett & Ashley

No idea what's going on in this pic but isn't that a snazzy watch on his wrist? ;)

This morning we met Rick's parents on the north side of Houston to pick up Harrison and figured that while we were up there we would stop by the outlets in Cypress. Did you know that it was tax-free weekend here in Texas? Oh, you did? We were a little out of the loop...but apparently everybody else in Houston was well aware of this information because everybody else in Houston was at the outlets in Cypress. I was able to snag a few good deals (including a great pair of jeans from Banana Republic for $8!), but I'm not fully convinced it was worth fighting the crowd.

Before I go, here's a sweet picture I took this morning of Harper with her dad. While we all missed Bubba dearly, it sure was nice to get in some good one-on-one time with our baby girl!