Beach Trip 2008 (Warning: picture overload!)

Every year my mom, my aunt Bobbie, my cousins (Jessica and Jackie) and I take the kids to the beach. It is always a blast, and this year was no exception. The kids loved, loved, loved it, as you can see from this Baywatch shot. :)



Joshua and Lesey took to the water like fish; they rode waves, swam through waves, swam underwater, got knocked down and dragged around . . . and loved every minute of it.













Josh also spent his days digging giant holes in the sand.





Ethan liked playing in the surf where it just went around his ankles and knees. He really loved it, but he didn't like it if we took him out where it got deep. I am going to try to post a video link later; in most of the videos, Ethan is running from away from a wave and laughing.












Lauren did not like the water AT ALL. Little miss scared-of-her-own-shadow (and, I do mean that literally as she freaks out over her shadow as we walk to the car after small group every Wed. night!) loved digging in the sand and jumping in the holes Joshua made, but let a drop of ocean touch her feet, and you'd think she was being drawn and quartered.











On Saturday night we went to eat at the Old Florida Fish House so Joshua could get the crab claws he loves so much. (Remember this is the kid who chooses Red Lobster for his b'day dinner every year.)





We ran into Lauren Roberts while we were there and were able to get an entire group photo for the first time! Of course, by then the kids were awfully tired of sitting and smiling.



On Monday we went to a great little shopping area in Rosemary beach to get ice cream cones and walk around a bit. We also found a cute kids' shop where each of the kids picked out a webkinz. Josh and Ethan both chose Tigers, Lauren chose a chihuahua (aptly named Taco), and Lesey chose a Panda.









Since this was all after a long morning at the beach, Lauren was a bit tired.



Also for perhaps the first time ever . . . proof that I, too, was at the beach. :)

Mother's Day

Sorry, I have no pictures. I have been slack in the photo department this week. I do have cute stories, though, so your visit to my blog will not have been in vain.

On Saturday, Josh asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. Thinking he may go shopping with David and wanting to tell him something pretty easy to find, I said, "bubble bath." So, come Sunday morning, Josh came excitedly into my bedroom bearing a GIANT (Christmas!) gift bag. Inside was something well-wrapped with construction paper and about 75 feet of scotch tape. He had wrapped up his Sesame Street watermelon bubble bath for me! Is he too sweet or what? Of course, I took a delicious smelling bath that night. :)

I also received 2 dozen gorgeous roses from David Saturday afternoon . . . and have even managed to keep them alive so far. (3 days - that must be some type of Guiness record, right?)

Thankful Friday

Stealing this idea from my friend Kim, whose blog I love. Things I am thankful for at the end of this week:

- healthy children
- a healthy heart and properly functioning circulatory system!
- and, of course, my wonderful doctors who found my problem and fixed it
- a great relationship with my parents and siblings (and an awesome sister-in-law)
- David's newfound zeal for sprucing up the yard and flower beds
- Dora the Explorer
- warm weather
- sprinklers and children who love to play in them
- the thrill Lauren gets out of playing with bubbles . . . there's no better giggle
- friends who promise not to have any fun at their D.C. get-together since I can't be there (If you do anything besides Scrabble and _The Thin Red Line_, I will know!)
- the kids' excitement over a package from Grandma
- kids who sleep all night in their own beds
- pink pajamas with hearts on them
- blue pajamas with dinosaurs on them
- finding plastic lizards in my bed at night . . . I suspect someday I'll miss them

Thought for the day

After some discussion at our small group last night regarding living in harmony and acting with love, I've been pondering this quote from a book by John Knox (my former pastor, not the deceased theologian):

You have no need to be right when your need to be righteous has been met.

Just food for thought.

Things my kids are good at

Since yesterday was a bit of picture overload, and let's face it, not many people would be as proud of plastic animals scattered around the front yard as the parent of the scatterers, I thought I'd practice a little photo restraint today. However, I can't resist showing you what Joshua did entirely by himself while I was cooking dinner this afternoon. He told me he wanted to make this snowman craft he saw in a book his grandma sent him. I said that I didn't have time to help him with a craft at the moment, but maybe we could do it later. Joshua, never one to be deterred, asked if he could just try it all by himself. Sure, why not? Here's what he did, from start to finish without one smidgen of help from me (naturally, since the only words he ever speaks while working on something are, "Don't look yet!"):



So, in the category of "Things he's good at," crafts and anything creative/artsy would be at the top of the list for him. Other things would be physical stuff: swimming (he learned to dive (sort of) and swim to the bottom of the deep end last year, at age 4!), climbing, sports, etc.

Ethan: Here's his favorite way to pass the time:



I have pictures of him with numerous completed puzzles, but none on the hard drive of our new computer. He LOVES to work puzzles and will spend hours doing so. He plays by himself better than most 3 year olds and is already showing natural abilities at math . . . of course, you all know he got that from me. lol. On the other hand, give him a two-step instruction (ie, put your clothes on and brush your teeth), and he will still be wandering around the living room naked an hour later!

Lauren, well, Lauren loves to be the center of attention. She's a natural born entertainer and spends most of her waking hours singing, and anytime she's not singing, you can bet your bottom dollar that she's at least talking. She's not exactly singing here, but you can tell what a ham she is:



Funny Lauren incident:
On Saturday night we went to dinner at Red Robin. As the waitress was walking away from the table after we paid, Lauren leaned way out of her high chair and hollered after her, "Thanks for bringing me food!!" Typical Lauren. :)

A safari in my front yard

The boys were playing quite busily in the front yard this afternoon, and every time I went to check on them, they hurried me back inside, saying, "Don't look at anything!" While that is normally an indicator of some horribe wrongdoing, Josh assured me they weren't up to anything mischievous, so I didn't look. Finally, they came in and said to come see the "jungle world we made!" Here are just a few pictures of the many, many (way more than you'll see here) plastic animals they set up in our front yard:

The plains of Africa, wherein live cheetahs, lions, zebras, and elephants:







The less-wild of the wildlife - horses gazing over a fence (which looks suspiciously like our garden hose!):



Dinosaur Fossils:



An ant hill:



Monkeys live in trees, where else?



As do snakes:



This must be the Amazon, given all the frogs:



The Ocean:



Josh climbing a tree to escape a hungry cheetah:



And, Ethan just because he's cute (and very proud of their animal world)



I have to say I was quite proud of their ability to sort and organize the different animals. Who says 3 and 5 year olds need to be in school to learn valuable educational tools?!

Wow, that hurt

So, I finally feel like I'm getting back to life. Decided to give running - okay, jogging - a try tonight. Since my surgery (if you know me at all, you've completely ignored that phrase and inserted "since I was 19"), I haven't done much exercise except the stationary bike, but my brother's got me intrigued by the idea of trying a mini-triathalon at the end of June (http://www.callawaygardens.com/Callaway/info/calendar/calendar.fitnessseries_sprinttriathlon.event.aspx ) It occurred to me that perhaps I should try running, swimming, and/or riding a bicycle sometime between now and then, or I'll just be shelling out $50 for the opportunity to embarrass myself - which I seem to find myriad ways to do daily at no cost. Granted, there still stands a very good likelihood that I'll still be experiencing said embarrassment, but at least I now know that I can run a mile and a half and not die. And, it was probably at a faster pace than most octagenarians . . . at least those who had surgery 9 weeks ago.

So, now David (who began jogging while I was in the hospital) is out jogging the same route I just jogged. He was surprised by how quickly I made it back (honestly, he was probably surprised that I made it back at all), so he's out to outpace me. I'll keep you posted. (He's going to kill me for this post!)

Update: he's back. He beat me. I'll keep the times to myself lest he feel he didn't beat me by enough.

Mom, come see how cute we look

This is what I heard from the kitchen a few minutes ago. It was Josh, of course. He and Ethan decided to make a train out of the kitchen chairs. This was by no means the first time they've done this, but apparently today Joshua thought they looked cuter than normal. :)



Josh said, "Did you notice we're in our pajamas? We're ready for small group!" (Which starts in almost 3 hrs!) Once I had the camera out, Josh wanted me to take a picture of the that showed the dino on his pajama pants. (Don't ask me how he ended up standing on the counter.)



This has been one of those days where my patience wears thin easily. Okay, I admit, that seems to be most days lately. Since tonight is a small group night, which means Lauren will be up late, I knew she needed to take her nap later in the day than normal. However, when I felt like I was running out of patience for the day at 9:14 am, I also knew that I would not be able to keep her up until afternoon if we stayed home all day. So, needing to go to Sam's anyway, we decided to get out of the house for awhile. Took the kids to Burger King for chocolate milkshakes (thank you, BK $1 menu!) and let them run around on the playground for almost an hour. Josh and Ethan found a couple of other boys to play with and had a great time. Then, off to Sam's and home for Lauren's nap.

Is it really Monday?

What a great weekend we had. We started Saturday by going to watch my brother Dan's band (Bibb City Ramblers) play at the Spring Fest downtown. They were really good - best I've heard them sound. The kids loved it, too. (Dan, I really liked how y'all sounded on "Whistle High, Whistle Low.")

















Saturday afternoon was the first swim day of 2008. All the kids had a blast, but it was waaaay to cold for me. Fortunately, Lauren was not a fan of the cold water either, so I didn't have to get in for long. Ethan, who was just beginning to enjoy the water and get a little braver at the end of last summer, took right to it. He jumped off the diving board (with swimmies on) the first day in! I think he will learn to swim without swimmmies pretty easily this year.























Pops and Gaga bought a new swing, so the kids has a giant box to play in. They played in it, decorated it, ate in it, drank in it . . . and then apparently broke it in half, created teams and weapons and waged war in it!

Guess it's about time, huh?

Okay, okay, so, it's been a little while since I started this and then abandoned it. We finally got photoshop installed on our new computer (the new version - LOVE it!), so it should be easier to keep this updated now.

The kids are all doing well. For now. Most of you know that we recently spent several hours in the emergency room with Lauren after she decided to chug a bottle of children's Tylenol. Thank God she was fine, and the worst we had to endure was a little (okay a lot of) activated charcoal. So, that was on Sunday. Not to be left out of the drama, on Tuesday, Joshua decided to turn his dresser into a Transformer by opening all of the drawers at the same time. Of course, it fell over on him. Again, THANK GOD, he is quite strong and was able to hold the weight of it off of himself until I got there. It was suggested that I keep Ethan in bubble wrap for at least the rest of the week since he's the only kid in the house who didn't almost die last week!

Okay, the real reason you're here - to see pictures. Let's see if I can remember how to do this.

Lauren came in to my room the other day and, while wearing her thick footed-pajamas, tried to put on my shoes. I said, "You can't put those on with your pajamas." Not skipping a beat, she instantly took off her pajamas and put on the shoes. She knows her priorities!



She was also pretty happy about her new bathing suit:





(Sorry about that - for some reason, I cannot get that first one to stay rotated.)

Going back a ways, here are a few pics from Easter. The first is my favorite because of Lauren's hilarious expression. Of course, the boys are darn cute, too.







And, now for today. Since it was 80 degrees, the boys talked me into letting them play in the sprinkler this afternoon. Little did I know they moved it to the part of the yard that becomes a swamp with the slightest bit of water. They created a giant mud pond (I'm sure David will be thrilled), and when I made them turn off the sprinkler, they decided to "go fishing" with their plastic poles and fish. Josh (who else?) dragged the wagon into the puddle so that they could fish from a boat.





And, that's about all I have time for today. I promise I won't wait another month and a half before posting again!