The Beach

Y'all we had the best weekend and I'm going share bits-n-pieces with you, but I'm going to let LeeAnn do most of the storytelling. 

You see this week we are out of our normal pattern, Camdyn is out of pre-school and going to horse camp 3 days this week, we have Gramma coming to town on Friday, and I'm just trying to tread the water and keep my stuff together. 

So, I'll share a few photos with you, and then hop on over to LeeAnn's blog and read about how our time together went down. 

I'm trying to re-develop an appreciation for the snapshot, so here we go! 

Saturday morning, we met LeeAnn and her adorable family at the #1 beach in the country.  The morning looked a lot like this:





Camdyn's best friend and her family happened to make a morning out of the beach too.  And we were glad to hang out with them, they brought 2 umbrellas and thereby doubled the amount of shade we had to sit under.  Here Camdyn & her Bestie play in the sand.


Bryce was all about the snacks.  He filled up on blueberries and then promptly fell asleep on LeeAnn's lap...for over an hour.  She got to relax, snuggle her baby, and listen to the sounds of the waves lapping the shore.  Talk about heaven on earth!


Then, Chloe Belle and I took turns taking pictures of each other.  Here's my shot.


And here's hers.  No, I didn't take it of myself, I was trying to move her little fingers off of the lens and she pushed the button. 


OMG - I'm a lucky lady :)


Becky took this shot of me and Chloe together - Love.



After morning crept in to early afternoon, LeeAnn & her family headed to the hotel for naps, and we headed home for the same.  Then, they came over for dinner and play time.  When I opened the door, the first thing we noticed was that we had dressed Rylie & Chloe in the same exact shirt, and of course since my girls usually coordinate, Camdyn was wearing a similar shirt from the same Gymboree line.  How funny...and it made for a really cute picture!  Notice that Chloe has my point n shoot...


And then the evening was over and we bid our friends farewell.  I was kind of bummed that I never got a photo with LeeAnn...but then I loaded the photos on my computer (including 100+ pictures that Chloe took with her fingers covering the lens) and discovered this:


Chloe took it while we were taking pictures of them.  Not the best shot, but her fingers were out of the way!  It's a keeper.

We had a fabulous time with our friends, and we can't wait to get together with them again soon.  Now, head on over to LeeAnn's blog and read in detail about our time at the beach and see some super cute photos!

Fifteen Minutes to Paradise

Which is pretty much how long it takes us to drive from our front door to The Number One rated Beach in the US.  Says Who?  Says Dr. Beach...and I'm guessing since he is a doctor of beaches, then he pretty much knows what he is talking about in his infamous Top 10 Beaches of 2011 List.

So, there the beach sits, and we rarely visit.  The thing is....no matter how nice the beach is, it's sandy and it's messy, and this time of year it's really hot.  I drag my feet about going to the beach...but when I get there...

It's a slice of heaven.

It's clear blue water.  Water just cool enough to refresh, but warm enough to enjoy.

It's powdered sand between your toes and time spent looking for shells and hermit crabs.  It's sunshine and giggles, saltwater, and fresh air.

It's God's best antidote for stress. 

On Saturday evening, we spent time together as a family at the beach.  The girls were content to dip their toes in the water for about 20 minutes before they both begged for swimsuits.  They combed the beach for seashells and sharks teeth.  They went with their daddy out to the sand bar about 20 yards off the beach.  We enjoyed ourselves.

As we piled back in the car, I declared again, for the hundredth time, that we really need to do this more often.  The sand, the mess, the slight inconvenience of driving over the draw bridge to get there...is all worth it.  It's worth it to hear the giggles of delight as my girls run from waves.  It's worth it to see their eyes alive with anticipation and wonderment.  It's worth it to connect as a family.
And, I'm fairly certain that we'll be making the fifteen minute drive to paradise a tad more often.

The Doggy Paddle is My Best Stroke

Quite literally. 

I grew up in the MidWest.  Our opportunity to swim and engage in water activities was pretty much restricted to 2 1/2 months of the year.  Even with a giant in ground swimming pool in our backyard, I never did quite master the concept of holding my breath under water.  I flail.  I struggle.  But, I certainly can get myself from point A to point B...usually holding on to a noodle, but whatever. 

The hubs is a water baby.  He grew up on the coast in San Diego.  Water was an everyday part of his life.  He played water polo and made the All American Water Polo team in college.  The man can swim.  He can do egg beaters in the water endlessly.  He can do flip turns, and he cuts through water like a dolphin. 

My kids got his athletic ability.  I didn't realize how great my 5 year old is at swimming until I watch her with other children her age.   She holds her breath, she retrieves matchbox cars from the bottom of our pool, she dives in headfirst.  The hubs chucks her in the air and she canon balls to the bottom of the pool.  She is fearless and comfortable in the water.

Of course, Chloe Belle watches big Sissy and she wants to do everything just like her.  We recently purchased Puddle Jumpers for her at our local Target.  After she began saying "MYSELF" in the water and refused to let anyone touch her, we decided that she needed some sort of floatation device.  The Puddle Jumpers rock our world.  Daddy now has freedom to play with Camdyn in the water, and Chloe has the freedom to float and kick and get out of the pool on her own.  She also jumps off the side on her own too.  She holds her breath, disappears under the water, and then surfaces with the proudest look on her face.  Getting her to put the thing on is sometimes a struggle, but she sure is happy once she is swimming all by herself in the pool.

This is how we will be spending Mother's Day this year and that suits me just fine! 

I hope you enjoy your Mother's Day weekend!

Beach Bound

What a weekend!  Saturday was pure awesomeness and heavenly and Sunday was pretty much a suck hole for a variety of reasons. 

I'll just go ahead and list the reasons for you: I'm fighting a nasty summer cold/allergies which left me with a headache, stuffy nose, and exhausted.  The bestie jumped on a plane and took my niece with her, and she won't be back for a month, or more.  The girls were fighting - ON PURPOSE, which totally caught me off guard.  I didn't know a 16 month old could annoy and "fight" with her sister on purpose.  But she did and at the end of the whole debacle Chloe (who is apparently team Edward) ended up biting Camdyn.  Cam cried and told her sister that it's not nice to bite your friends, and we had to remind Camdyn that Chloe doesn't have words to tell her when she is getting upset, so she needs to listen to her "squawks" and watch her body language, and then she won't get bit again.  Whew.  That day was a doozy.

But Saturday we decided that we would stay home ALL DAY for the most part!  It was heavenly.  I made blueberry muffins, we sipped our coffee on the patio, and we just took it easy.  Then, I opened my inbox and found that my sweet Amanda at Chasing Twins in Louboutins featured me in her Saturday Spotlight.  Cool!  And, we have some new followers in the house ::waves wildly:: I hope y'all stick around a spell!

So, that pretty much rocked my socks and then we decided that we would splash in the pool awhile, after all, it's 9:00 am and that's not too early to wake up the neighbors, right?  After lunch and nap time I ran Camdyn to the library and Target and then we got ready for her year-end class party at the beach. 

The party was awesome.  The kids had a blast and I got to whip out the camera and take some pictures of the beach...and kids....and the beach.  I didn't get great sunset photos like I had hoped, but we were watching 3 kids that night, and the tide was rougher than normal.  Usually the Gulf is as calm as can be, but there was real current that night, and waves rolling in Daytona Beach style, so I figured it was probably better to put the camera down, turn on my mommy watch dog eyes and keep them glued on the little stinkers.  It was probably a good choice, because they had a blast, and everyone stayed safe. 

I'll post more on the party later in the week, but for now, here are a few of the shots I took at the Beach Party.

This little girl is one of Cam's friends, she has the most amazing eyes, and I can't wait to crop this down and really focus on them.

This pic isn't fab, it's SOOC, but look how Belle loves the water, she was rolling around in it like Zoolander at a model shoot!  She was hilarious, and I enjoyed watching her run in circles around the beach with her little cheeks bouncing up and down on her face.  She slept like a champ on Sat. night too, maybe we need more evenings at the beach?

This little man belongs to one of my best friends.  He's adorable.  I muted the red tones in this edit.  It looks a little dark on the web, and don't know why that is, but he's still cute! 

Tonight, we have Camdyn's orientation for VPK scheduled and ::gasp:: DATE NIGHT! 
And, if I'm really lucky, I'm going to get to hold a new baby tonight and I hope to high heaven that it doesn't cause my ovaries to start itching!   

I hope your Monday is fabulous!

Sometimes No plan is the best plan

Don't you just hate it when you get all gussied up for a night out and plan on having a great time and then it doesn't turn out that way? Yeah, me too. Well, that didn't happen to us this weekend because for once we had NO plans. Yeah, nothing on the docket at all.

We went to a friend’s house to swim on Saturday morning and their pool was cool and refreshing and the kiddos had a great time. Somehow our pool is hot as sin, and Hubs finally lowered the temp on it from 105 (hello hot tub temp) down to 90, so by Sunday night it felt a lot cooler.

Then, we had a play date with baby Abby that somehow turned in to a sleepover. I had been craving Pasta Weezie from Carraba’s, and the Hubs’ craving finally matched up with mine, so we decided on ordering out. We ordered dinner for 4 and decided that Abby would do bedtime at our house. The girls got their first tubby time together and that was….interesting. Chloe is attached to her bath seat. I think it makes her feel safe or something, but Abby can’t sit and not slide all over the tub even with a tub mat, so when we switched them and gave Abby the seat, then Chloe just stood there and cried for her chair. Bath time didn’t last very long on account of that, but I did get one picture of them entranced by their own feet and a rubber duck!

As luck would have it, the kids were exhausted and they all passed out by 8:00 (including my 4 year old and that almost never happens). We enjoyed our dinner on the lanai along with good conversation, several/multiple beers and then after the sun had set decided it was time for an Adult Swim. It’s the first time that the Hubs and I had been in the pool without kids and it was WONDERFUL!

The night ended about 10:30 because we are responsible losers, but we had a fantastic time and now we know that we can do that again since Abby easily sleeps wherever she lays her head.

On Sunday we were invited to the beach! We hadn’t been to the beach since Chloe turned 1 back in March and it was COLD then, so we packed up our beach cart with chairs, towels, buckets, shovels, mermaids, the sun tent, a cooler, tubes and tubes of sunscreen, floppy hats, and headed to the beach. It turns out that Cam’s teacher was there too with her 2 kids (yeah, you can totally hate on her because she is thin and beautiful, and totally shoots down my excuse that kids are the reason that I look the way I do) and Cam was so stoked to see her at the beach. They looked for shells and fish and had a great time.

And, at one point I could actually smell oil, which sucked, and reminded me in an up close and all too personal way how much this oil crisis sucks.  But, the baby looked cute, and she ate a crap ton of sand and didn't seem to mind it at all.  She never did get her suit on, just her jammie top and a swim diaper. 

And the absolute BEST thing about going to the beach is that it does this to the kids:

I just love the fact that we enjoyed our weekend without feeling planned or scheduled and had an unexpected awesome good time with two different sets of wonderful people.  I'm spoiled, really, I am.

 

My Love Tank

Have you ever woke up on a Saturday morning and thought that life was just as it should be?  That's what happened to me this past Saturday, and it was heavenly.  I woke up, unprovoked (sans alarm clock, barking dog, crying kid, frustrated husband).  The kids were happily playing with daddy, the coffee was brewing, and things seemed that they were just as they should be, and believe you -me, I soaked it in, because these moments are rare in my life. 

I grabbed my coffee, put baby down for her morning nap, and settled in next to Cam on the lanai (big screened in porch that contains the pool and is indigenous to the state we live in, for all of you northerners).  She played with her barbies, I soaked in the view and listened to the birds (cue Golden Girls theme song) and then daddy delivered breakfast to me. Say Whaaa?

So, we slowly started our day, and when baby woke up from her nap, we put on our swimmies and headed downtown to the Marina.

Somehow this view just never gets old

The girls had their swimsuits on and geared up for some water fun in the fountains.  This was Chloe's first experience and boy, did daddy watch her like a hawk.  She loved it, and I snapped some pics with my zoom lens from way on top of the fun.  There was no way I was takin' my camera anywhere near all those rugrats and water.  Initially, Cam wanted to stay home.  She wanted to swim in her own pool, where there is "lots of water" and she can swim under the water, but when we got there, she pulled out her horsies and a bucket and ended up having a great time.

And then after the soakin' good time, we swapped lenses and took some family photos in front of a giant yacht, which I wish I owned, but then again, I am a claustrophobic nut job about boats and water, so that probably wouldn't work out so swell.  It made for a sweet picture, though.  Check out Cam in my shades!  She asked to wear them, and she just might be the raddest, tooth missin', 4 year old ever.  BTW, she has 2 more super wiggly teeth in her head, so man, she's gonna look crazy!

and, then, the babies napped like they had never napped before, and the hubs and I watched Wyatt Earp (why, I dunno no, it was on tv so we watched it, and it was actually kinda entertaining) and the peace continued well in to the evening. 

I think sometimes God knows that I need a break.  That I need a moment to soak in my life, the daily miracles, and all of my blessings.  An opportunity to peacefully put things in perspective.  To realize that God doesn't make mistakes and that the world with all of its stresses and joys is exactly the way it should be.  I had that on Saturday.  It was refreshing.  And now that my love tank is full, I can continue on for the next 362 days until a day like this happens again. 

Always a jokester

Last Saturday, after we went to the splash park we decided that we didn't get enough splashing in for the day....so it was pool time.  Nothin' like a good swim to wear a preschooler out. 

Here's how a conversation between me and the hubs went:

Me:  Wow.  My legs are really tired from kicking.  Is that normal?

Hubs:  You should swim more often, it's good exercise.

Cam:  Why are your legs tired Momma?

Hubs:  Because Mommy is almost 40.

Me:  Say WHAT? ::laughs:: I'm not almost 40!  I'm only 32.  I am not even close to 40.  Daddy's an A-S-S ::spells so as not to offend little ears::

Hubs:  You are a lot closer to 40 than you are to 21.

Me:  ::thinks for a split second:: Yeah.  Well.  You are a lot closer to 300 lbs than you are to 150! ::slam::

Hubs:  Get together for a picture.  This conversation is over.

These happy pictures were taken after the conversation.  Oh, and I almost forgot.  This is Hubs behind the camera.  That almost never happens....so, enjoy!

Happy Weekend, y'all!

Splish Splash

On Saturday, we took the chitlins to the splash park so they could...um...splash.  And play in the water, and enjoy the fresh air and frigid water.  This time last year, Chloe, was 4weeks old, and she spent her time at the splash park in the stroller, sleeping soundly to the sounds of the water fountain and kids screaming.  Around September, we actually attempted to take her in the water and she screamed and hollered and retracted her legs so fast, there was no chance baby girl was swimming.

Then, this year.  Ahhhh.  She loves it!  You can just tell by lookin' at her!  

Okay, so their coordinating Gymboree swim suits look way cuter on then they did on the rack.  I love 'em. Although, Chloe's was waayyy big.  It has the swim diaper built in, and it was so huge (size 6-12 months) that if she had an accident it surely would have ended up in the pool.  Good thing she didn't.  Oh, and me in a swim suit in April....egads! 

We stayed for an hour and had a soakin' good time with friends.  Now that baby likes it, I'm sure we'll be here often throughout the summer.

Credits to Becky for taking all of the pictures.  If it wasn't for you there wouldn't be a single picture of me with my kids - ever.  Love you!

Hello Cold Pool

The pool is now open! It's crazy, but it's true and it's only open because kids are resilient and can apparently tolerate 72 degree water. My mom and I would only get in up to our knees, the chitlins, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get completely soaked.

On this particular evening, we were out by the pond feeding bread to the turtles and then Chris said to me, "distract the kids while I get in the pool." So, he sneaks off, puts his swimmies on and gets in the pool. Suddenly, I say, "Camdyn! There is a giant turtle in our pool!" She runs over to the lanai with the greatest concern, peers through the screen, and then shouts, "It's not a turtle! It's DAAAADDDY!" That was quickly followed by a few "I wanna swim(s)" and she was stripping her clothes off before I could even bring her suit out of the house.

Now Chloe is no dummy, and she wants to do what her sissy does, so she started squawking for some swim time too. Luckily, daddy can handle them both in the water!

This summer is really going to be a ton of fun!

Don't you just love this picture of Gramma! I think she should use it for her FB profile pic, cause it is that good. And, Gramma is cool like that. I shot this using my zoom lens that I received as a Xmas gift from the hubs. It's been patiently waiting in my camera bag for months, and I decided to give it a try. I think I really like this piece of glass, although I'm dying for a telephoto lens with a wide aperture (Note to Hubs - Mother's Day is comin' up)!

Camdyn works on her kicks and her scoops. That missin' tooth still cracks me up. She really does look like she is 6 instead of 4.

So, this zoom lens has a bit wider aperture than my stock lens does, and it does a better job blurring out the distractions in the background. Did I just refer to hubs as a distraction? Why, Yes, I did! And, he totally is, and on so many levels, and in an awesomely good way!