Our Beach Vacation: Part 1

Back in the spring, we scheduled a week of vacation for the end of the summer. After looking forward to it for what seemed like forever, the time finally came for us to pack up and head to the beach! T's parents joined us for the first three nights, and my parents came for the last three nights.

To summarize, it was a week full of sun, sand, seashells, sand castles, seafood, "sun scream" (applied liberally multiple times a day...), ice cream, pool time, potty time (training is well underway for one soon to be 3 year old...), and Peter Pan reading, with a healthy dose of Olympics watching, of course! The girls had such fun, and we enjoyed the chance to watch them experience so many new things and relax some, too.

I have had a hard time narrowing down the pictures to post, so I've decided to share alot of them.

We left on Friday afternoon and spent the night in with T's aunt, uncle, and cousin on the MS Gulf Coast. We had a great time visiting and the girls loved playing at their house. While making up the girls' bed, T had a bit of a fall, but LL was quick to offer her beloved Cinderella ice pack (oh yes, it came on vacation with us!). Even though he just had a minor bump on the knee, AG and LL both applied bandaids and soon he was good as new!


That night we tried a new sleeping arrangement...AG and LL slept in the same bed for the first time! It worked out so well we had them share all week at the beach, too!


Nana introduced SJ to the waves and sand our first day at the beach. At first she pulled her feet back from both, but by the end of the day she'd decided to not only touch but taste the sand (of course!)


AG and Grandpa got busy building a sand castle.


Have you ever seen a gator and crawfish this cute?


Another day, another trip to the beach! T and AG took a stroll...


Grandpa and LL went in search of shells...


and Nana and SJ played peekaboo in the shade!


SJ was really warming up to the beach!


Looking for crabs in the waves...


We all enjoyed the pool where we stayed, too!


We walked back from the pool each day single-file. This was the girls' idea, and LL especially seemed to enjoy practicing for school!


Grandpa continued the tradition of reading Peter Pan to eager little ears. Don't even think about skipping a page...the next generation has it memorized now!


More pictures from the second half of the week to come!

Up, Up, and Away!

Yesterday evening we went to a hot air balloon championship which is held here each year. This was a new experience for all of us, and it was really cool! The actual racing takes place in the mornings, but they have several neat "events" each evening, so we packed a picnic and went to check it out. We got there just in time to see a parachute team make their grand entrance, and then all the balloon action started happening.

SJ enjoyed hanging out in the stroller for a while as we waited for the "mass ascension". This is when lots of the balloons go up together and they kind of stage a "chase".


This Coke balloon was the first one to take off...it was the designated "hare" which all the others would chase.


The rest of the balloons, the "hounds", inflated at different rates and went after the hare.


Watching all the balloons rise and float off into the distance was so surreal and
relaxing...


Hanging out between events...


Seeing the balloons up close was fun...and impossible to capture fully with our camera!


Here's SJ being entertained by LL. She loves to laugh with her big sisters!


After sunset, the balloons inflated on the ground and did a "balloon glow."


Magical!


AG watching the glow

Art and Science Museum

Last week we went to our local Art and Science Museum for the first time. We met some friends there and took advantage of having my friend Jess here to lend an extra pair of eyes and hands! Here she is helping the girls with a craft project in the kids' room where we spent all our time.


AG and LL had fun playing in the area for the "bigger" kids, but SJ got to explore an area for littler ones. Here she is just after we arrived, taking a break on a neat glowing bench.


I saw her do her first true, hands and knees crawling while we were there! This green dinosaur was what she was going for, and she seemed pretty pleased with the results of her effort!


She's getting better at pulling up these days...mostly to her knees, but in the last few days we've seen her get to her feet pulling up on the couch a few times!


After leaving the museum, we walked up onto the levee for a view of the bridge, river, and the WWII ship that serves as part of the local veterans memorial. We will have to go back to tour it sometime!

"Aunt Jess"

Oh, what a special treat we had last week! A 48 hour visit from my dear friend since 9th grade, known to the girls as "Aunt Jess"! We have been blessed to see her fairly often over the last few years, but only for a couple of hours at a time, so it was really wonderful to have an extended time for her to truly get acquainted with the girls, and vice versa. As you can see, they had lots of fun with her!




We loved having you here, Jess, and miss you! Come back again soon!

Here Come the Brides...

AG and LL love each other. And last week they decided to get married. More like they were playing dress up and AG had the idea to play wedding and LL went along with it because it involved all her favorite things: putting on as many fancy clothes and accessories as possible, dancing, laughing, and later on, the appearance of a baby, which AG explained before the ceremony, "We have a wedding, get married, and THEN a baby." She's picked up on some good life lessons at the age of 4!

Ready for the ceremony


Dancing...there will be dancing!


AG straightening LL's wings...just doing her part to make sure LL looks her best for the occasion.


Immediately after all this, AG ran and put a baby doll under her shirt, then informed me, "I'm having a baby in November. It's November!" Then she went to the couch, pulled the baby out, and that was that! What a sweet stage...

A Fun Family Reunion

Our weekend road trip continued with a night at PopPop and Gran's house, and on Sunday morning we went with them to a family reunion that T and I hadn't been to since we got married...which means the girls had lots of special people to meet! I grew up going to this annual gathering, hosted by my Great Aunt Brookie, whose grace and hospitality never fade and make it hard to believe so many years have passed! It was very special to go back with three children of my own. The girls had a great time with some of their older cousins and had no trouble holding them captive to be their designated readers and outside tour guides! Here are AG and LL making a loop around the pond in Aunt Brookie's front yard with their sweet cousins.


They'd heard there were fish in the pond, and all it took was throwing in some bread to see for themselves! They loved feeding the fish and thankfully no one fell in!


We had a wonderful time on all of our stops on our weekend road trip, and loved getting to see so many dear loved ones!

Signs of Summer

Last weekend we made a trip to visit all the girls' grandparents. First stop: Nana and Grandpa's house. AG and LL loved helping in the garden and picked lots of cherry tomatoes. Just look at this harvest!

While they were picking with Grandpa, AG realized she'd accidentally picked one that was just slightly less ripe and red than her others. So she said to Grandpa, "Can you put this in LL's bowl?" She's a bit particular, on occasion :)

The main indoor activity they couldn't get enough of was modeling all the jewelry Nana keeps for them to play with. Here's LL having her breakfast, bedazzled.


Nana and Grandpa taught the girls how to play hopscotch! Somehow I missed out on this growing up, and had no idea there was as much to it as there is...I just thought you hopped back and forth on the squares. Of course AG and LL were a little bit young to do it all, but they sure had fun (and looked cute!) trying! (As did their Daddy, but I'll restrain myself and not post the great action shot I took of him playing!)


And of course, there was some fun playtime in the pool next door!

Rain, etc.

We had a nice rain shower one evening last week, and T took the girls out back to play in it. They had so much fun running around and splashing in the puddles. Even SJ got to experience it! She was fascinated with how it dripped off the roof!

"We're soaked!"


This photo is not rain-related, but it was taken later that night when I went in to peek at SJ. She was sound asleep when I found her like this!

Taking Another Spin...

Week before last we also had a visit from Gran and PopPop. On Saturday morning we took the girls to ride the carousel again, and of course they had a great time!

Nana-o-Rama

Last week Nana came for a short but fun-filled visit. She got here Tuesday afternoon in time for some good playtime with the girls.



Of course, in addition to lots of swinging and silliness from the girls, there was plenty of sweetness to go around!


The next morning we went to the last storytime of the summer at the library and then to pick up a few beach toys (only a few weeks to wait!) and have lunch at Chick-Fil-A, topped off by ice cream cones...


and showing Nana their sliding ability on the playscape there. AG mastered this one a while back, but LL just went down the slide for the first time a few weeks ago. However, she proudly declared, "I'm not scared of the slide!" and, as you can see, she and AG had a great time going down it over and over.



Thanks for coming, Nana! We all enjoyed having you here!

Playing Tag

I'd heard about babies who liked tags on their blankets before, but since neither of our first two seemed to notice tags at all, this was something I never gave much thought. Now, however, we have a serious "taggie" of our own. SJ finds every tag on every reachable item and claims it in her tight little grip or, if she's in the mood, carries out a tag taste test. Stuffed animals of all sizes seem to be the most common, but pretty much all toys (including her sisters' doll strollers) are fair game. Here she is last week, carrying out her usual playtime routine while Nana was here to observe!




*Thanks to Nana for the "catchy" title! :)

What she's been thinking...

Last night at bedtime, LL asked, "Why did Uncle David write "The Lord is my shepherd?""

Exuberance

If you look up the word "exuberant" in the dictionary, you will find it means "Joyously unrestrained and enthusiastic." Then you'll see this picture:



This is the word I think of all the time when I watch LL just being LL!

Yesterday was exactly 3 months until her 3rd birthday, and she's been talking about her party already for weeks. We spent the day with Nana doing lots of fun things (I'll post more about that later!).

A few cute LL stories from the last month:

One day she was putting on a dress-up dress (happens a few times daily...) and had it backwards, so I told her, "Take it off and spin it around." A second later I looked back and she was holding it up in front of her, twirling around! Then she was ready to put it back on!

One day, weeks ago, she asked me, "Who is Rocko Bama?" AG said, "L, it's Barak Obama!" (I had no idea they knew stuff like this...) Then LL asked, "What's Clinton's name?" Little ears pick up a lot from my morning news show!

She loves to play a little game by saying (really quickly, it's so automatic...)
"I'm not going to give you another big hug...FROWN!" Then when you look sad, she immediately jumps on you with a huge hug and screams, "SURPRISE!!!"

A Few New Views

The girls all dressed up in their ladybug dresses before church last Sunday (don't miss T's finished built-in cabinets in the background!)


A rare moment of SJ getting to sit on the couch with her big sisters


Cute choo choo!


Red, white (Mommy's, not pictured!), and blue!


Hope y'all have a great time celebrating this 4th of July!

Ready, Set, Swing!

The girls are still loving their swingset, and we moved SJ's swing onto it so they can all 3 swing side by side. Seeing how much fun they have makes it worth facing the heat and humidity!


Of course the slide is lots of fun, too. LL loves to raise up her arms and legs and see how fast she can go, and she also likes to slide like this...


AG has learned to not only get on the swing by herself, but now can also get herself going, and she's really proud of this accomplishment!


Our swinging sweetie!