Beach Trip: Day 2

Well, maybe I am walking this trip day by day! I came home with a ton of pictures because I had 'super photographer Hannah' with me! Any just down-right-amazing shots that you see over the next few days definitely belong to Hann. She's incredible at catching THE shot. 

Day 2 started spectacularly! I was not yet exhausted from vacationing so hard, so I woke up with the sun, grabbed God's good Word, and sat on the balcony... watching a new day rising and reading of God's faithfulness to His people. I was totally awash with renewal.

 My little heart beat was still snoozing when I came in and it was all I could do to keep from just eating her up right there. That little snoring ball of perfect. So cute. I was thankful she slept late since she had had such a trying day the day before.

 Minutes later she was up and at 'em and seemed to be feeling great! So started our first FULL day of vacation. We were very close to being the first people on the beach! 

 And this child was thrilled to be right in this exact moment...  

(hannah shot)

If you look hard, right in the center of the photo, you can see a dolphin fin. One of easily 40 that we saw over the course of this day. They were everywhere. You couldn't look out at the sea without seeing 4 or 5 at a time! Dolphins are usually a rare sighting so it was amazing to see so many of them!

 London 'swimming'... aka, letting me pull her floating body around the pool! Lazy bones! She got plenty of practice the rest of the week though!

 Hannah giving me 15 minutes to lay on the beach and relax... to which I spent taking pictures of how much fun she is! These two jumped waves for forever!

 Getting swamped by a wave!

 We headed to the Wharf later in the afternoon to grab race packets and ride the ferris wheel.... 

 ...and I fell in love with my life all over again!

 We ate dinner at this new 'food truck-ish' restaurant called the Gulf. A friend (with kids) recommended it to me. The food was casual and fabulous but I am NOT as cool of a mom as my friend is! The restaurant is outside on the beach so London just played in the sand the whole time. She had sand in every nook and cranny of her whole body- not to mention all in her food... BLECH!! I thought i was doing okay until she brought me a huge shard of glass and said, 'Mom... look at this!!' Yeesh. So, the restaurant is great, but only if your kids are old enough to differentiate between beach sand time and dinner time sand time. London is not there yet! :)

My Boo. 

 And another night of incredible moon views / bad photography. It filled up the whole sky in real life!

Beach Trip: Day One

My sweet momma is generous enough to share her place at the beach with her kids so that we can get away for cheap, wonderful, soul therapy vacations. I blogged earlier that London and I were both long over due for a few days of having absolutely nothing to do. I honestly think this sweet kid needed the getaway just as much as I did. She was completely enamored over the idea of an upcoming beach trip for weeks before we hit the road.

Of course, during the wee hours of the departure morning, London started throwing up and had an awful rotten tummy. However, London has always been a weird, sick kid. The 4 minutes that she's in the action of being sick, she is pitiful and it just breaks your heart. As soon as that is over, she snaps right back into playful, happy as a lark London. So, she convinced me that she wasn't sick anymore and she wanted to go ahead and make the trip instead of staying home for another day or two. 

Therefore, we headed out. We stopped and grabbed Mrs. Bananas and hit the road. London did pretty well most of the way down but her tummy was ill and she wasn't eating much. Shortly after lunch, the poor bottom fell out for Lu and she started getting sick over and over again :(. Once we didn't catch it in time and had vomit everywhere. London was so upset so we swung off to the side of road and I got her cleaned up and just sat rocking her. DARLING Mrs. Bananas cleaned all of it up. Seriously, got in the backseat and cleaned up vomit that belonged to another persons child. She loves us too much, i tell you. What a woman. I was so incredibly grateful for her because I eventually had to trade off driving with her so I could doctor on Lu. The trip took FOREVER but we finally got there and got some anti-throw-up meds in London. 

We rested for a bit but eventually we had to get our toes in the sand. We had all waited for oh so long....

London had strict instructions to take it easy and just get her feet wet....

Which led to this happy kid fully submerged.

She looks like a kid with a stomach virus, wouldn't you say???

 Check out that uber wet diaper that she had to wear! We looked like the biggest rednecks!! This was one happy kid, though!

We got cleaned up and spent the evening blowing bubbles off the balcony, watching them float and fly forever and ever!

My hearts true loves... both of them. 

Barry called and told me that our first night down would have a full moon and we should check it out. My next venture is figuring out how to photograph the moon. Im not sure why it looks tiny in pictures because the moon was ENORMOUS. It was one of those moons that you just kept thinking, 'if I reach out, surely I'll be able to touch it!' I couldn't stop watching it. I was like an illusion. 

Thank goodness the rest of our days weren't quite as chaotic but day 1 deserved it's very own post! More to come!!

Photo Booth Fun

My office computer has a 'Photo Booth' app and you can make it manipulate your picture in all of these wacky ways. Caden and Liz stopped by the office for about 10 minutes today and we had some fun....

The 'Nose Twister'

 Love Struck (truth)

 My favorite. 'The chipmunk.' I wish you could've heard the squealing giggles. 

 'Bug Eye'- it only read Caden and Lizzy tho!

 Lizzy bug eye.. (look at Caden trying to make bug eyes! :) Love it!

 Caden and Taylor Bug Eye...

 Pop Art

Thermal Camera

What an awesome break in the day! I love these little munchkins so much! :)

Beautiful Ballerina

After a whole season of preparation, it was finally time for the big show! Lizzy has worked so hard to learn her ballet and tap routines for her end-of-the-year recital and about 3 weeks ago, it was show time! The whole fam, sans Andaddy because he had to work, came to Birmingham to see the production! They also came to watch one of the Soccer Studs games, but it POURED the night of his game and it was cancelled. Boo!

It was so great to have the whole family in town! We all met up for dinner Friday night and sat thru a fun game of 'Ask Caden & Lizzy how old they think we are.' Turns out they think most of us are ANCIENT!!! I won't call out any names but apparently if you're of grandparent age, you are skirting 100! :) 

Below is a combination of everyone's pictures, but I thought most of them turned out great! Here's sweet Lala making Elizabeth look incredibly gorgeous! 

 Those eyes...

 The only bun I ever had was shoved under a swim cap, but I understand that the perfect ballerina bun is a big deal for the ballet. She looked stunning. 

Her first darling performance. Unfortunately, you can't see Lizzy barely at all here. She is the very last dancer on the left hand side, but from our seats, she is behind the curtain. You can see her at the very end of this video for just a few seconds. This was such a sweet routine! When they are about 1 year older, it turns into a lot of booty shaking, which I discovered that I am not comfortable with. I loved these sweet, little innocent routines like the young girls did! They were precious.

(If you're reading this via email, click the title of this post to get to the blog and see the video of Lizzy's dances. If you click the square-ish icon on the bottom right of the video, it will pull up a separate screen and make the video big so you can see it better!)

Could this little group be any more girly and darling? 

Part of the cheering section!
Ya'll. Caden Rhea.
When the very first act opened, it was a group of probably 3 year olds in these majorly frou frou costumes. The audience started laughing because they looked so stinking cute! Caden looked at all of us and said 'don't laugh at them.' He was so upset with us for laughing at them because he thought it was mean. He is the sweetest child alive. So incredibly caring and tenderhearted. 

 This is not Lizzy's class but these were 'Annie's' dancing to 'The Sun'll Come Out'. The red wigs were too much!

I moved to a new seat so I could get Lizzy in the shot but then my camera cut off too early! Here's a little snippet of Lizzy's second dance. SHE DID AWESOME! She knew her routine so well and she really got her arms into it!! I loved it!! Lizzy's the first one in line, all the way to the left. 

 DO IT BIG, LIZZY!!

No doubt telling her something wonderful that would have left all the rest of us teary eyed. G-Daddy is an amazing man. We are all lucky to have him speak his goodness into us. What a blessing he and MeMommy are to us all. 

Isn't this adorable?? Beautiful girls!

This picture makes my heart swell inside. Such beautiful, loving people. It was amazing to be around each of these folks all weekend. It always reminds me how important family is. There is no love or bond like family. Nothing compares. 

Back to G-Daddy. He's a GRAND-DAD. Making laps around the house with two 5 year olds riding on him. We all treat him like he's 19- not 45! :) (Do I get brownie points for that?) I had him moving washer/dryers into my house the day before! He is the best!

We had such a fun day making a big fuss over this beautiful child! I am so very proud of her hard work and poise on stage! She did a phenomenal job and it was great celebrating her!

A few other pictures from our weekend. Pinkberry with momma on Friday. Cute pic of mom, right?! I love this woman. 

Typical day at our house. Light up princess dress, cinderella slippers, and an accordion. I love our life!

This little grinning monkey scored FIVE GOALS at his last soccer game!!! FIVE!! Way to go, big guy!! He had a blast this season and I can't wait until his next activity so I can capture all those smiles again! :)