Vacation {Part 2}

We met my parents, brother and some aunts and uncles in Rosemary Beach for the wedding festivities.  The sand down there is amazing and the girls loved playing with it.  The waves in the ocean while we were there were a bit rough so we opted for the pool instead.  Luckily while we were in Destin for the rest of our trip the ocean was calm enough to play in.

 The only thing that could make this picture any better is a tan line.

 Henry all suited up for a dip in the pool.  We were all getting ready to head down for a swim and Dan got some good pics of Henry.  It was his first time in the water other than a bath and he loved every minute of it.

 After so many hours in the car and so much anticipation of vacation, the girls were so excited to finally go swimming.  They were running around the condo like mad women...actually they were basically acting like they do on a daily basis!

 After day 1, the girls were little fish in the water.  After day 8, Magnolia was swimming without her life vest.  Perfect timing to start swimming lessons the Monday after we got back.  She was so comfortable in the water.

Leg 1 of our Florida Trip

A couple of weeks ago we took a family trip to Florida.  We left on a Tuesday afternoon and drove down to Bowling Green, KY to stay for the night.  We had no plans on how far we would drive that day, but by Bowling Green everyone was getting tired and a stop was much needed.  We were meeting friends in Birmingham, AL on Wednesday, so we only had about a 5 hour drive Wednesday and wouldn't have to spend another long day in the car.  When we got to Birmingham we visited the zoo there for a couple of hours.  It ended up being free since we are members of our local zoo and they have reciprocity.  The girls had fun, there were lots of animals that our zoo at home doesn't have and it ended up not being too hot until we were getting ready to leave so we headed out for some ice cream, of course.

That night after 2 days of driving, an afternoon at the zoo and an hour time difference, we had 3 tired kiddos and 1 exhausted mama so we actually just went to bed instead of visiting for the evening with friends.  I think we were all asleep by 7:30, even me.  Dan still met his buddy for some dinner and had a nice time catching up with him.  Maybe next time we will have better plans and can all get together.  The next morning we hit the road once more and headed to Rosemary Beach, FL where my cousin was getting married.  More photos from that stretch of the trip soon.  Between Rosemary Beach and Birmingham we passed through Opp, AL and stopped an Benson's, a local hamburger place that has been in business since 1957.  They had the best chocolate milk shakes we had ever had!  We made sure on the way back home, we passed through Opp again and even though it was only 10 am, we all got milk shakes! YUM!

June Happenings

So since I posted last, lots has been going on.  We will start with Henry boy who hasn't gotten any teeth yet but looking at these gummy-smile pictures makes me not want him to ever get any.  But then that would be weird as an adult...and not as cute.  I'm just waiting for a mom out there to figure out how to freeze time so we can keep our babies as babies!  Mr. Henry is now 6 months old and I'm not sure how that happened.  In the past month he has started crawling, sitting up and going from his belly to sitting up.  We have also started eating some real food and so far he likes it all.  The only issue is he has spit up pretty constantly since he was born and now that has gone from bad to worse as up comes the carrots and green beans too.  Good thing he is such a joy!

 One night Dan found a little birdy that had flown out of the nest before it was time in our yard.  He tried putting it back into the nest but it just hopped right back out.  The girls were thrilled to find their little friend the next morning.  We told Boothe he needed to go back to his mommy and she said that she would be it's mommy.  I have a feeling we have a lot of pet hampsters, fish, rabbits, turtles, etc in our future.  All this one says she wants for her birthday is "lots and lots of different animals".

June also hosted a family vacation to Florida which I will post about soon.  We had a wonderful time and I'll tell you all about it.

Magnolia is finishing up swimming lessons this week from the same woman who taught me as a child!  She is learning a lot and I can't wait to go watch her on the last day of class tomorrow.

We are not getting any rain around here these days, but have been sure to water our garden which is doing great.  Lots and lots and lots of carrots and sugar snap peas are growing up the trellis nicely.  I need to show you the fun pea trellis we put together this year.  So neat and it's working really well.

I haven't been to too many garage sales this year.  A baby kind of glues you to home most days for naps and juggling 3 kids to drive around to sales sounds exhausting....and it is because I have done it a couple of times.

Ok, I think that catches us up pretty well.  I'll try and get that Florida post done soon, but for now I'm off to bed!

Father's Day Gift

Even though Father's Day was almost 2 weeks ago, I wanted to share what the kids and I did for him as a gift.  We took these pictures and put them into a horizontal frame that has 3 openings for pictures.  He has it on his desk at work and if I remember to, I would like to do this every year and he can update the pictures in that frame.  Cute, huh!

May Cousins

Here are the boys at the end of May.

Silverhawks Outing

Dan and I organized a church outing to a Silverhawks baseball game earlier this month.  The Silverhawks are a local baseball team in South Bend.  I went a few times as a kid to games with my family or my brother's little league team.  Now that we have a son, the summer tradition of watching baseball has commenced.  Over the winter the park was renovated and now includes a bouncy area and a splash pad for the kiddos who (surprisingly, haha) can't make it through 9 innings of baseball sitting still in a seat.  Lots of fun at the park now for everyone.  We may not make it back again this summer but we will definitely spend many afternoons there over the next several years.  I would recommend it to any family in the area to check out.

This was both Henry's and Raife's first baseball game.  These are the best pictures of them together we could get.

 It was a great game too...Silverhawks were down by 5 going into the bottom of the 9th and they tied it up and had to play an extra inning.  They ended up losing, but it sure was an exciting ending.