A Few Holiday Events

First Church Christmas Songs

Mommy Decorates

Santa makes her nervous, but yet she's a bit curious

Preschool performance songs include: We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Oh My Lord

Holiday stripes and illness

Our Little Santa

The End...

Family Camping

We went camping at Grayton Beach State Park. Its a dune reserve, with a private white sandy beach, short kid friendly hikes, and great camp sites. And lots of room for treasure hunting...these are Marin's first treasures to find

The "Mysterious" trail (named by Marin)

Mommy and Owen hiking the trail

The fog settles in, and Todd wears Marin's sunglasses

She really does like camping...
This was our first time to take two kids camping. We really do enjoy camping and didn't know how it would go with a 6 month old and two small tents. We started the night with Todd and Marin in one tent and Owen and Mommy in the other, and then around 1am Marin wanted to switch into my tent. At some point in the night Mommy, Marin and Owen were all in the same sleeping bag... boy let me just tell you that's warm (but not very comfortable). The tent with three was probably about 95 degrees and when Todd opened the door in the morning a waft of steam hit him in the face. Well now we know, whoever gets to sleep with the kids gets to be warm.

Turkey Day at the Beach

Looking for boats, dolphins and sharks

Going out to eat, and this is just about how crazy it really was...

The Feast! What a treat to walk off the sandy shores of the Gulf to our state park cabin, and have dinner on the porch listening to the ocean

Earlier in the day... Todd and I planned most of the menu, our goal was spend as much of Thanksgiving day on the beach as we could, not in the kitchen. I would recommend a destination holiday for sure!

Babies love Thanksgiving at the sea

Playing in the sand, hmmm has anyone seen Marin?

Pumpkin Video

Owen's Pumpkins

Happy Autumn! Owen was the only one to celebrate Halloween last week, Marin had a stomach bug and didn't leave the couch until later that afternoon. She didn't even know she missed Halloween until a few days later when she said "Mom can I dress up for Halloween soon?" I told her that Halloween was the day she was sick so we didn't make a big deal of it, she was of course hysterical when she found out...she cried all the way home, not so much tears kind of crying, more like "arghhhhhhhhhhhhh". Poor girl.

Look at this Happy Boy

I love pumpkins

wonderful

Little Scarecrow Boy

He looks confused as to why we are doing this to him (to which Todd would like to be clear that he is not involved in this)

poor baby, she did make it out of the house to lay in the hammock.

We have videos!

This was three months ago so he's very little! But its our first attempt at getting some videos on here. Whoo! More to come!

Battle of the Species UPDATE

Battle of the Species was posted here

Everything was fine and dandy when the squirrels were eating the bird seed... but then we discovered BEATRIX POTTER GONE WILD! You all know the stories of Squirrel Nutkin, Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny... I think there are about 20 or more of the Potter childhood classics that our family and many others love. Well one night not so long after that post about Marin and the Squirrels fighting about the bird feeder, we were eating dinner one night, our little friend Ella was joining us and we were all looking out the window watching the squirrels eat the seeds out of the bird feeder. At some point in the meal I noticed a little gray "squirrel" without a tail running around out there. I got up and looked a bit closer to the window and said, "Are those RATS EATING THE SEED ON THE GROUND!!!!!!" Everyone got up and looked out the window, and sure enough in broad daylight we had: 2 Cardinals, a brown wren, some other little light brown bird, 4 or 5 squirrels, and THREE RATS eating the seeds on the ground that the squirrels had knocked out of the feeder...

We no longer have a bird feeder. We no longer have rats.

To The Coast

Owen likes to stay up to date on the local news

I can never get enough pictures of this little girl running down a boardwalk to the beach. Seriously, if I posted how many pictures I have taken of her on boardwalks it would take me days to complete the task.

Horseshoe crab--dead on the beach--demanding mother "just go stand by the crab so I can take a picture, stop acting scared and smile."

Todd is trying to get us to cooperate with his picture taking...

We love trips to the ocean. They keep babies happy.

The sea air is good for us all... and we have sleeping babies at 7pm! (Notice Owen is very close to sitting, and happy about it too)

Sleeping at dinner

I guess this means she's tired, or we served dinner too late.

More Birthday

We got a hammock. Each evening when Todd gets home, he and the kids head out for some relaxing time.

And Marin wants everyone to know she is now four!

The birthday "M" pizza

Not every kid gets to blow out the pizza candles. Yes they are stuck into mushrooms.

Owen says, "Maybe for my birthday I can get a non-pink chair!"

Birthday Week

Happy Birthday Mommy and Marin! Owen is excited about everything.

Birthday Girls! Todd took us on a birthday breakfast picnic.

Lots of yummy food

We took Marin and E out for her birthday. They got to paint their own pottery and then go out for pizza.

Waiting on our pizza

First time to take cupcakes to preschool! (sun in her eyes, but its the only picture I took!)

This baby just loves birthdays (Happy 5 months Owen!)

Baby Gators!

Daddy would like us to be Notre Dame fans. But....

Owen might agree, he doesn't look so happy!

Trip to Grandparents

Grandpa John meeting Owen...same smile! haha

Grandma and Grandpa got Marin a bike to ride while she was there. It was her favorite part of the trip!!!

Owen loved Great Grandma Opal

She loves them too

Meeting Aunt Kay and Uncle Harry

Watching Marin ride her bike

Good bye we miss you!!!