Beach Pics...Day 1

We made it to Dauphin Island!  It was a looonnnnngggg trip, but the kids did so well!  We stopped halfway and stayed in a hotel, which worked out well. 

The kids LOVE the beach and were so excited to get here.  As a MAJOR bonus, Whitney lives here, so we get to spend time with her too! 

Here are some pics we got today at the beach...

Easter 2014

We hosted Easter on Holy Saturday for Shawn's family and then went to Easter Mass and brunch with my family on Easter.  I cooked dinner that night and we finally got around to dyeing eggs!  The kids had a ball playing with their cousins Saturday.  It's a lot of work to host, but it's fun to see the kids all together.

Archie's

Last week we made the long trek to visit Archie.  Archie is my Dad's mom, and the kids' great grandmother.  She is 92 years old. 

I was incredibly nervous about how the kids would do on a 6.5 hour drive.  As it turned out there was a ridiculous 20 mile stretch of construction which coupled with enough potty breaks for a newly potty trained red head we all know and love made for 9.5 hour drive. 

The kids did AWESOME!  I am not sure Pappy...recently renamed Pap (by that same red head) would agree with my assessment, but all in all, they did really well.  Brian has entered the "are we there yet?" stage and of course there were the many, many potty breaks, but there were no tears and minimal complaining, so I would say they did pretty great!

In addition to Archie, we got to see (great) Aunt Beth, (great) Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike, my cousins Andrew and Matt and my mom's cousins Tom and Ann.  The kids adjusted so well and interacted with everyone as if they see them all time...which isn't the case at all, it had been just over two years. 

We spent quite a bit of time at a local park and the kids had a BLAST playing with Andrew.  He was so great with them and they ate it up! 

The ride home was much shorter (THANK THE LORD) and the kids did well.  Lilah fell asleep not far from home, so we had to deal with one potty accident, but one isn't bad.  We even drove under the Blue Angels performing!  Brian was super intrigued!

To say that Archie enjoyed Lilah would be the understatement of the century.

Brian and Archie got along too.  He is showing her a story he wrote in the car.

He is attempting to show off his missing tooth in this picture.

Mom's cousin Ann reading a story to the kiddos.  They adored her!

 

Pappy couldn't figure out how yogurt got all over his pants!

Had to do this for Cynthia :)

Doesn't she look ginormous in this pic?

Lilah kissing Archie's rear.

Archie's reaction to the rear kissing.

Selfie

Quite possibly the best selfie ever taken...

This was taken after we arrived home from our trip to Archie's.  Brian got the mustaches in his gift bag of surprises from Nana (AKA bribes to get back in the car after stops and to behave int the car)!

She Learned it from her Pappy

Don't worry.  She actually has no idea she is flipping off the camera :)

Disney Was...

Alright, I will admit...life has been hectic.  I have been bogged down with a lot of...stuff.  I had intended to break the Disney trip up into a bunch of smaller posts, but it clearly is never gonna happen.  And when I get in my head that I am going to post something, I feel like I can't post anything else until I make it happen.  I really want to move on from that and post more recent things and more often, so I am going to finish up the Disney posts this go around :)

Disney was....

a time for our girly girl to be....girly...

a time for our kiddos to find out that they LOVE rides!  Both rode their first roller coaster!  Brian LOVED It.  Lilah didn't particularly want to do it again.  But she's TWO!

a time for special moments with family...

a time for our hammy kids to ham it up...

a time for our sweet babies to bond as siblings...

a time for yummy food.  OMG YUMMY food!  Anyone who says otherwise about Disney food is eating in all the wrong places.

Thank you to Nana, Pappy, Jon and Teri for helping us make great memories!