I know I mentioned last summer that we camp on vacation and that it might not be for everyone. Having said that, I honestly cannot imagine spending my vacation any other way. I might also have told you we had a travel trailer when we first got married and that it was the perfect size until we expanded our family. We sold it a few years ago in hopes of upgrading, but haven't felt good about making another investment of that size. For this year, we decided to try our hand at renting a trailer close to the beach and it was a dream come true. We found a great deal on a brand new camper and decided not only did it save us money this year, but it allows us to try out a few different floor plans before becoming an RV owner again. We could not have been happier with our decision. If you are used ...
ella
Beach Babies
I have just spent the last eight days with these beauties at the beach. We are positively exhausted. Luckily, they were excellent travelers and adjusted well to life at the beach. Everything we did, we did in abundance: rolled in the sand, got soaked, ate yummy food, snuggled in the sunshine and took an insane number of photographs. Not only will it take me a few days to wrap my head around normal life, but I need to upload the images, read over 600 entries in Google Reader, check my email, catch up on design orders and get my house back in order. I also have two girls in terrible need of a schedule readjustment and some downtime with mommy and daddy. Our trip was wonderful and I'll have lots to share in the next few days. We missed you guys! ...
Pool Day
I don't know if you've noticed, but we've already fallen into our summer routine. It's a little different from last year, but we take FULL advantage of the weekends. We call Saturdays a "pool day". I almost laughed when SD asked me Friday night what our plan for the weekend was. Did he have to ask? We got up bright and early to get a few things done around the house and started packing our bags. Spending 8 hours at the pool with two little girls requires a lot of gear. We packed a picnic lunch, extra towels and plenty of reading material for when Sophie was napping. This girl LOVES the water. She pretty much throws herself into the water and cries when you make her get out. She quickly figured out how to balance in her swim ring and she is swimming all over the pool, deep end ...
Summertime is Here
Can I tell you how thrilled I am that summer is here? It's a little bittersweet, since it marks one year since I've been back at work. It is hard to believe that this time last year we were sleeping in and snuggling our newborn baby girl and spending every waking moment soaking up the sun. It was such a blessing to get to spend maternity leave at the pool with my girls and I'm going to have to sneak in lots of sunny weekends if this summer plans to compete. I love having a three-day weekend and we took full advantage of our time together. We spent all day Saturday, Sunday and today at my parents' pool. We grilled out, packed picnic lunches, bought floats, applied sunscreen, watched puppy dogs make laps and remembered how to swim. It took Ella all three days to gain a little confidence ...
Sidewalk Talk
My favorite part of celebrating Easter this year came very late in the day. SD decided to play basketball with the boys, so I packed the girls up and brought them home for some rest. Ella couldn’t wait to dig into her Easter basket goodies, so we decided to take the sidewalk chalk and head outdoors. It was so late in the evening, we were fighting against darkness, but they had the best time playing together. I think Sophie was surprised we were letting her do something so messy and she had such a great time. It is so much fun to see what things they instinctively know to do or learn from their siblings in 30 seconds flat. Before we knew it, she had chalk in her hand and was scribbling on the drive. Ella practiced her name {I love the way she draws the “a”} and I helped her ...
Easter
Although Easter was really late in the season this year, it seemed to sneak up on me. I had been thinking about the girls' baskets for weeks and all of a sudden I had a mere days to finish them up! Luckily, I had been taking good notes and Ella had been making many requests over the previous weeks. I am not a huge fan of candy for the kiddos, although they do get sweet treats. Instead of loading up on sugar, I usually shop for things that I would be buying them anyway. This year, Ella got a beach towel and bathing suit, silver sandals for spring/summer, a cute quilted purse that she spotted several weeks ago at a local shop {thanks, Sue}, some alphabet flashcards and the movie Tangled. There was also some candy, bubbles, kaleidoscope and hopping chick. Sophie got a beach towel, bathing ...
Dye Time
What's Easter without eggs? At first I felt a little guilty when my mom volunteered to help the girls with their eggs on Good Friday while I was working. Then I reminded myself how much I hate dying eggs and forgave myself for missing out on Sophie's first experience. I'll do it next year when she can follow directions! I remember dressing the girls really cute that day, knowing there would be pictures. When I got home and saw that Garan made Ella wear a t-shirt as a smock I cracked up. Oh well. Apparently, I bought the cheapest dye known to man because there were only three heinous colors and even uglier stickers. They are lucky I didn't see this before the dye process. I might have bought something else and postponed this little shindig! Then I reminded myself that this was ...
Eighteen
The day before Easter, Gran I took the girls to the annual Easter Egg Hunt at a local church. The number of eggs {and children!} was astounding. Since this was Sophie's first Easter, I didn't register her to hunt eggs, but that doesn't mean she didn't have a wonderful time. First up was the Easter Bunny and Ella really surprised me by walking right up to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled so big for the camera. This is a HUGE accomplishment for her... she is a scaredy-cat. Sophie, on the other hand, was a little timid and refused to be held by him. We let her stand next to him like a big girl and eventually got a smile {although I didn't manage to capture that}. Next there was face painting, which was actually just blush & eyeliner. SUCH a great idea. Ella ...