Beach Babies: Part III

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, green fish, blue fish, green fish . . .

Our little fishies got all dressed up in their matching shirts for our big day at the aquarium!  (L to R:  Shawn Thomas with his mama; Hudson, Jack, William, Hatch, and Charlie!)

The cute little turtle!

William was unsure about his turtle ride . . .  

Giggling at Daddy.  “Daddy Funny” says William.  :)

The littlest fishy!

Just testing out life with two adults, two strollers, and three children . . . fun times!  (Please note that Hudson is reading the Aquarium Brochure.  How very studious of him!)

The turtles were a HUGE hit!

. . . as was the “touch and feel” tank with horseshoe crabs and hermit crabs!

 

Our hesitant crab:  “No Crab!  NO CRAB!”  

Feeling the fish . . .   

Shark attack!

 

2010!

2009!

 

And, then, we were back to the beach!

These first few were actually from our first day at the beach and in the ocean!

Our little redheaded ball of wrecklessness in action!

 

This is as close as I could get to them sitting sweetly and staring into the ocean like they did last year! 

One of the 2010 highlights:  Swimming with Daddy!

We had many a (sandfilled) snack on the beach!  

Mr. Precious and Hudsey did a chair swap . . . 

Why not relax and get some reading done?

If you cannot tell, we are VERY serious about digging.  And, some of us are not afraid to get a little dirty doing it . . . (therefore, we showered multiple times daily!)

 

Bumpa was one of our expert diggers . . . 

 

We also grew very fond of collecting shells and trying to decide if there were “bigger ones” or not . . . we’re a little confused about big vs. little, but it was fun none the less!

 

And, I will leave you with two of my favorite 2010 Beach pictures to date . . .

Happy Broccoli to our Sugie!  WE LOVE YOU!!   

Beach Babies 2010: Part II

So sorry that it has taken me a while to update the Emerald Isle pictures!  These boys are keeping me busy, and I am one tired mama . . . so, I’m trying to rest in my “spare time!”

While at the beach, the boys were able to participate in one of their very favorite activities:  Riding on Bumpa’s Boat!  We’ve learned that there are two kinds of boats:  Bumpa’s Boat and Timmy’s Boat . . . both were at the beach and are quite popular!

I caught William in the midst of him yelling “beep beep AHHHHHHHHHHHHHh!” in this picture!  

Our fearless captains!

So sweet!

  

This is to prove that I was actually at the beach!!

 

Isn’t he so precious?  Our youngest boater!

Uncle J was there and helpful, as always!

 

Our cute sharks made several appearances throughout the week . . .

One morning, Katie and I let Hatch practice caring for three babies while we got ready . . . it seems that “meinstein” is a big hit for all . . .

Although it makes Daddy very sleepy! I love this picture of my cuddle bugs!

Ni night and sleep tight! 

(more beach babies to come!)

Real Life

This is an actual conversation that this crazy crab and I had yesterday (Hatch was there for proof) . . . and, in his favor, he did not have an actual sit-down lunch and he woke hungry from his nap:

Me:  Hudson, did you eat the corner off of your book?

Him:  Yes.

Me:  Hudson, NO, we do not eat books.  Books are yucky.  We do NOT eat books.  YUCKY.

Him:  No, Mama.  YUM.  YUMMMY BOOK.

I would like to think that this conversation is a testimony to his fervor for reading, but, really, I think it just shows that he is related to me . . . and we love to eat.  :)

In other news, Daddy the Decker has switched gears to baby-room transitioning, and he has finished the radiator cover for the boys’ new room.  It looks awesome, and he did a great job!  It is just tipsy enough that they will be terrified to climb it, but there is no way they can pull it down on themselves . . . PERFECT!

More to come from the Aquarium at the beach and from our days in the sand . . . but, for now, I will leave you with these pictures from our Pretzel making class at Auntie Annie’s at the mall last week (Yes, we went to make pretzels . . . Hudson loved rolling the dough and William would not touch it.  We all loved that we got three free pretzels!)

Enjoying their treats . . .

 

Check out the sugar on this baby’s face!  He downed his cinnamon sugar pretzel!

And, once again:  YUMMY, MOMMY!

Beach Babies 2010: Part I

Here are some pictures of our fun on the beach!  I’m pretty sure that we have a great bit of sand in our house to show for our big ole week!

The digging was quite fun . . .

 

And, Hudson made himself a slide to enter into the big pool that Uncle J dug . . . 

Daddy with his littlest man

Daddy and H “riding” in Uncle Timmy’s kayak 

This hilarious series of events happened multiple times each day!  H playing “ni night”

 

and, the end result . . . (by the way, this rascal has started calling me MOM! . . . “MOM!  EAT!  EAT!  MOM!”  It’s awesome . . . we are working on manners ;)

 

Daddy did lots of tickling, which was very “funny”   (sidenote:  William has started to tell us when he thinks things are “funny” . . . sometimes they are random things like “seagulls.  funny.”  But, today, Hudson spit out his food—thinking he was hilarious—and William said, “hu-son.  Funny.”  Here we go, folks!)

I love these next two!  

Flipping the cup with Sugie . . .

so proud!

My sweet, sandy babes . . . 

More to come!

First things first . . .

The internet has finally healed itself and posted my Happy Broccoli video . . . SO sorry about that! Click here to see it!

SO, We are back from vacation, and WE HAD A BLAST! We loved our time away with family and at the beach . . . it was very fun and a great getaway! I don’t have nearly as many pictures as I thought I would because I ended up being MUCH more tired than I had anticipated (lack of sleep on vacation plus big baby in my tummy AND mix that with some sandy babies who run around and mommy doesn’t have much time for photos) . . . but, I will eventually share what I do have!

Well, First things first: Baby Anna and I have thudded into our Third Trimester . . . “we” are officially 28 weeks and starting to feel VERY pregnant! Thinking of the (small) number of weeks between today and her arrival makes me sweat, so I am going to try to not think about it and get ready as fast as I can in the meantime. Here is a beach-background shot of 28 weeks! (And, yes, strangers say things to me like “Don’t go having that baby here today!” and other encouraging comments . . . lovely.)

We have been busy at work with our projects (read: DECK) . . . and despite our planning to move the boys to their new room, it has yet to happen. I have a “hurry, hurry, hurry” attitude about getting them into their room because I want them to be excited and settled and adjusted to that well before Baby Sister arrives. But, (like any pregnant woman) the thought of moving them out of their nursery just makes me want to cry! Oh, the conflict!

Our good friends, the Walkers, stayed at our house while we were away and while they were in between homes, and Jennifer made these (and hung them!!) for the boys! We are SO EXCITED, and we were so SURPRISED to see them! I had asked Jennifer to help me make them sometime this summer, and she did it for us and the boys as a thank you gift . . . how kind! I am just THRILLED with how they look!

You can see their new bedding and rug laid out below (although, I am not putting them in their big beds until they are crawling/climbing out and putting themselves in danger—we’re not big on independence around here! ha ha!) Jennifer set everything out so we could see it all together! Also, note the radiator cover-in-progress that Daddy the Decker has on his project list—fun, fun!

And, because I know you are dying for a sneak peak, here are a few beach pictures to hold you over! Also, FYI, our vacation detox is not going well: I think the boys were quite sad to wake up and find only mommy (and not their 29 closest friends plus Daddy) here to be with them today . . . the sleeping is better but still a work in progress . . . and, well, Hatch and I, together, ate 12 (TWELVE) cookies tonight. Bad news. We’ve got to get back to normal life . . . and fast!

The boys did LOTS of this: “Dig-um”

Some of us may have eaten some sand . . .

And, some of us may have been obsessed with the boats (okay, we are still obsessed with boats/kayaks/etc.)

More to come, I promise!