At the Beach

Robert has an annual golf trip in Myrtle Beach with some guy friends.  This year the kids and I hitched a ride with him and dropped us off at Ocean Isle Beach.  We had a short vaca with Mary and her kids (Jimmy went golfing with Rob) and stayed at Mary's parents' house on the second row.  We arrived late Wednesday night so we had 3 full days of just the moms and kids at the beach!  

It actually went very smooth all things considered.  Mary and I greased up the kids, packed the wagon up and got to the beach by around 10:30 am both Thursday and Friday.  The big kids could have splashed around all day, but the one year olds were done after and hour and we pushed it to 1.5 hours.  Then we would go in for lunch and a long nap and finish the day around the pool. 

It was a fun trip - hopefully daddy will let us do it again next year :)   

We made it!

Easton and Avery dancing in the water

 Carter's favorite thing to do on the beach - eat snacks!

 We got seashells!

Tea party at the pool with Ellie

Carter and Ellie looking for the garbage truck one morning

The shirt says it all - "Big trouble in a little shirt"

One morning Mary's parents set up a "treasure hunt" for the big kids

Mary's mom took Avery out for some boogie board practice

One evening, we bravely loaded all the kids in the minivan and went out for dinner!  Mary and I joked about how much going out to dinner at the beach has changed since our high school days.  We left the house at 4:45 pm with no shower or make up on and 4 kids in a van.  Change is good :)

All aboard!

Mary's mom bought the kids matching OIB shirts at the local souvenir store

 Group shot at the restaurant on the marina

Carter was having NO part of the kids only group shot

The kids were so well behaved at dinner so we stopped on the way home for Sunset Slush at the OIB pier.  It's good stuff.

Watching their nightly cartoons on the iPad.

Avery reading a story to Easton before nap time

Party at Monkey Joe's

Last Saturday, one member of Avery's trio had a birthday party.  I took Avery to Monkey Joe's while Daddy and Carter stayed home.  He tried some climbing around of his own so he will be ready for these bouncy house parties soon!

We signed in, got our bracelets, and Avery took off.  She was breaking a sweat about 15 minutes in.  The girls would run to one bouncy thing, jump for about 45 seconds and run to another, go down the slide, and run back to the first one, go back to the slide, and repeat for 2 hours.

The BFF trio did take a photo with this guy for a second.

Avery and Abby going down the slide together.

Sat still for a few minutes for pizza and cupcakes.

Avery and the birthday girl, Hunter.

Pizza Party

Avery and Lily have been planning a "pizza party" for several weeks now.  They both ask me about it it when I pick up Avery and Brittany (Lily's mom) has told me Avery has asked her a few times.  So we finally made it happen the Sunday we returned from Greenville.  Avery asked me on the way to their house if there would be balloons and decorations because it was a "party".  

Brittany even provided some real cheese for Avery to use.  The girls made their personal pan pizzas topped with olives and broccoli (which Avery later picked off of course).  I made a calzoney-burrito thing using a vegan dough and vegan cheese....I mean it looks like cheese...I drew the line at the tofurky pepperoni, but added some mushrooms and fresh spinach.  It actually turned out to be pretty tasty, guess that shows how long it's been since I've actually had cheese.  Apparently the secret is to melt/bake it and it tastes more "real".   Then we went upstairs and the girls had a dance party.  It was a fun pizza party!   

I even ate the other half for dinner the next night!

Valentine Playdate

Avery's class last year was split up according to birthdays and her friend Hunter moved to a different class.  However, the girls usually get together on the playground so they have kept in touch.  Last Saturday, Hunter had Lily and Avery over to her house.  Her mom had crafts ready for the girls, but they were not in the mood for "structured activities".  A pillow pile-up was way more fun.

 You can just the legs and feet of Lily and Avery before they bust out of the pile up below!  Also note that first on the agenda was to raid the dress-up trunk.  Lily and Avery kept their princess dress on the whole time.  The only way I could get Avery to take it off before we left was to assure her we had at home she could wear for the rest of the day (and she did).

A little bubble time on our way out.  We needed something to ease the pain of departure ;)

Random Updates

February seems to be flying by!  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that our world is changing forever in about 6 to 8 weeks :)
The winter months are usually the slowest, but we've managed to keep busy.

 Before we watched the Super Bowl at the Ferguson's house, we had a play date with Lily at her house.  This is the only still moment I was able to capture.  We also went out to lunch because our play dates usually run into a meal time and mama's got to eat! 

 The next weekend we took a day trip to Taylorsville to see Nanny, Paw, and Grandma Marshall.  Avery insisted on taking her ear muffs and Ariel doll.  Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures while we were there, but it was a great visit!

Avery had a Valentine party at school on Friday the 13th.  She is dressed the part with her sparkle heart sweater, necklace and tiara.  She came home with several sweet treats to share with mommy and daddy.

 

The past few weekends, the 3 of us have gone out to lunch and stopped at Avery's favorite place on the way home -- PUBLIX!  She always some combination of a cookie, balloon, sticker, and of course her own buggie.  She insists on putting her items (and the apples for Daddy) in her cart and she unloads them on the checkout conveyor.

Watching NC State basketball and "sharing" those V-day treats.

And here's one of me and baby Spaghetti :)

Park Date

We just missed Lily and her family at the Boo Bash on Saturday so we decided to set up a play date on Sunday afternoon instead.  Avery was so excited, the first thing she asked me on Sunday was where was Lily??  I told her we were meeting at the park after nap, but I guess that was a mistake because Avery never took a nap.... too excited.
Of course on the short car ride to the park Avery almost fell asleep, but she powered though it when she saw Lily.

With the nice weather, there were lots of kids there.  Luckily ours had on bright colors so we could follow them from slide to swing to bridge to slide to ladder to etc :)
Avery is definitely the runt of the group.  Lily's big sister was there too so she helped Avery keep up and waited for her to slowly, carefully cross the obstacle at hand.  Lily did not need any help - she zoomed around that playground and was always like "Avery come this way!"

I managed to snap a few pics of them sitting still for a moment.  I think it's funny that Avery is wearing her necklace and bracelet, while Lily is sporting her pirate head band (and you can see in the picture below the "pirate belt" she is wearing that is actually from a bath robe).  These girls really compliment each other.

As usual, our play dates turn into play dinners.  With Robert out of town, I had no one to cook dinner for me so Brixx pizza and Coldstone ice cream really hit the spot!  Lily's mom and I are going to have to draw straws on who hosts the first sleepover because I don't see much sleep going on with these two nuts.

Lakefest w/kids

In prior years, we used to have our college friends over to my parent's lake house once a year for a weekend of fun, but had to stop this tradition when we moved to Charlotte because of the great distance to travel and that all of our friends were having little ones.  This year we tried to get a few together so the kids could play together.  The adults still get together at football games and on our canoe trip, but it was fun to see all our little kids "playing" together.

Each of the kids had their favorite cartoons that they liked to watch, but Peppa on the ipad with the Sawyers was a hit with Avery.

 Cheers with their little apple juice bottles.

 The Jessup family.  This may have been the only time Austin wasn't holding his ball.

 Avery has started to enjoy the jetski more and more.  Now she wants to go fast over the bumps.  I am more than happy to oblige.

 Austin with his ball.

 The "fun" thing about having 5 kids in the same spot at the same time, is that one of them is always unhappy about what is going on.  Avery took more than her fair share of turns at being the unhappy one.  This face is a great summary of how that afternoon went.

 Ava is looking at Avery like "What's your problem?"

 Austin and his yellow ball.

 The Sawyer family.

 The best picture of the rugrats all together.  Ava, Austin, Morgan, Macey, and Avery