From PC, With Love

We are having a blast at the beach! We introduced Ava Sophia to the beach. She did okay with the sand... although she didn't understand why it stuck to her hands and kept trying to shake it off. I took her into the water and she was having none of it! She loves swimming in pools and adores baths, but the moving water was a no go for this little princess! :) She learned to deal with it being close by though and even tolerated me dipping her feet in to rinse off occassionally.

Bryant is my funny boy! He will go rinse off in the surf, and has gone out in the water with Hank a couple of times, but he prefers to hang out and play in the sand... building castles, playing with army men and cars, and digging with his Sophie girl. We have also discovered that he is our little model... he will sit and pose as long as we ask him to... and he takes darn good pics, if I do say so myself!

Tres L-O-V-E-S the water!! Once we hit the beach, he grabs a mask and runs head long into the water... he likes to hunt for shells and look at fish. He has also learned the joy of body surfing!

Hank and I are just enjoying seeing our kids explore and have fun this week. It's nice to know that they are seeing and doing new things. And it doesn't hurt that we're getting tans while we do! Ha!

The pics are in no certain order, so enjoy!














These are sweet to me... Sophie got tired on the beach one day and the boys weren't ready to go, so I wrapped her up in her Ariel towel and held her. She wanted me to sing to her, so I started singing 'Part of Your World' from "The Little Mermaid." She was so funny, she just studied me and mouthed the words... and made me sing it about 4 times! Even now, Sophie is walking around the condo singing "Ah, ah , ah" Ariel style! It's so funny!

Da Beach

We started out our vacation with a family lunch at O'Charley's. We had been eating in a lot, and it was a nice break for all of us!

Plus... I had a coupon, so, ya know... we had too! Hey, it expired that day!

Then we hit the road with full tummies and plenty of time on our hands. All the girls (me, Soph, and Mom) rode in Mom's car and all the boys rode in the van. It was a very pleasant and surprisingly easy trip down. We stopped at Sikes and Kohn and I got a couple of really cute dresses, that I am sure you will see pictured in the coming days. Once we got close, Hank called me and told me that they wanted to head straight to the beach, and since we had Sophie and food to unload, we came on to the house. They told me that they just wanted to 'see' the beach and get some pictures...

But what started out as this...

soon became this...

My boys LOVE the beach! Tres hardly comes up for air once he gets that mask on and is looking for shells, and he loves to ride waves!

Bry enjoys the ocean more from the sidelines. He likes to get a little wet, but mostly enjoys the thrill of the hunt for shells and building sand castles.


Lots more to come! I didn't think we would have internet, but since someone around here does, we do too! ha!

Princess Ava Sophia

She is the life of the party, what can I say? She is cute and funny and so very, very smart! I must say, I do not remember that the boys went through a 'terrible twos' phase, but there is no doubt that Sophie is already there. She is precocious, lively, in-the-middle-of-it-all, prissy, shoe-lovin' little girl.

The other night, I came home from a quick Mommy-moment trip to Ross, and when I returned, I found this:


She polished off a little less than half of that carton! But, let me tell you, she could use some meat on those bones! She's in 12 month clothes still.

Here's another Sophie moment. We were going through dress-up clothes and found Ava Sophia's first Halloween costume from when she was 3 months old. And she would have nothing else but to put that dress on!

She wore it around for a few hours, and when I tried to take it off of her so we could go to the store for a while, she would have none of it! As a parent, I'm sure you all know, there are times when you choose to fight a battle and times when you don't. I decided not to fight it, and let her wear the princess dress to Wal-Mart... and everywhere else we went the rest of that day! I mean, hat, want and all.

She woke up the next day asking for her 'pin-cess' dress. She wanted to dress up like 'cinner-ellie' and go to a castle.
I'm gonna have to find her some cheap dress up clothes after Halloween this year!

The 'Living' Room

We have made a few changes at our house lately. I have to pause for a second and just tell you all how exceptional my husband is! He is good at a great many things, and if he doesn't know how to do something, he educates himself and learns all he can until he feels confident or comfortable enough to take it on... and every time he is successful! Okay, now back to this regularly scheduled blog:

So this latest transition takes place in our upstairs living room. We got an amazing deal on a new area rug! It's a 10x8 and is so pretty... well, here, you be the judge. And it flows really nicely with the red couch and brown chair, and the sort of vintage feel we have going in there, with the trunks and the old school radios and family pictures.

The next upgrade to that room, requires a bit of explanation. When we first looked at this house before we bought it, we loved how the previous owners had the living room set up with no television. Now, I have since come to the conclusion that they had removed it for showing purposes. So we've lived here for going on two years with no tv up in that room. I loved it. I did my Bible studies and read in there and when we had guests, we would sit and chat, but otherwise, that room saw very little action. We decided to make it fully functional for our whole family. So we added this:We put his television up over the fire place. Then Hankie spent the better part of a day up in the attic running wires, putting in outlets, and unintentionally putting an attic access (oops!) in the dining room... seriously, Hank's foot rolled off a beam in the attic and that led to me standing in the dining room staring at his feet dangling through the ceiling. No pictures of that, though, right, baby? Wink!

Anyway, now, because of the newness of it, that room is the coolest hang-out. The boys want to have picnics in there (No way, hosea! Not on the new rug!), watch cartoons, sit and play DS, play board games, and entertain their sister by throwing her dolls around. I will post some pics later today!

Impromptu Date Night!

I had to run out to pay a bill tonight and decided to take one of the kids with me and turn it into some one-on-one time. So I took a reluctant Tres with me (he didn't want to leave his Daddy) and headed out. We paid the bill, then I let him decide a few places to go. We hit Wal-Mart to look at the toys... by the time we left, I think he was starting to get into Date Night with Mommy!

Then we stopped at Coldstone and I let him get a kid's cup... cotton candy with chocolate chips, which sounds nasty to me, but he ate every bite of! Next we pulled through McD's and got Mommy a coke, then went into Target to get him a prize out of the dollar section... and he requested that we get something for his brother and sister (cause that is just how he rolls! So Sweet!).

As we are pulling out of the Target parking lot to head home, here is the conversation:

Mom: Tres, look! The moon is so bright and pretty tonight!
Tres: Oh, a full moon... I know what that means! [Not sure what he was referring to here!?!?]
Mom: Doesn't God make pretty things?
Tres: Just like you, Momma.

Awwwww!!! What a sweet unexpected compliment!

How About It

Bryant does something really funny, and I keep meaning to put it on here! Instead of saying "how about we do this or that" he says "he bout we..." I've started correcting him, but it makes me smile everytime!

Just so you guys know, we had him evaluated about a year ago to see if he needed speech therapy, but were told that everything he was doing would self-correct. We have a feeling that when he was first learning sounds, his hearing was effected at times by his constant ear infections.

At any rate, he makes me happy. Now if I could just get him to kiss me every once in a while (he thinks that's for babies), I would be ecstatic!

I'm so in love with my children! Thank you God for these three miracles!

Pictures from the Fourth

I don't know if you can tell from this picture or not, but Tres spent so much time int he pool, and therefore in his goggles, that he got a really nice case of 'raccoon eyes!' He also got a smidge of sunburn and, as previously discussed, a nice case of swimmers ear, but he loves to swim so much!

The boys with Donnie Mac. They were playing (what else) Pokemon on DS.

Does anyone else have trouble getting there kids to NOT stuff food in their mouths like this?? I cut it up for her, and she just proceeds to shove it all into her mouth at once. It's like she thinks she needs to store it up or something.

Jackie and I played some games of Wii bowling. She's a little camera shy... but I got enough to show you how it all ended...

In this victory dance! I rule... sorry Jackie... that means, you drool! I'll rematch you anytime! (Challenge on.)

Sophie likes to multi-task. She took a little break from the pool and pretending to be Flounder (This time we remembered the little swimmer, but forgot her swimsuit!) to play a little hockey.

Ava Sophia with one of her favorite people! She loves you, Maggie. She loves everyone else too, she just shows it a little differently!

Swimmer's Ear for Everyone!

We had a great time at Hank's parents house this past weekend. It's one of the few times that we have actually traveled out of town for the 4th... well in a long time, anyway. We spent a lot of time around the pool (I know, big surprise, right?), grilling out, playing games, and just chilling with Hank's sister Jackie and her family.

The first full day there, Hank developed a severe case of Swimmer's Ear. Thank God we had brought antibiotic ear drops with us, along with allergy meds for the kids, and numbing ear drops (you just never know with my kids and their allergies... and Soph's breathing issue history makes me want to be over prepared instead of under). So we started treating him with the drops. By Saturday night, Tres's ear was hurting and by Sunday, Bryant joined them. So we have done several days of antibiotic drops and pain relievers and now everyone seems to be getting back to normal. Thank God we dealt with this last year and I knew what to do!

Last night, around 1 am (thank you very much Jackie! You are lucky I was awake!) Jackie called to ask me some questions about swimmer's ear. Apparently her whole house has it too! But what can we expect... we were in that pool all weekend. We had to make the kids get out at night!

I got some pics to post, so I will make it a point to get downstairs and download them tonight!

Some things you need to know!

So a lot is taking place at our house this summer! We are having cousins stay with us and loving every minute of it! Hank, with the help of my brother and father, has gotten the kitchen tiled and just a week or two ago, he also got the hall bath tiled! What a difference that makes cosmetically! I hated the old linoleum... it made it feel like to me that no matter how often I cleaned or mopped, that the bathroom was never clean! Now, it feels fresh to me.

Also, just over the weekend, Hank got crown put up in our bathroom. We have the smallest bath in the house... a curse of the older homes, but it's functional and I don't mind it. We just want to improve our home as much as possible! We have also recently purchased an area rug for our 'formal' dining room. (Formal is in quotes, because my kids are currently using that room as Pokemon card trading central.)

Another thing you should know... is I am typing this post out on my brand new laptop! Hank found one for me at a price we couldn't turn down!! We had planned on getting on next year, but this was too good! So I have a lap top and a more portable way to work on writing and such!

hmmmm.... what else? Ava Sophia is working on potty training a little. She's more interested in sitting on the potty that actually using it, but it's a start! A couple of you have asked how she is doing in her big girl bed... and the answer it, she is doing great! She loves her 'pin-cess' room! We lay her down at night and she watches a show and goes to bed. She doesn't get up usually at all! She wears her hair in pig tails and a ponytail often, now that it's so hot. But I also love to let her hair be long and curly down her back too. She is such a little girly, girl and I can't believe that my little girl will be two in a month...

Bryant is gearing up for school! He is so excited. We are going to start working on making sure that he as ready as his brother was... recognizing all the numbers and letters, simple addition and subtraction, etc. He is a smart, extremely social little boy! He decided about 3 weeks ago that he wanted to go under in the pool, he put on a mask and hasn't looked back since! He is even swimming (with adult supervision) without wings!

Tres is a fish again this summer! There is absolutley nothing he loves better than swimming the day/night away! He is ready for first grade and loves to tell Bryant all about Kindergarden. You know, our resident pro.

We go to the beach before Summer is out and it will be Sophie's first time! We will be doing family pics on the beach with the help of one of my old friends who lives down there! I'm planning our clothes right now... I love beach pics!

Okay, enough for now!