My girls

So as not to confuse anyone I won't title this post as Mother's Day, but these pictures were taken on Mothers Day. Instead, I've decide to use the title My girls, which is very original and I'm sure I've never used on a post before.

My husband is always so sweet about planning something for me on Mothers Day and really hype it up to the girls. I think I pretty much got cards/drawings or atleast a Happy Mother's Day from them every day the week leading up to Mother's Day. They really get into holidays, even if it doesn't consist of them getting a present. Although Isabella normally tries to "do something special for us" by saying "Since its Mother's Day, I'm going to sleep with you tonight" or "Since its YOUR day, I'm going to play the Wii with you." Sneaky little booger.

Hey little girl...... who's baby are you? Oh, mine, well aren't I just a lucky mama!

And what about you sweet thing? Mine again! Yes, I am blessed indeed. And I love you even with strawberry seeds in your teeth and your desire to eat that nasty pork just to frustrate me on Mother's Day. :)

I have to say, I feel very blessed to have a wonderful husband, who was always so sweet to me during those "difficult" Mother's Days and who now makes so much special for me, and for my 2 beautiful girls that God has allowed me to be mommy too. But as an extra little reminder of how blessed I am, I can't even tell you how many people came by and complimented us on our girls. That's always kind of fun.... no one made mention of me looking good, but I'll take all the compliments on how cute and sweet my girls are. Besides, if they don't notice me, they won't notice how many desserts I had that day either.

On our way home late that afternoon, we pulled over next to a field of poppies for some great pictures of my girls.

Prettier than the flowers they are in and I didn't have to bribe them to hold hands --- I will have to bribe them to give me better smiles. There's my girl with the dimples so big, you can't help but smile. And what mommy wouldn't love this picture? So sweet, so innocent, but we can't forget....So sassy! Oh I love these girls!!

More of my newest nephew

I wish I could tell you we have been at the beach since Sunday, building sandcastles, enjoying the sand between our toes, basking in the sun, ...... BUT we have pretty much had rain all week. Kind of odd weather for here or so I've been told, and we've never been here when it rained every day. At least my hubby is with me, rather than at work, but not quite the nice warm vacation we were expecting. :) We have still had a good time, just had to improvise and search out for other things to do rather than swimming/lounging by the pools or going to the beach -- granted, that is actually why you come to the beach, but we have been able to find a few new things to do that we haven't done before. And thankfully, we have had a few evenings where we could walk down to the shops, swam at the indoor pool, and did some biking yesterday when it wasn't raining, but too windy to sit on the beach. All that to say, I don't have beach pictures to share ...YET, I'm still praying maybe God will give us a few hours tomorrow. :) So I thought I would go ahead and post a few more pictures of my nephew Ian. He will be a week old tomorrow, but obviously these pictures were taken on Friday and Saturday in the hospital. Don't you want to just kiss those cheeks? I think I can smell that new baby smell right through my computer.

Today

I had totally planned today to be a busy day. We're leaving for the beach on Saturday, so I was planning on finishing up packing, giving the girls baths, cleaning the house (I hate coming home to a dirty house, plus our neighbors will be coming in to feed the animals :) and I then I figured I would be ahead of schedule so I had actually planned on uploading a couple pictures and telling you about my wonderful Mother's Day that I had on Sunday.








But instead, this is what I got to do.......

I guess that's a pretty good trade off. This is my newest nephew, Ian Michael. His due date was June 3rd. His biggest brother's birthday is today 5/15, his big brother's birthday is tomorrow 5/16 and he surely did not want to miss out on that fun. His 13 year old brother was most likely not hoping to share his birthday today, but we figure he'll have to take that up with God, because He thought it would be a great idea. :)

He was 7 pounds 5 ounces, 18 1/2 inches long, cute little nose, sweet tiny lips, precious baby smell.... oh wait, I don't think they actually wrote that down.

And he looks just like his Auntie.

Ok, maybe not, but he does have dark hair....... at least for now.

(I'm taking my laptop, so I will upload some more pics of him and the couple from Mothers Day, I try to do everything way behind and out of sequence around here)

A hiking we will go

We promised the girls that if the weather was nice we would go hiking on Saturday. We weren't able to head out until later in the afternoon, but it still looked like a pretty day so off we went. Kenny and I love hiking, we used to hike while we were dating, loved hiking before the girls were born, most of our vacations were centered around something outside... camping, hiking, etc. When Isabella was born, we would still throw her in a backpack and be able to go hiking some, then she was old enough to walk while hiking and Amelia was born. Our hiking changed from "Wow, what a great workout" to "How can we get rid of these sticks without her noticing?" I remember when Amelia was a baby and we took them out hiking, Isabella stopped every couple feet to pick up a rock, a stick, examine a leaf, hang from a limb, climb a rock.... then Amelia got hungry so we stopped to feed her, not a whole lot of hiking, but some fun in nature. When we were done, not making it anywhere near our destination, we turned around and headed out. A couple met up with us and said "How far was it in to the waterfall?" Kenny and I both just laughed and said "We don't know, we've been in there for over an hour and maybe made it 1/2 a mile." But we had a great leaf and rock collection.

So yesterday, although we knew we had to go somewhere local, I thought maybe we could have a nice little hike. We went to a state park not far from our house and if any of you live near us you know where I'm talking about, and you'll know that this rock we are sitting on is only about 15 feet into the hike. Somehow it is new everytime to Isabella and she just has to defeat it. We had just climbed off the rocks and were on our way when a huge crash of thunder and lightning happened -- Isabella screamed so loud you would have thought she had been struck by lightening. Honestly, I'm surprised no one came running into the woods to see what was wrong with this poor child. Obviously, we went back to the car. Kenny and I weren't ready to give up yet so we drove up the mountain a little and within a few minutes the rain had stopped and the clouds were gone. Oh good, the drama has passed, now we can have a nice hike. Not so much... The rain did stop, but as we were slowly collecting rocks, ..... ur, I mean hiking, Amelia decides to take off running. She trips, falls and of course is crying like crazy saying that she is bleeding. I took out my magnifying glass and saw a slight drop of blood. Finally, she's consoled and happy and we meet up with some guy and his 2 dogs. Our girls are animal freaks so anytime they see a dog they want to pet it, but thankfully have learned to ask first. This guy said, "He's friendly"...... he should have added "He's a crazy spazzed out dog who I just hyped up on drugs", the dog comes running at us and runs right passed us and back. We could tell it was just hyper and didn't want to hurt us. Well, at least 2 of us could tell that. We walk away from the man and the dog decides to have yet another turn at running at us, Isabella freaks out and starts running, the dog runs passed her, runs into her and totally knocks her legs out from under her. Airborne then landing hard on her hiney. This was literally about 2 minutes after Amelia fell. So now we have another one that is hurt and inconsolable, Amelia wants to get back in on some of the love action trying to convince me there really is blood........ and I realized then, this hike was not going to be at all what I had imagined. :) Oh well, its all good. We hiked to our typical, never make it any farther spot and sat down by the water, throwing rocks and eating snacks. It decided to start thundering again and we decided it was definitely time to go home. We opted for a family movie night...... inside..... no lightning.... no dogs..... ok so there were some dogs, but they were in the movie. This picture is for Auntie Becky. My girls didn't understand why we had to look up at the tree, but I told them not to worry, Auntie Becky would understand. :)