Swimming Lessons with Coach Malcolm

The second week of May, we had the privelge of taking swimming lessons again for the second year in a row with Coach Malcolm in a beautiful setting. Usually he likes the kids to do 2 consecutive weeks in a row but because we were planning to be out of town the second week of our lessons, he allowed us to split them up. So the first week we were with the same group as last year, our friends, Mabry and her sister Briley, Liam, and Reed and his brother Cade. The first day was much like last year with practically all the kids being relunctant to swim and having Coach M instruct them on what to do. Daniel screamed and cried but Coach Malcolm was so good with him. At one point, Daniel walked away and told me it was time to go home. Poor little dude! But the next day was SOOOO much better!! No screaming. By the 3rd day, he willing went to Coach when it was his turn...WOW, I was one proud momma!!






The pool filter is always so fascinating for the littles! Last year we found a mole in there, and L.A. accidently touched it, she thought she was feeling around for a pool toy, ewwwwww! This year just some spiders, a frog, leaves, & some pool toys.




Cade was so brave catching that frog!! Daniel almost killed it with his tight grip but thankfully, I think it got away!



The first week of June, we were able to finish the lessons with our friends, Ava, Ella, Ellie, and Aubrey. Daniel is a little fish! He is a wild man in the pool now, constantly jumping to me from the side of the pool, putting his face in the water, & kicking his feet. My mom brought him to swimming lessons this past Wednesday while I was at work and she said he swam the width of the pool (with Coach M right with him, but he did it!!!) On Thursday, he swam the length of the pool!! Woohoo!


These 3 were so cute looking throuh the gate out at the lake.



Even this little man got to dip in the pool throughout the week. Next year it will be your turn little Ethan, isn't he SO CUTE!!! :)



Thank you Coach Malcolm for the wonderful swimming lessons, I think Daniel is hooked on swimming now!!

A busy Saturday!

I love this time of year because not only is the weather GORGEOUS, but there are so many fun things to do! Back on Saturday, April 16th, we had an action packed day! Our day began with the annual community Easter egg hunt & BBQ our church puts on at our church property, complete with egg hunts for all ages, bounce houses, pony rides and petting zoo, face painting, hay ride, pie contest and delicious bbq.



We arrived late, as is our usual family custom, and literally walked very fast, and practically threw him into the roped off area for his age groups egg hunt, and he was off! He wanted to open each egg he found to see what was inside. He didn't get the idea that you're supposed to fill your basket as fast as you can and then check out your loot. Oh well, I'd rather him not eat all that candy anyway!



Our family photo!



Next we were off to pet the chicks! These boys LOVED this!!! Tyler was so excited to see that chick his momma was holding!



Wyatt was very brave and wanted to hold one, he was very gentle with it.



This picture cracks me up! I love Daniel's expression and Logan in the back ground looking on, not sure what to think of it! haha!! I can just hear Daniel saying, "Hello little chick! I LOVE chicks!"



Our friend, Katie, taking a ride on the pony... she looks concerned because I think the horse did it's business and Katie's momma, Amy was trying not to step in it!



After a fun morning at the property, and a yummy lunch, we headed home for naps before taking Daniel to his FIRST experience inside the FSU stadium at the spring game. Daniel was just taking it all in when we first got there.



We sat with a bunch of our friends and their kids, which made the whole experience so much more fun! Baby Ethan, 6 months old, snug as a bug up against his mommy with his thumb, was so good!



I love these kids!! They were so cute and pretty good for the whole game. Of course Aunty Rachel being armed with lots of snacks helped too!



I think Daniel was getting a lesson on cheering. He loves to clap and got a kick out of everyone doing the war chant!




Ava and Ellie are sweet friends! I wish I had taken a picture of Ava's outfit, her momma, Meredith made it & it was adorable!! She had on a garnet and gold twirl skirt with an appilqued spear shirt. The spear was half garnet and half gold sewn onto a black background, I LOVED IT!!! I'm definitely going to half to attempt making one one of these days, hopefully before this fall!


Brian and Aubrey, Aubs was hamming it up here! Love that girl! She and Daniel were born 2 days apart and we have pictures of them together in their bassinets in the hospital. :)



I think Daniel had a fun time, and it was nice because we could spread out a little more than at a regular season game where you're packed into the stadium like sardines! We ended our fun day with a yummy mexican dinner with our friends! So thankful for days like these!! Good times and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOLES ------------------------->

Our new annual tradition

On Saturday, April 9th, Mike, Daniel & I took a little day trip to the strawberry farm that Daniel & I went to last year.




A lot of these pictures are similar to last year's pictures, but Daniel is just a year older.




A lot of the strawberries were HUGE, and SO sweet and juicy!!










My sisters, Ashley and Laura, and Laura's fiance, Shannon drove up and met us for part of the morning. Daniel was very excited to see them!





This peacock was displaying all his colors for us for a long time, he was so pretty! This is funny to me because my sisters and scuz (our nickname for our cousin who is like a sister to us) tell me that I used to not like peacocks when I was younger...I have no recollection of this dislike. haha, maybe they made it up. :)






Daniel was in love with these baby bunnies, he wanted to pet them for a LONG time!!!
I finally had to make him move on so some other little kid could have a turn.







Daniel had such a FUN time, as did all of us!! We picked 2 pints of big delicious juicy strawberries.



Daniel loves his Aunts so much and they love him too, it makes my heart happy to see them interact with each other.



It was a great day and we want to go back before the season is over. I've made strawberry jam, strawberry shortcake, and this past weekend, made a cake with strawberry buttercream icing. I'll have to post pictures of those soon. Yum, yum, yum!

Happy 35th birthday Mike

The next few pictures are more about the decorations for Mike's birthday celebration. Mike smoked a Boston butt and we had some of our friends from our small group over (which isn't so small anymore). My friend, Kristin, told me about a party planning blog, and oh.my.goodness!!! So the inspiration for Mike's birthday was Reese's Pieces, his favorite candy. I went with the brown, yellow, and orange color scheme and we had a dessert table, which I'm pretty sure my friends wanted to kill me over as that was the first thing you saw as you walked in the door and keeping the kids away from it before dinner was a full time job! Sorry friends. :)



Who wants to eat baby carrots and yellow pepper strips when Reese's Pieces are within reach?!



I found this brown and white polka dot fabric and wide orange rick rack at Joanne's to make the tablecloth. I was just going to hot glue it on but then decided if I did it right, it could be washed and used in the future, I'm glad I sewed it instead of hotglueing it. :)



I already had this polka dot vase which matched the fabric perfectly. With extra fabric I just folded it in thirds to make a table runner.






I've wanted to make one of these cake pennents ever since I saw it on Erika's and Jill's blog.


It was a fun party and we are so greatful we get to celebrate such a wonderful husband, father, and friend! I love you Mike and look forward to seeing what God has in store for you this coming year!

Seaside School 5K & Half Marathon Girls Weekend

I wanted to share just a few of the best pictures from the race weekend. I was so glad to be able to go on this girls weekend even though I couldn't run. The pictures speak for themselves, I love them because they capture the emotion from the day. I am SOOOO proud of these girls!! We had such a wonderful weekend, talked, ate, shopped, and most did a lot of running. (In my mind, the running was just a good excuse for a fabulous getaway girls weekend!)

Brooke, the famous Darby from Flythroughourwindow, Danielle, and I were the cheerleaders and it was COLD while we waited for our friends to cross the finish line!















We were all so greatful to L.A.'s aunt and uncle who allowed all 16 of us to stay in their beautiful beach house!! And I'm happy to report that my back is all better and I have been able to return to my normal activities!!

Not your ordinary Tuesday

Last night when we went to bed we knew some thunderstorms were coming, but we didn't expect what hit. At 3:13am I rembember hearing Daniel cry, like he was scared because of the thunder and Mike jumped out of bed to go get him. While he was in Daniel's room, and I was alone in the bed, I heard what sounded like a slow brush of leaves against the house near the dining room, no major thud. Mike got Daniel and went to look outside, a totally normal thing for Mike to do during a thunderstorm. He calmly came back in and just as calmly said, "a tree fell on our car". It was a long night for all three of us. When we woke up in the morning, this was the view out the dining room window.













On the positive side, we got to have Mike home with us all day, I loved that he took care of all the arrangements necessary when something like this happens. I am so proud of the way he handled it. Our friend, Buckley came over after lunch with his chain saw to help cut up the limbs in smaller more manageable pieces and to get the biggest trunk off the top of the car. Daniel was absolutely fascinated with the chainsaw action. And...we now have a ton of fire wood for the winter, YAY! :-)








We are so thankful for God's protection last night, that we are all safe and that our house was not damaged. Our car is only a thing and it is fixable. We are thankful for our good insurance that will provide a rental car for 30 days, and towing service that towed our Tahoe away (it is driveable but there was a ton of glass inside and no rear windows on left and back). It could have been so much worse and our hearts ache for the families who lost loved ones during this crazy storm. As I was sweeping up the 1000's of pieces of shattered glass I was thinking about the people in Japan, there's really no comparison, yeah this was a mess and took the better part of the afternoon to clean up, but it could be cleaned up! Again, thankful.

My mind tends to wander to the what if's... you may be wondering, why did you park right there instead of inside your garage?! Good question! I was parked there because we are in the long (for us) process of cleaning out the garage and it is in complete disaray and therefore, no room to park in there. But the what if's won't erase what happened, like many people say, "it is what it is". The tow truck guy said, when he came to pick up the car, "wow, I bet you were mad when you woke up this morning to this!"...well, getting mad about it won't do any good, so not really. We are looking forward to a better nights sleep tonight, thankful for God's provision and protection, and thankful to all our friends and neighbors who offered to help in any way, drive me around, and offered their support. Not your ordinary Tuesday and hopefully we won't have to ever go through this again.