Sunday, June 26, 2011

Backyard Pool

We bought the kids a little plastic pool today. It finally cooled down to about 90 degrees at 7 tonight so we let them try it out. They had so much fun! There is even a little slide built in so they can slide into the water. 
 I couldn't get them all to look at me at once.
 
 Natalie is practicing her floating. I think her booty is still touching the pool but hey...at least she's trying!! :)
 Natalie actually posed for me. I sure love my girls!!

 They wanted Violet to join them
 She didn't last very long...even with all the hugs!
 
Love the face while she's splashing...I think she's holding her breath. And seriously...check out Nokie's hair...where did she get that from?? :)

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Summer Days

We have been having so many summer thunderstorms lately! Crazy wind, bolts of lightening and loud thunder. Last night Shane and I sat on the back porch and watched the storm roll in. It was so pretty. A little scary too, waiting for it unleash on us. :) I was trying to get a shot of the lightening but all I got was some lit up clouds.



 My only shot of the lightning just ended up being some bright clouds. You can't even tell how dark the sky was!  Two minutes after we went inside it started pouring buckets! The best part was that the storm blew away all the humidity! At least for the morning...by noon it was back in full force! :) 
While it was still beautiful this morning, I took the girls to the park to play in the water. They had so much fun. Heidi went through the water once and was over it. She just kept trying to run away from me to do other things. Natalie on the other hand, had a blast. She went through the water over and over. She wanted me to time her to see how fast she could run through the water. :) 

 Heidi went in first and got completely soaked!

 Natalie was very cautious the first time and managed to get through without getting very wet.

 Heidi liked jumping in the puddles better than running through the froggy.

 The girls had so much fun!

 

Thursday, June 23, 2011

My kids love raspberries and put them on their fingers like olives. It's the cutest thing ever. :)


Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day!

 Such a busy day! I let Shane sleep in. There was a big thunderstorm last night that knocked the power out for a couple hours so we let Natalie sleep with us in our bed. It was so cute to see the two of them snuggled up together when I got out of bed this morning. :) While he was sleeping, I made some banana blueberry muffins...so good! We went to his parents house around 10 and hung out until lunch. Shane grilled some amazing chicken and corn on the cob. -I just realized how much I talk about food. It just makes me happy! - We had a really nice time eating together and hanging out with Shane's family while all the little cousins played together. At nap time we brought the girls home, let them sleep and then went to my parents house. While we were there the girls pretty much swam the whole time! They are turning into fish. It's awesome. Dad grilled hamburgers which were amazing. We had a full day of family, good food and celebrating dads...a perfect day!
They both colored him pictures for Father's Day and they are showing him what they did.
I have to say that Shane is seriously the greatest father. He is so good with our girls and so involved in their lives. I love watching him play with them and teach them things. Just watching them together makes me smile. :)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Swimming

It is so nice having my parent's pool right up the road. We take the girls there a couple times a week and they just love it. I found these really cool swimming floats that go over their bathing suits and they work so well! They keep them afloat and still allow them to use their arms and legs and actually swim. Today Heidi figured out how to keep her balance with the float and swim. It was so cool! She would swim back and forth to the deep end with no problems. A couple times she hopped off the steps and her face went under the water but she didn't even care. It was pretty cute! The other nice thing about these floaty things...Natalie isn't afraid to swim anymore. She just takes off swimming wherever she wants to go. I love it! Now when we go to the pool I can actually have fun too instead of holding them the whole time. :)





Saturday, June 11, 2011

Myrtle Beach

Things have been pretty crazy around here lately so we decided to take the girls to the beach. My parents were in the need of a getaway too so they decided to join us. It was a really long drive but we had so much fun! I found a really great deal at an Embassy Suites right on the beach. We had a balcony overlooking the ocean. They had a water park that the girls loved! We got our huge free breakfasts every morning and free drinks at night. We were go go go the whole time and the girls loved it. We threw all the normal rules out the window. They didn't take naps or have a bedtime. They got milkshakes with almost every meal.  It was just a really fun weekend! I took over 200 hundred pictures for just the three days we were there. I narrowed them down a bit for the blog. :)
 The first morning we were there my parents got the girls up early to look for shells. Natalie would clean off each shell before putting it in the bucket...Heidi would just dump in a handful of dirt with a few shells inside. :)
 This was the view from our balcony
 Dad and Natalie playing catch
 Shane took Heidi out into the waves and would lift her up with the waves came. She had so much fun. She didn't care that she was getting water in her face!

 Natalie was scared to death of the water and it took lots of convincing to get her close to it. Finally I had her sit near the water and as the tide came in it would get closer and closer. When it finally hit her she thought it was so much fun. I love the reaction on their faces when the water hit them!



 Shane and the girls tried to build a sandcastle by the water. Heidi had to run back to get another bucket.
 
 We took a break from the beach and grabbed some lunch at Johnny Rockets. The girls loved the music. They both got a pin for dancing with the waiters.
 After lunch we went to the water park right outside the hotel. The lazy river was so nice! I could have stayed there all day if my girls weren't around. :) Natalie sat on Dad's lap and I got Heidi.


 The water park was so cool. Great for so many ages. The girls had fun but so did the rest of us!
 Natalie did not want to go down the water slide at all! I asked her if she could show Bumpa how to get to the slide so he could go down it and when she got to the slide she wanted to go too. 
I can't even tell you how many times they went down the slide together. Every time they finished going down the water slide Natalie would say, "Again, Bumpa! Again!"
 I took Heidi a few times too but she was too cold. I thought it was really fun. :)
 Natalie even started going down the slide by herself. I was so proud of her! She was really brave and it turned into her favorite part of the whole trip!





 This is one of my favorite pictures!
 For dinner we went to Broadway on the Beach. Such a cool place. Tons of shops, restaurants, and attractions.
 Natalie and Heidi played a fishing game and both won little elephants.
Natalie and Heidi with their new elephants
  Mom and Dad

 We took at least 10 pictures trying to get everyone to look at the camera. This is the best we got!
 After dinner Natalie saw this rock wall and she wanted Shane to do it. She told him, "You can do it, Daddy. I know you can." He couldn't say no to that. :) He was only wearing flip flops though so he had to do it barefoot!
 Walking around at 10 o'clock at night like it was what they did every night! They were so good on our vacation. When we headed back to the hotel they fell asleep 2 minutes after we started driving and didn't wake up till the next morning. Even through getting their pjs on and making them go potty. :)
They fell asleep 10 minutes into the drive home too. I was hoping they would stay asleep but they woke up with 2 hours still left in our drive. Thank goodness we had Shane's laptop. We put in a DVD and they were good to go. The stop at TCBY for some frozen yogurt helped too!