Florida 2014

We spent last week at the beach with my family and had a wonderful time!  We always stay somewhere in between Destin and Panama City Beach.  This year we stayed in a great house near Rosemary Beach!

We broke up the drive on the way there into two days.  We stopped in Baton Rouge Friday night.  Reid rode with my parents and Georgia Kate rode with us.  Georgia wasn't a fan of the car (as usual) and cried most of the way to Florida.  I was having major sinus issues both days in the car, so combine those two things and let's just say we were very happy when we got there! :)

We did manage to get a smile when we crossed into Louisiana!  Her first time leaving Texas needed documentation.

Also important to note is that Georgia can now wear little bows clipped into her hair!  Eeek!

Reid was so excited to stay at a hotel!  He was also very interested in this thing that is supposedly called a telephone. ;) 

When we arrived on Saturday afternoon I wanted to take the kids down to see the ocean right away!

The water this year was absolutely GORGEOUS.  It's always pretty, but it was definitely the clearest it's ever been!  

Reid took a while to warm up to the whole beach concept.  He eventually got comfortable with the sand (as long as he had his shoes on), but never got in the ocean.  There was "too much waves".  Georgia Kate did really well!  She did the beach in small doses, but when she was down there, she loved it!  She crawled around in the sand and loved being in the ocean!  

Reid enjoyed lots of popsicles and ice cream on this trip!  When I asked him what his favorite part of the beach was he first said ice cream and then said sand.  He also said in a sing-song voice…"not the ocean!" :) 

We stayed at the house most of the week, but did venture out a couple of nights for dinner!

Before our first dinner out...

This is what happens when everyone is hungry and you save the family picture for last...

Dinner that night was slightly stressful, so my parents very sweetly offered to keep the kids at home the next time and let the big kids go eat!  We went to one of our favorite places called The Great Southern Cafe in Seaside!

After dinner, my parents brought the babies up to Seaside to walk around, take some pictures, and go to  the cute ice cream shop there!  

This boy is just so happy!

We attempted dinner with the kids again our last night there and luckily it went pretty well!

We did a little photo shoot on the beach with the kids Thursday afternoon, but I am going to do a separate post with those pictures! 

We decided to make the long drive home all in one day.  Chris and I and the kids left at 5:30 am Saturday morning and arrived home around 5:30 pm.  I was SO nervous about the 12 hour drive, but I was so proud of how well they did.  Seriously, they were amazing.  

We stopped at McDonald's for a little breakfast in our pajamas. 

Thank you SO much Mumsie and Poppies for such a wonderful week at the beach!  

Georgia Kate is 11 months old!

We are ONE month away from ONE!  Wow!  It's amazing how much babies can change from month to month.  Georgia Kate seems to understand so much more all of a sudden!  She has learned to sign "more" and "all done", but sometimes mixes them up with each other.  She crawls to the bathtub when she hears us say, "bath time!" or when she hears the water running.  She loves to hug her baby dolls when I say, "Give baby a hug!"  She hugs them so tightly with a huge smile on her face! :) She's also started giving me big, wet kisses when I ask for them and I just love it so much!  We think she has officially said Dada and Mama in context.  She screamed, "Dada!!!" when he walked in the door after work one day and then she said, "Mama!" and started crawling towards me when we were at the beach last week (more on the beach soon)!  She is all over the place...pulling up on everything, attempting to climb on things (Reid never did this!), and taking things out of the cabinets and drawers.  She's quick and I really have to keep my eye on her!  She also loves to shut doors!  When she gets excited she bounces on her bottom and bounces so high that she almost stands up!  One of my favorite things that she does is giggle while the lights are still off when I go into her room to get her in the morning or after a nap.  She loves to laugh!  Georgia has recently started waving to strangers on her own!  She has a funny little wave where she twists her wrists, almost like a beauty pageant wave.  Sometimes she does both hands at once and it looks like she's doing a hula dance! :)

Georgia still only has her two bottom teeth and I'm soaking up her baby gummy smile!  Reid had 10 teeth by this point, so it's funny to me that she only has two.  She has such a precious smile and I love how she crinkles up her nose.  She's definitely a growing girl!  We moved up to size 4 diapers and she's in 12-18 month clothes.  Her 12 month pajamas are even getting snug!  She continues to be a pretty good eater and likes most foods.  She has a new love of mandarin oranges.  She has started to turn her nose up to puffs sometimes.  I guess she wants real food!  The one thing that she will not eat is green beans, which is so funny because Reid was and is the same way!    

Happy 11 months, Georgia Kate!  You are our silly, crazy, funny baby girl and we love you SO much!

The dress Georgia is wearing in these pictures was my first birthday dress!  I wanted to save it for her to wear in her 12 month post, but it is already tight on her neck and arms! 

Because who doesn't love coordinating outfits?

I went a little crazy getting the kids coordinating outfits for the summer.  I can justify it more when I know that it will be hot enough to wear them until Christmas.  So, if you see my kids wearing surfboards and lemons instead of turkeys in November, you will know why! ;) Yesterday they wore one of their coordinating sets, so I decided I wanted to do a little photo shoot.  As usual, it was pretty unsuccessful, but I guess that is life when a three year old and 10 month old are involved!  These pictures make me laugh because they perfectly show what it's like to try to take pictures of two kids!

What Summer evenings are made of...

Thank you Katy for the awesome sprinkler!

Downtown Aquarium

On Saturday Alli and John took Reid to the Downtown Aquarium!  He was so excited to have special time with them and he had a blast!  He was so excited to tell us all about it when he got home.  Thank you Alli and John!! 

I also wanted to include a few other random pictures…

It POURED here on Memorial Day.  Once things lightened up a little bit, Chris decided he wanted to play in the rain with Reid.  This is very unlike Reid, but he did finally decided to go out and run around in the rain and puddles.  He was laughing so hard and just having the best time!! I loved watching them!  

 Georgia Kate gets so messy when she eats!  The other day I told Chris that I didn't even know where to begin with cleaning her up and he said very matter of factly, "Just put her on the floor and let the dogs lick her." Poor second child...

 Reid was just getting himself a little ketchup.  

 I just love this picture and think Georgia Kate looks like a little puppy!  

 On Tuesday Reid got his very stomach virus.  It came out of nowhere and it was not fun.  I put him in the bathtub when I thought we were done (which turned out to just be round one of many) and little sister was jealous!  

 She's pulling up on everything!

 We happened to have Reid's 3 year well check on the day of the stomach bug.  He looked so big at his appointment!  Luckily it was just a 24 hour bug and he woke up feeling much better the next day!

Have a great week!