Family Kingdom, Aquarium And More...

Avery was so excited to get her hair braided

just relaxing

all done

leaving with their souveneirs - Ethan broke the sword within just a few hours

checking out the sea life

brothers having fun together riding the rides

Ethan was fascinated with this guy

mommy and the kiddos after riding lots of rides

hanging out in the pool- shortly after i took this picture she fell asleep with daddy

Ethan, Trey and Daddy just being crazy boys

Trey still enjoys the kiddy rides even though he is 9

being driven around by my little guy

On Tuesday we spent another day at the beach/pools and then in the afternoon walked to Family Kingdom to ride some rides. The kids and i each got "ride all day" bracelets. Johnny's back was really bothering him so he decided to sit it out and hang out with Raegan. Ethan had absolutely no fear and wanted to ride everything. We all had a blast going on rides till around 10 pm and then began our mile and half walk that seemed much longer on the way home than it had going!

Wednesday we skipped the beach and hung out at the pools. There was an indoor pool, lazy river, outdoor pool and a whirlpool so plenty to keep us busy. In the afternoon we headed to Ripley's Aquarium, went for a late lunch and then headed back to the hotel area. We took beach pictures and then went walking around the downtown area (the hotel was in the same block as the downtown area so didn't require too much walking) and found a place to get Avery's hair braided (she was dying to do this from the time we got there). We ended the night eating at a little NY pizza joint on the strip which was delicious!

Hittin The Beach

yummy sand

movie and popcorn while mommy takes a break

Ethan's hat at Dicks Last Resort

daddy had to fix it a little bit since it was a little big

this is how you do it sissy

breaking free

as far as Trey got with burying Ethan

On Sunday we spent the day at the beach and the pools. Ethan decided he was not a big beach fan, he didn't like the salty water, sand on his hands or pretty much anything about the beach. Raegan crawled around like a little crab, & consumed quite a lot of sand. She didn't seem to mind if her bottle got covered in sand or her pretzels were sand covered pretzels. Trey & Avery took right to the ocean and stayed in the waves the majority of the time, besides taking a few breaks to build some castles or get buried in the sand.

Monday Johnny and his brother and his buddy from Charleston went golfing for the day, so the kids and i were on our own. We spent part of the day at the pool, part at the beach, and the rest in the room for a nap (as much to benefit mommy as the kids) Once the guys got back we went to Dicks Last Resort for dinner. The guys were trying to pull one over on me without telling me that this restraunt is where the servers are rude and sarcastic to you, but i happened to read about it in a coupon book on the way there so i ruined their surprise. We were told to "move our crap" so he could put the paper down for the tablecloth, slammed out waters down, tossed the straws over his shoulder at us, and after we got our food asked if "we were good so he could go take a poop". We got some good laughs over dinner. They also made hats for people that wanted them, he made some for our kids. Ethan got a lot of laughs as he proudly wore his hat out of the restraunt.

Once Upon A Vacation...

Johnny listened to hours upon hours of books on cd

all i can say is thank goodness for bottles on this trip!!

our hotel on the beach

all the luggage in our room on the 7th floor

on the road

ok these are backwards but oh well- sacking out watching the movie in the picture below

We hit the highway at 5 pm on Friday the 27th on our long van ride to our destination of Myrtle Beach, SC. The kids were super travelers. We were manned with a mini dvd player, lots of movies, mp3 players, books on cd, nintendo ds, books and lots and lots of snacks and drinks. Towards the later evening we gave the 3 youngest their allergy medicine (convenient that it causes drowsiness!) We heard nothing from the back of the van till it was light outside again, about the time we hit the Smoky Mountains. I have always in the past been the better night driver but i must say i was worthless at driving and only made it about 2 hrs, so Johnny was stuck with the majority of the driving. We arrived in Myrtle Beach around 4 or 5 pm on Sat., got all checked in, went to eat, got some groceries for the hotel room(which i think everyone in the city of Myrtle Beach was doing at Walmart that night!) We finally got back to the hotel and sacked out around midnight. We were exausted!!

This will be a small novel, so read on if you wish.... VACATION 2008....

Packing Fun

make sure you pack me, mommy!

It's been a crazy busy week with VBS at church each night for Trey and Avery, me working a couple of nights, Johnny finishing up a couple of side jobs, and starting to get packed for vacation. Ethan asks me each time he sees me getting stuff together "ready to go on cation?!" "i'm gonna ride on the crocodiles back" Yes he thinks he will be riding a crocodile! He also is confused and thinks that there are crocodiles in the ocean, and i caught Trey being an ornery big brother and telling him that he told the crocodiles to eat him. Sooo when we get there who knows if he will be terrified of the water, he may not want to go anywhere near the ocean....we are going to alligator adventure which is what has brought on all the talk of alligators and crocodiles.

So Much Better

Yesterday morning i didn't wake up till 5 am and that was for Raegan wanting a bottle. Pheww, we made it through the night with no throwing up!! We were all a little scared to eat yesterday and still had sour stomachs so we started out all of us eating applesauce for breakfast. Ethan took one bite and that was the extent of his diet till last night, he complained of his tummy hurting most of the day. I finally convinced Trey to eat a sandwich in the later afternoon and he felt much better after that. Raegan hasn't moved beyond a little applesauce, but taking her formula again. Avery never did get sick. I'm sure glad this was a quick bug, cause if i had to clean up puke one more time...

Rounds 3 & 4

No we didn't escape a round 3 and 4. Trey had a really rough night, but mine didn't hit till about 5am. The only reason i am sitting in an upright position right now is because my fever broke, and i had to put my comforter in the wash because Ethan dowsed it after a day of thinking he was acting better. That he was not! I don't know what this is but i feel like i got run over by a truck, so achy and weak! Avery has never vomited except for burping as a baby, so i think the girl is immune-i tell ya. I hope so for her sake...she has been quite the big helper for mommy!

Round 2 Has Hit

Raegan has not been puking today but still has the runs anytime she tries to eat or drink anything. We went out to clean the church after i picked the oldest two up at the pool (they have been able to go to the pool the last 2 days with June and the kids which has been really fun for them) we headed out to clean the church quick and on the way home Ethan started crying that his tummy hurt. I had a bad feeling so i tried to rush home but didn't make it in time before he started hurling. We were just getting ready to stop to grab a bite to eat but we quickly lost our appetites. After spending quite a while cleaning up the van, getting Ethan bathed, changing another messy one from Raegan, i saw Ethan acting a little funny and moaning a little bit-he was laying on the couch so i ran over there and grabbed him right as it started coming out. I got him to the wood floor for the remainder of the hurling (thank goodness for wood floors!!! Raegan and Ethan have each had 3 baths each at seperate times if that tells anything about my day, not to mention the many loads of laundry i am doing with pooped and puked on clothes, sheets, car seat covers, blankies, dollies, and anything else that has happened to get in the path of nastiness.

Johnny worked until 9:30 tonight, which is nice for the overtime for vacation but not exactly the best night for it with all the action here :) I'm just holding out hope that there is not going to be a round 3 and round 4...

First Steps

not feeling so hot

my first steps!

"whoa mommy watch out! This is so fun mommy!"

Ethan came out yesterday and said "i wear a pull up mommy" oh boy we are in for some fun! He had ripped one side and had his whole body through one leg hole.

Well at about a week and a half away from being 10 months old my baby has decided she needs to try out a new way to get around in an upright position. She took a few steps last night while i was at work and tonight took a couple of wobbly concentrated little steps to get her to the chair from the couch tonight so i got the camera and camcorder out to hopefully catch some. Sure enough she decided to take off again, this time to the middle of the floor and took about 6 steps before falling. I'm hoping she doesn't stop the spider crawling real soon, i will miss that!

Her first steps also happened on the day when she is fighting a nasty virus of some kind. Last night i was up about once an hr to the sound of heaving only to find her each time with just a little puke on her blanket and already back to sleep. This morning she slept till 9 and then when she woke up went right back to sleep in my arms. She has vomited up all day today any juice or formula i give her and also has some not so pretty smelling, MESSY diapers! Tonight we fed her a little applesauce and she drank about an ounce of formula and she was acting a little better, and even a little lively so we thought we would make a quick trip to Walmart to pick up a few things off of our list for vacation. We hadn't been there 10 minutes and she hurled about 5 times while i was holding her. Johnny ran and asked for some paper towels and the kid that brought them over to us said "oh my is that all from her??" Yea i pretty much looked like i had poured a couple of glasses of water down my front mixed with a little applesauce of course! We made a quick exit! I went out and got some pedialyte because i called the nurse and they said to only give her that for the next 8 hrs and see if she can hold that down. Hopefully she will!

It Was A Hard Habit To Break...

No more thumbs for me!

Mommy is proud of you Avery!

but she DID IT!! Avery is now in the ranks of the non- thumb suckers! The last couple of years we have tried without success to help her break the habit but this time she has done it all on her own with a little will power (she has plenty of that to spare!) She was promised a trip to Worlds of Fun when she kicked the habit, so she is very excited about doing that soon.

Twinkies

Raegan's buddy Abigail had a duplicate of one of her tops so shared with Raegan so that they could be twinkies. They weren't much in the picture taking mood as you can see, they were more interested in their mommy's to keep stuffing cookies in their mouths.

Rain Rain Go Away...

The kids wanted to go to the park so bad yesterday, so we headed out to pick up some food and go eat at the park. We had to stop off to make a utility payment and while we were in the drive through it started raining. The kids all got sad and started chanting 'rain rain go away...' by the time we had gotten to Mcdonalds to pick up our food it had stopped and the rain clouds had passed over, so we got our park outing after all and the kids were very satisfied that their chanting "had worked".

The Weekend

Avery is only about 1 inch too short to ride the slides by herself. Grow, grow, grow Avery.

Ethan had no fear of the water and took off and had a blast

Trey and Avery floating the lazy river

after movie night showing off their prizes they got for having codes on their popcorn bags

Ethan just couldn't hang with the movie any longer

Trey hanging out at the pool

Raegan and her ducky

I haven't gotten good pictures of Raegan's crawl but this is it- like a spider- a fast moving spider at that

We had a fun weekend. On Friday night we went to a church across from the kids school that showed the movie "Cars" on a big screen in their parking lot. Popcorn and drinks were provided, so it was a nice FREE family night! Raegan zonked and Ethan finally bit the dust about half way through the movie.

On Saturday we went to the Gardner water park. Raegan slept the first hr we were there but then woke up and got to try out the water. It was very cloudy and the water was pretty cold but we all managed to get a little sun. We are trying to get some sun before we head to Myrtle Beach later this month, so that we don't all fry on the first day and then be miserable the rest of the week! We are to date the pasty white family of 6 who all desperately need a tan! We will be sure to smear Johnny's feet with sunscreen before we take a quick stroll down the beach! (hehe- a good memory from our South Padre vacation 2 yrs ago).