Thanksgiving in Indiana

I learned a hard lesson this Thanksgiving.

Don't drive 9 hours with two kids in the backseat TWICE in less than 4 days.

We drove up to south Indiana to visit with my mom's family for Thanksgiving. Mark had to stay home because he had to work the day after Thanksgiving, so it was just me, my mom, and the girls....all packed into her tiny sedan. The ride there was golden. We literally had to ask Lucy if Annie was breathing because she was so good, she barely made a sound the entire trip. Then, while we were in Indiana, Annie got croup and started wheezing, so I made a call to work and got one of the doctors I work with to call her in some steroids and an inhaler. By the way, what in the world do people who don't work in the medical field do? I get the hook up from work ALL THE TIME. Seriously don't know what I would do without the fabulous people I work with. ANYWAYZ.....since Annie was sick, and it was the second long car ride in such a short time, the ride back was not fun. She was not happy to be in her carseat, and we weren't happy to listen to her complain the whole ride home. As soon as we walked into our house both girls were back to normal...happy and playful and smiling.

Despite the rough ride home, and the lack of sleep we all got while we were there, it really was a lot of fun and well worth the trip. I love spending time with family. We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives who love us for who we are.

My aunt is fostering this little boy and Annie just fell in LOVE with him. She has never kissed anyone before....and out of nowhere she decided to start giving kisses ONLY to him.

Brittany and Lucy playing Memory. My fabulous cousins kept her entertained the whole trip.

My beautiful girls! They love each other so much :)

Our immediate family

Me and my cuz

This is the house we all stayed in. It was right on a lake and fortunately we had gorgeous weather the whole time.

Lucy checkin out the water on the dock.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! So much to be thankful for. I am feeling immensely blessed and content this year.

A Peachtree City 4th of July

If you live in the area and have never experienced the 4th of July in Peachtree City, please promise me you'll do it next year :) I absolutely love this city and this holiday. It makes me wish we lived there and had our own golf cart :) But we are very fortunate that Mark's parents let us crash with them and borrow the golf cart and pretend like we are natives to Peachtree City for the weekend. Although I guess Mark actually is....

We started off the day very early (ok, not that early, but early for me....) packing the older kids up and heading to the parade. Mark's parents stayed home so the babies could nap. I'm glad we didn't bring them because it was SO hot and they would have been miserable.

Waiting for the parade to start

Lucy wasn't sure at first, but then started to really get into it. They had so much fun and I'm glad we endured the heat for them.

Sharing their candy :) They are such sweet cousins.

Taking a break from the heat. Or as Lucy likes to say, "I need to take a minute."

After the parade, we went back to the Campbell's house, recuperated from the heat, took some REALLY long naps, and ate some delicious food. Including these.....Meredith's yummy cake pops



After dinner we packed the kiddos up again (this time babies on board) and headed to the golf course to watch the fireworks. We weren't sure the weather was going to hold out, but it ended up working out perfectly. They started the fireworks a little early and we almost made it to the end before the storm rolled in. Fortunately we packed up just in time and made it halfway home before the rain started pouring!

Happy cousins in their matching outfits

Not so happy anymore :) I love that mine and Molly's first reaction was, "take a picture!"
Haha. Poor babies.

Me and my sweet girl

Sisters :)

She looks so old here. I don't know when she got so big.

Believe it or not, this is our first family picture of the four of us! We never got one in the hospital because Lucy was really freaked out there, and since then we just haven't had the time or chance to have someone take one of us! I love it though. Lucy's cheese smile is cracking me up.

Hope everyone had a Happy 4th of July!

Our weekend in pictures...

My first day back to work was on Saturday, and Mark stayed home with the girls. Annie did great taking bottles from him all day, and it was actually nice for me to get out and work a little and not worry about the kids. Other than that, we had lots of fun relaxing and hanging out with friends and family this weekend.

Me and my girls :)

Eating watermelon and playing with friends

Annie giving me some big smiles

Cooking out with Dee Dee on Memorial Day

Swimming with daddy

So grateful for our time together this weekend!

My Favorite Beach Shots

Here are a few of my favorites from the trip

First Family Vacation

As promised, the pictures from our first family vacation. Most of them are of Lucy, naturally. It was hard to get pictures of all three of us without asking some stranger. I was looking back at our pictures and realized how few there are of all of us. It reminded me of our honeymoon. Mark and I had maybe 2 or 3 pictures of us together because there was no one to take our picture! Oh well, I'm sure you won't mind looking at Lucy for the next few minutes...

On the car ride down. She read her books almost the whole way. Its amazing how long this child can be entertained with just a box full of books. When she was finished with one, she would throw it down, then sign "more" and say, "book!" So I would pass another one back.

Out for the count.

So excited to be at the beach! This was our first night.

On our first day, getting ready to go to the beach.

Checkin out the water with daddy. She loved the ocean and the sand. Didn't bother her at all. Also, we were forecasted for thunderstorms every single day all day long, but as you can see from the picture, it was absolutely beautiful. I think it rained for maybe 30 minutes one day.

This was when the fever started, and the epidemic began. By the next morning all three of us were sick. We pretty much stayed in bed or sat on the couch watching cartoons all the next day. We did manage to get out that night and eat. We all agreed the seafood made us feel much better...for about an hour or so anyway.

The next day, Lucy was feeling much better. Mark and I were still on the mend, but we decided to tough it out for Lucy's sake and all headed outside for another day in the sun.

We walked on the beach almost every night after dinner, but one night we decided to take some pictures. The lighting right around 7pm is just perfect for some great shots.

A wonderful woman offered to take a picture of the three of us! No I'm not hugely fat, my dress was just blowing in the wind and makes me look that way.

Lucy doing a little light reading before bed :)

Our daily beach set up

She loved walking around and playing on the balcony.

Family shot on our balcony

We had an AMAZING time. Mark and I realized we really want to make it a priority to take a family trip, just the three of us, every year. We decided we would rather sacrifice in other areas in order to have that time together, even if it's short. We loved Gulf Shores, and you can't beat this time of year. There were hardly any crowds, and most of the people on the beach were couples with babies and older people, so it was nice not to have to worry about all the partying teenagers. Never thought I'd say that :) Ah how things have changed.