Adam and Amy are just about the sweetest things in the entire world. They are such good buddies and have high hopes to run some sort of animal hospital or something along those lines when they grow up. They usually sleep somewhere together while Caleb and Walker sleep somewhere else when we visit. They were so precious that I just had to get a picture.








Also this picture is a good illustration of what my kids are in need of this week! SLEEP. We are doing Kids Camp/Bible School from 9-12 every morning and we haven't quite recovered from the trip and camp last week.

Thankfully we were able to go swimming this weekend while we were down in Georgia. I say thankfully because it was sooooo darn hot down there. I think it was right around 100 degrees midday with some serious humidity. The boys said I should put these videos on the blog so everyone could see there incredible flips off the diving board.



Here are a couple of pictures at the church when we picked them up from camp. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see this bunch!






















Nana and Annabelle hanging out as we waited.













There was no such thing as laying out and watching the kids swim. TOO HOT. Angie and I stayed in the water the whole time. Annabelle hasn't done much swimming in her life so far because I hate to get in the pool at the gym. It is cold and I prefer to be dry.....therefore I haven't worked with her in the deeper water with floaties on or something. It took her a little while to get use to them, but when she did, it made her so very happy and she just laughed and laughed as she swam around.

Here are the last of the beach pictures:

Jonathan and Lucie starting the big hole for the day.

They loved riding the waves in this boat Uncle Chuck got.

There were lots of spills and crashes which they enjoyed immensely.

Jonathan and Lanie doing their Shan-Kon-A-Hey dance.

My little fisherman, Adam. He loves to fish.

many thanks to Grandaddy for making us all laugh in this one. I love it!

The whole gang....and almost the entire family.

After class on Friday, Annabelle and I made the trip down to Acworth, GA to retrieve our boys. We arrived just in time to meet the bus that takes them back and forth to camp each day at the church. It was so great to see them! I think they both grew an inch last week.

Aunt Angie went to camp with them and so there are lots of pictures this year. That and I get a better understanding of the activities and all from an adult's standpoint. They loved canoeing!

Both boys said jumping off this rock was their favorite part of the week.

They loved canoeing!

The youth group at their church put on the whole thing so they were the counselors.

I told Angie that I really hoped she made sure that Caleb and Adam got off their backs in the pool once in a while. I probably need to thank them ......and apologise for the fact that Caleb and Adam have a hard time understanding that some things cannot go on forever.



Anything they get to do with their cousin, Walker, is wonderful.

Caleb asleep on the bus ride home one day. He doesn't EVER fall asleep like that!

This is Jenna. Angie said that Adam stayed by her side the entire week.

lunchtime

pool time

craft time

More canoe time

Obviously, they had a great time. What kid doesn't at camp?

Let me tell you (and as to keep a record) a little about Miss Annabelle these days. The child is quite a character and keeps me entertained and busy every day. She loves to make us laugh and is always paying attention to what we are saying even though it may not obvious at the time. For example, how she calls Granddaddy "Gran-Granny". She slipped up and called him that a few months back and since we thought it was cute and funny, she pretends that she can't say Granddaddy. Sometimes she even slips up and says Granddaddy but quickly corrects herself to call him "Gran-Granny." The same thing goes for "megit". One day she called music "megit".... which I thought was so weird because she doesn't really mispronounce many words. I told a Seth about it that evening saying something like music being her worst word. Now she puts such emphasis on "megit" when she says it and has even referred to it as her worst word.

This first video was from when we stopped at McDonalds on the drive home from the beach. The kids were playing on the playground and we were right inside watching them through the window. Annabelle was quite taken with this statue and made us laugh so much as she talked to him, sat on his lap, gave him hugs, and planted many kisses right on his mouth. It was so funny to watch and she kept at it for so long, that I ran out to the car and tried to get a little on video to share with you. The weirdest thing was that I don't think she knew we were watching at first and so she wasn't neccessarily entertaining us.......just being weird.





Did you hear who she said he was? Gran-granny! Now that was definitely for my entertainment!






The real struggle these days with my Annabelle is getting dressed. I am not too particular about what she wears and I don't mind for her to choose. However, that is not the problem. Here, let me give you a scenario:

We go to her room and I pull out a couple of little cotton sundresses for her to choose between. She picks one pretty quickly and puts it on. Immediately she collapses to the floor in a panic, totally flipping out because she wants the other dress.
OK, no big deal, we can switch it.
As soon as we get it changed she once again falls to the floor screaming and flipping out because she wants the other dress.
This could go on for hours.

really.

I have learned that I must give her a dress, tell her to put it on, and then spank her if she resists. As soon as it is on, I quickly find a distraction and the battle is over. Same goes for shoes. She can't handle the choice. It is a little funny when I think about it now, but I tell ya, at that moment, it is anything but amusing to me.

She is a bit of a nutcase. wonder where she got that.

BTW, I saw online where you will be able to get your blog printed as a book!!!!!! Seeing how I completely quit scrapbooking when Annabelle arrived, I am stoked about the prospect of that. Oh yeah, baby!

We all got settled back into the routine of life this week...... just in time to send the boys off to Georgia for the WEEK. They are going to "Camp Cherokee" with their cousins for the second year in a row and will be staying with Aunt Angie each night. It is basically a day camp sponsored by the Harrison's church where elementary school-aged kids will get to swim in the lake, hike, play games, make crafts and all of those other fun camp things. All I know is that it is a very welcomed and much-needed break for me. I will miss them, but I am sure Annabelle and I will stay busy while they are gone.

So here's my huge shout out to my sister-in-law, Angie, for being so awesome!
Thanks Angie! I owe ya!

Back to the beach trip. Did I mention that it was fun? Did I tell you that I got obnoxiously tan? I actually didn't mean to, but three kids kept me hopping and because I didn't lay out that much, I didn't think I was getting too much sun.

Here are the guys on the cannon at Fort Fisher. They were happy that these wouldn't be firing as the remembered how the ones at the civil war re-enactment almost made our ears bleed last year.




So.......Here's to a week of no sibling fights, no scraped knees, only one kid to put to bed at night, no shoes to find as we leave the house, no bath time battles, and a clean toilet! I am off to play the guitar.


I will be ready for all this by Friday!

Topsail Island Trip 2009:

I had such great intentions for the beach. I was going to blog, run and play the guitar everyday. Yeah, it didn't happen. I ran a little, played a little and blogged..... none. I found better things to do.

Like lying on the awesome beach and watching my boys have the time of their lives playing in the ocean.

Or like eating lots of yummy dinners that each couple took a turn making through the week.

And watching Annabelle and the girls play endlessly in the sand.

And spending lots of time chatting with the family.

Just hanging out.

It was dreamy and wonderful.....and here are the pictures to prove it.



First off, the ride over went really well. The kids and I left from our house at about 7am which was about an hour before Mom, Dad, Jonathan and Beth. We were planning on getting on down the road and then taking our time on our stops as they caught up to us. It turned out that we only stopped 2 times at a couple of rest areas and met them at the realty place for our house. A couple of times through Annie and listening to The Horse and His Boy while Annabelle napped made time just fly.
















































Topsail is a great place for our family to
vacation. It is a bit farther than many of the Carolina beaches but much more affordable. There is no night life or even many restaurants for that matter, which suits us all fine as we don't really even like to go out to eat. We just need a beach and a house and we are set for a perfect vacation.





The way Beth buried Jonathan in the sand made me laugh so hard. It just looked like he was a head sitting there on the sand....I think you had to be there.



































































We had really great weather this year. The first four days were gorgeous! We went to the aquarium and Fort Fisher in Wilmington, which was about an hour down the road on Thursday when it cooled off a little. Friday was a little windy but it made us realise how beautiful the rest of the week had been.


Annabelle didn't get in the water AT ALL. She would put her feet in if someone was holding her hand, but otherwise she kept her distance.

AND she insisted on wearing Lucie's clothes and this particular bathing suit the entire week. I'll save that issue for another post.





































Here we are at Fort Fisher. That day can definitely be
checked off in the books as a homeschool day because we all learned so much at the fort and the aquarium.





Everyday Uncle Jonathan dug a really deep hole in the sand for some reason. Oh yeah, for the kids to play in. They made a little bunker with the lawn chairs as a roof one day.


































Wow, I am struggling with getting these pictures and text to line up the way I want them to. Someone in the blogspot world needs to work on that!






Anyhow, I have many more pictures to come. I will post more this week. Thanks for reading and looking at them!