Swimming Beach.

The past couple of days the kiddos had a very mild cold.  Leah had one night of being stuffy, and Brayden had the following night of being stuffy.  They got to spend a night snuggling with Mommy and they were rearing to go the following day (despite a very tired Mommy).  We have a few lingering coughs, but other than that, their immune systems are hard at work (and doing a wonderful job!).

We are very much enjoying every second we have with Grandpa and Grandma.  Grandpa keeps everyone laughing, and Grandma is always up for puzzles and books.  We are soaking them up, and really love our time together.

It was gorgeous out today, and we decided to take them to their favorite beach (aka. the swimming beach).  It's the most fun beach here, and the kids go crazy every time we're there.  Today was no exception, and I am pretty confident when I say I think they had the most fun they've ever had at the beach today.  Leah was kicking around in her little tiger float, and Brayden was chasing the waves and jumping into Daddy's arms.  Besides my phobia of stepping on a crab, fish, or other mystical sea creature, I had fun too.

We cold turkey broke Leah of her thumb sucking habit, and although we had a couple of rough nights, she hasn't even tried for the last few days.  I am so proud of her!  We used a bitter tasting nail polish, and she didn't really seem to mind, it was just harder to break the habit than anything.  She is such a big girl!!  ((now looking at this paragraph, it doesn't really fit into the "flow" but I am too tired to fix it.... so I guess I am going to cut this post awkwardly))

I am so in love with my family.  Enjoy the pictures!

Beach and Ballet

The beach has been our favorite place to spend our time this summer.  We're there at least once a day... swimming, digging, playing, and chasing.  Brayden wasn't sure about it just a couple weeks ago, but now we often hear him begging, "beeeach!  beeeach!  let's go to the beeach!".  The second we get on the golf cart to ride down to the beach he screams, "goin' to the beeeach!".  When we pull up to the beach, he yells, "there it is!".  He is talking so much lately, and I love his love for the ocean.

We had a fun weekend with family, and it was extra special since Aunt Cassie, Aubrey, Uncle Bryan, and cousins Adam and Warren were here to visit.  Leah and Brayden loved playing with Aubrey all weekend.  It's so cute to see them all interacting.  Cavan's cousins, Adam and Warren were visiting just for the weekend, and we had so much fun with them.  We played card games, went for golf cart rides, and Leah just fell in love with them.  She hated when they had to go back.  She played so many puzzles with Adam, and the first words out of her mouth this morning were, "Mom, are we going to see Warren and Adam today?"  When I explained to her they had to go back home, she looked so sad and said, "Ohhh, oh no. I wanted to see them again.".  She cannot wait (we can't either) to see them again soon.

Leah has been begging me to go to dance class.  I found a flyer yesterday and they happened to have a 2 day dance camp today and tomorrow for her age group.  She seemed super excited to go, so we signed her up.  I took her this morning, and she couldn't stop talking about how much fun she was going to have.  I couldn't believe how well she did.  She was confident, happy, and so excited to learn.  She was actually really good at dancing too.  The entire ride home she made sure we were going back tomorrow.

Once we got home and Brayden woke up from his nap Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy, Brayden, Leah, and I went to the beach.  We actually drove a little further in the golf cart today and ended up at a really amazing spot.  There were shallow patches of water with a big sand bar so there were no waves.  The kids had a blast.  Brayden stepped into a deep part and went totally under, but he didn't skip a beat and he was back (a little more cautiously) running around like nothing happened.  It was wonderful and we had such a great day. There are tons of pictures, so enjoy!