Beach Babies

What good is a beach trip without dressing up your children and taking artistic shots at sunset? I had fun taking over 100 pictures of the kids in their pretty outfits last night. After I get home I'm going to work on editing the pictures and will put some up on their blog, but for now here are a few of the ones that seem best directly from the camera.

We Love the Beach

I think one of the best things about being a parent is getting to see the children delight in experiencing things. Hannah was too young to remember her first trip to the beach (she was 6 months old when we went to Hilton Head) so this time she's excited about sand castles and finding pretty shells. Jack is determined to taste every grain of sand on the Outer Banks, and also likes the way the sand filters between his toes when the waves go in and out. As for me, I love the water and walking on the beach is great exercise, plus the burn on my shoulders subsided quickly so all is well!

More Than Meets The Eye

While stopped at McDonald's for lunch en route to North Carolina, a very nice little boy gave Hannah the Transformers toy he got in his Happy Meal, because he already had that one. I opened it and showed Hannah how the Transformer started as a purple and black robot man, but if you put his arms over his head, pointed his toes, and turned him upside down, he was a plane.

Hannah grabbed the Transformer and said, "NO, Mama! He's a ballet man!" She then proceeded to make the Transformer dance around the table on his pointed toes, and bent his legs while singing "Plie!" then unbent them, "And straighten!" Plies and chassees and fancy leaps are now the daily exercise this fierce warrior performs for my imaginative girl.

I guess she's just wired a little differently than boys are!

Always Prepared

In preparation for our upcoming trip, I made each of the children a tote bag to keep their toys and belongings in. Jack's is more permanent, as I took a tote bag I got free for subscribing to a magazine long ago, embroidered his name on it, and hot glue gunned some star patches on it. For Hannah's I used a plastic tote with pink edging that originally held a baby blanket, and used markers to decorate a label with her name on it, which I then taped on with clear tape. Jack's bag has board books, a set of rubber blocks, some of his cars, one dump truck, and one other rolling toy. Hannah's has books, her sewing cards, a new set of crayons and a new set of colored pencils (Walmart has school supplies on sale for like 17 cents each right now), some new notebooks, dress up stuff, My Little Ponies, and so on. Hopefully the bags will help keep the kids entertained in the car and also help corral the toys at relatives' houses and the beach house.
In other preparedness news, Josh laughed at me for having two big bottles of Powerade in the pantry labeled "FOR LABOR! DO NOT DRINK!!" But I say, who knows if Powerade will go on sale again when I happen to have coupons, resulting in the store paying ME 15 cents to take them home before December? Personally I think one of the cruelest things about labor is not being allowed to eat or drink once you get to the hospital. I am ALWAYS thirsty even when I'm not laboring, so I think it's a good idea to chug some liquids prior to getting to the hospital. Come November I'll put them in the fridge so they will be chilled for the big event. It is good to be prepared!

I Love Patterns

Baby 1 = Hannah

Baby 2 = Jack

Baby 3 = GIRL!!!!

Meet Sarah Hooper Gillespie, still due December 18. I was going to be just as excited if she was a boy, but I have to admit that the girl, boy, girl pattern appeals to me, as does the fact that we already have lots of girl clothes for baby girls born in the winter!

We think Sarah's profile looks a lot like Jack's did. She was waving at us a great deal, below is one of her precious little hands saying hello to you all!

We Are "That Family"

Oh yes. I did. I made my family dress up like cows and go to Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. Hannah already has a cow costume, thanks to my aunt Catherine's gracious gift last year, and I took a Sharpie to two of Josh's old t-shirts and made a cow print for Josh and Jack. I had only one sheet of black construction paper, so I endeavored to make cow spots out of that to tape on my own outfit (you can't see from the picture, but I had spots on my skirt as well. Thanks to these festive presentations, we all got free meals at Chick-Fil-A tonight for dinner! Much fun was had by all. Many of the other patrons commented on how cute Hannah looked in her little outfit, and we were relieved that other people were dressed up too. Two teenage girls came in after us sporting blown up surgical gloves strategically placed as udders!!! We thought that was funny.

On the way home, Hannah was clutching her imaginary friend Very Tiny Baby (yes, VTB is still around!) and I asked how Very Tiny Baby was doing. Hannah replied that Very Tiny Baby was crying because she did not get her own chicken nugget. I suggested that VTB was perhaps too young for chicken nuggets, and maybe she could have her own next year. This seemed to mollify VTB, thank goodness!

Hannah and Josh - can you see the family resemblance, or what?

Hannah's Fun Surprise

Last night long after Hannah had gone to sleep, we woke her up to give her a 4th of July treat: an ice cream cone and watching the fireworks from the backyard. It was so fun to see how excited she was, and how enthralled by the fireworks, which she declared to be "so much fun" and "like stars." After about 45 minutes of watching the show, and getting her teeth brushed again to get the sugar off, she went back to sleep. It was a fun treat for Hannah and for us!

Jack is Down With the 4th of July

Jack loves the sunglasses Jen got for him, and he seems to think it's funny to wear them and make faces at us. He is one cool dude.

Happy 4th of July from Jack!

Oh Say Can You See?

I shamelessly copied Alaina's idea to have a flag craft, and so this morning I gave Hannah some strips of red paper, a blue square, some white stars and a glue stick and she went to town. I was pretty impressed with how she got the elements in roughly the right places after we looked at her toy American flag and talked about the stripes and stars and where they go.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hannah's First "Mani-keer"

Tuesday I was painting my nails and Hannah said, "Let's color on MY nails too Mama!" I remembered that I was not allowed to have painted nails when I was little, but I couldn't remember why, so I decided since the color is a very pale peach called "burnt sand" or something, it couldn't hurt for Hannah to have a little manicure.

She was thrilled with the results of her "mani-keer" but by the next morning only two of her nails were still peach. I asked her what happened to her fingernail polish and she shrugged and said she didn't know.

Still, it was a fun thing to do and so cute to see her be excited about her "fancy nails."