Let the birthday begin

As tends to happen around here, Laney's birthday is going to take a week & half to complete. We got started last night with a visit from Aunt Lala.
Who brought clothes - one of Laney's favorite things ever. She bought the jeans with the adjustable elastic waist, one of Mommy's favorite things ever.

Laney is very big into turns right now and last night it was Lala's turn for everything - jammies, teeth brushing, and story time:
Aunt Lala also brought cupcakes which we had tonight. Tonight we did our family birthday dinner, as Kathryn won't be home for dinner again until Monday.
We let Laney open her present from Sissy tonight too.
Here they are together playing with Laney's new "Airpwane"
And it continues - Saturday (the actual birthday) Rob & I are taking her to the Children's Museum. Monday is birthday portraits and a housewarming/summer multi-birthday party at a friend's and finally next Sunday is Laney's birthday party. Whoo.

First day of school

The Freshman:
The Lady Bug (Laney moved up to the 2 year old class):

And a bonus clip of Kathryn's marching band and their "biggest" fan:

Beach Pics

here are our posed beach pics:

This is probably the prettiest picture taken all trip. Dick shot this one:

Welcome Baby Girl

Congratulations to Katy, Derrick & Derrick George over at Derrick George of the Jungle.

They welcomed a 6 pound 8 ounce, 18 1/2 inch long baby girl this morning. Pictures and name to come!

Enter Granddaddy

Rob's Dad flew down to join us on Tuesday. He was able to stay until Friday afternoon and it was great! The first of many times we buried Kat in the sand:

Proof Rob comes by it honest. Our "Super heroes"
We went to one of the Condo's pools most days and Laney learned to do this. Goody! (insert sarcasm here) Hey, Laney, what does a monkey do?

Dick took us out to dinner on Wednesday night. Kat & Granddaddy with their balloon parots, George and Georgina. Granddaddy and his girls.
I mentioned we buried Kathryn several times. Here is the mermaid: Here is the octopus. It reminded me of Ursula from "The Little Mermaid", a movie I have seen many, many, many, many times thanks to my two girls.

Hanging with Granddaddy. Who is far more patient about opening and closing water bottles and fetching grapes than Mommy is sometimes.

Beach Post #1

First, a bit of a irony regarding the previous post - amoung the many things we forgot to take to Florida - wide brimmed hats for everyone but Laney! Oops.

After 10 hours of driving (including nasty traffic in Mobile & heavy rain) on Saturday, we stop at the visitors center, expecting to be able to drink free OJ (per my mom's info) and do some of the other things one does at rest stops. Instead we are greeted by gray skies and no power, locked restrooms & no staff except the folks telling us the restrooms are closed. So much for that idea. I spent a good chunk of the rest of the 2+ hours we spent in the car hoping this weather would not hold for the whole week.

We eventually made it. Tired, mildly cranky, but we made it. We stayed in a great
(pet friendly!) condo in Destin where we could walk across the street to our private beach with umbrellas and chairs already set up. Rory enjoying her view from the condo balcony:

Sunday morning we ventured down to the beach and enter the shock. This ain't Galveston people! The beach was white, not gray. The water was emerald green, not gray. We're ruined for life! My girlies at their first day at the beach:
Day 2: Beach in the morning. Mini-Golf in the afternoon. It's "Neenee's turn" which basically means she gets to go drop her golf ball in the hole and take it out again. How Elena went down stairs in Florida.

My husband get carried away.

Coming later this week - enter Granddaddy.