MY Official Start to Summer....

My official start to summer begins tonight....with the season premiere of TrueBlood...40min to go! Other than that...we've got a very busy week ahead. Just 5 more nights until we leave for vacation! Really really really need this 2 week vacation!

Back To Reality...

Well our West Palm Beach vacation has come and gone... on Tuesday we just hung out by the pool and beach. That night they had a dj, he was playing a Justin Bieber song and we were in the pool and Harper flipped out because she thought Justin Bieber was actually there, and she REALLY wanted to see him. So Baylee and Carissa took her over to where the dancing was so she could see that he wasn't there. Poor Harper, she loves her some Justin Bieber. The girls spent the next 2 hours dancing though. It was Baylee's favorite part of the trip:

Baylee getting her grove on:

When all fails...do the robot:

Wednesday morning we got up early, the kids swam some at the pool then we headed home! We stopped at one of Adam's favorite restaurants, Duffy's, for lunch. Lucky for us it was "kids eat free day". When we got home we relaxed for the rest of the evening. I mentally prepared for going back to work today and it ended up being a pretty good day! I'm super lucky to have an amazing staff who kept everything together while I was away!

Now it's countdown time for the next vacation: 8 sleeps until VA and the Smokey Mountains!!

Happy Birthday Baylee!!

Today was Baylee's 9th birthday! Can't believe how fast she is growing up, we're so proud of her and how great she is. Even though I hate that she's growing it's awesome to watch her become such a sweet, smart, and special young woman.

We had a pretty fun day today in West Palm Beach too. Baylee got special cinnamon rolls for breakfast then we headed to Peanut Island...well all of us except for Peanut. She stayed with grandma and played with Malachi. Peanut Island was a lot of fun, and the ferry ride over was neat. I really enjoyed snorkeling and seeing all the little fish, we're definitely gonna be doing more of that. Baylee and Cooper are getting pretty good at it too. Then we came back and did some more snorkeling at the beach here and some swimming in the pool. They had a dance off for the kids here, Cooper broke out his robot and sprinkler moves and won!!!

This evening we went out to eat with the Ortiz and Deskin families then we came back and had cupcakes and cheesecake for Baylee's birthday. She was super happy with the guitar we got her, even if Harper did tell her about it last week. Tonight Cydney and Carissa are spending the night with Baylee...the perfect ending to her 9th birthday!

Only 2 more days of this vacation left....


My favorite photo of the day:

My Sweet Birthday Girl!!!

Trip Report Day Two and Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to my dad and to my hubby! Had an awesome day today, slept late and woke up and sat on the balcony and watched the ocean for a few minutes. The kids were super excited to give daddy the Father's Day craft they made him:

We spent the day lounging around the pool and the beach. The kids played bingo and did a hula hoop contest (see photo's here). Cooper has become a snorkeling fool! Baylee is getting super excited about her birthday tomorrow. I can not believe my baby is almost 9!

My favorite photo of the day :

Cooper said "oh no here comes the meltdown" and boy did she ever meltdown! She just hates to loose at putt putt!

Trip Report Day One

Ahh...VACATION!!!! Everyone but Harper stayed up way late last night, I'm talking til one or later (Baylee swears she was up until 3am) so when Harper woke us up early this morning we were dragging. We packed this morning...don't know why I waited til the last minute, then we went to Walmart for a few things. By then everyone was hungry and Saturday stinks for early risers, it's hard to find lunch before 11am, but Adam had a good idea and off to Mutt's we went. Sure enough they opened at 10, so we were able to have super yummy Mutt's burgers. Cooper said "this is the best cheese hamburger ever". All three of the kids have a hard time saying "hamburger", Baylee used to call it "ham-gu-burger", Cooper called it "hamburgerking" no matter where it was from, and Harper still calls them "hambeggers".

After our awesome lunch (for pictures check out my new page: phone food), we headed to West Palm Beach. The Marriott on Singer Island has had some positive changes in the last year. First the rooms have been redone (check out my picture page here), the colors remind me of the late 60's...oranges, mustard yellow and greens but the lights and chairs are very angular and modern. They also tore out their playground (which was usually too hot to play on) and put in a splash pad which Harper loves! The final big change is a 9 hole putt putt course, the kids and Adam have already played a few rounds on it. After we got into town we had some ice cream at this place called Pop's Creamery...it wasn't very good, Cooper got tangerine ice cream (yuck) and the girls shared bubblegum (that had small gum balls mixed in). We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening/night swimming in the pool and the ocean. We had pizza for lunch from the Pizza Hut here...it was sooo greasy and not very good...

Baylee said her favorite part of vacation today was playing putt putt and shuffle board with Carissa. Coopers favorite part was playing with uncle Mo in the ocean, and Harper's said her favorite part was Malachi...she told me "he's my best best friend"

My favorite picture of the day:

Busy Week...

This is the first full week of summer vacation and boy have we been busy! Adam and the kids have been doing a lot of house cleaning and rearranging. We've decided we're not gonna move this year, we're going to stay put for another year or two and wait and see where if anywhere my job takes us. Sooo.... this means we're gonna spend a lot more time into fixing this house exactly how we want it. One of the biggest changes we are making is that Baylee and Harper are going to share a room. Baylee liked having a room to herself but hated (and I really hated) being downstairs away from everyone. So Cooper is moving into the smaller bedroom upstairs and Harper and Baylee are taking over Coopers bigger room. I'm going to turn the downstairs bedroom into a craft room/office! Since all of the kids are going to be upstairs that means the gameroom/playroom is going to get more use so Adam has been busy getting it organized and set up for the kids. Of course the kids are inpatient (don't know who they get that from) and want everything done right now.

I've got a million projects going on at work right now, but I'm trying not to freak out! I'm feeling super supported by my CFO and CEO and all my employee's are just excellent so I'm trying to just take a deep breath and know that I WILL get it all done! I'm sure our two upcoming vacations are doing nothing to add to my anxiety in getting everything done....

Speaking of vacations....West Palm Beach in 3 days, we'll be staying there for 5 days then when we get back we have 8 more sleeps then our 16 day VA/Smoky Mountain vacation!!! Can't wait!!!

Countdown to Summer

Only 2 more days of school left! This week is dragging by pretty slowly, trying to do things to make it go by quicker. Monday we made apple nachos after gymnastic practice. Talk about messy... they were pretty easy to make though, just core the apples, slice, and top with whatever...we used carmel, peanut butter sauce, homemade marshmallow sauce and chocolate chips.

The kids did the decorating so they may not look the best

but they sure were good!

Cooper and Baylee both had pj day at school today, he sure was glad to wear his new pj's to school! I swear the last 2 weeks are a total waste of time, each day is a different day of doing nothing, movie day, pj day, field day, pizza day, game day, clean the classroom day.....

Doing one of my favorite things....

I think that the best thing about having a huge bedroom is that the kids can all pile in here with their blankets and pillows and we can watch TV together. Right now we're watching Hogs Gone Wild, other favorites include Whale Wars, River Monsters, America's Got Talent and The Voice. The kids love all these shows, Cooper especially loves the animal ones, it's neat to watch his growing love of all things animal related. He's so passionate about them, and loves to talk about it and asks tons of questions. He's begging me to DVR the bigfoot show that's on later tonight. Baylee likes watching the performing shows, and insists that she'll be doing that some day.

We've been in a money super saver mode lately, getting ready for all that vacation fun. At Target this weekend we found some awesome deals. Got Harper some jeans marked down to $2, and found Baylee and Harper matching skirts that where $1.75 each. Harper also picked out a new Olivia shirt, it wasn't on sale but I know she'll wear it so much we'll get our money's worth.

Here she is in her new outfit (minus the boots, she didn't wear those to church)

Happy Hump Day!!

Having a slow week as the last days of school dddddddrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaggggggg on. I can't wait for the kids to be out of school!! Baylee had a math project due on Wednesday that she told us about on Tuesday night, she had to invent a game. Personally I think it's just busy work...but oh well... Her game is called The Name Game and while I think it's a pretty neat game I doubt you'll be able to find it at a store near you anytime soon.

Harper wanted to work on a project too:

Cooper made something for dad:

Thanks to the best site ever...Pinterest...I've found some pretty neat recipes. Tonight we had squid, it was a big hit with the kids, not so much with me and Adam....

I'm finding so many neat ideas I've finally been inspired to cook...even if it is only hotdogs and spaghetti