Fun at the Beach

We've finally had our vacation, and now I need another one. It's tough with little kids and their schedules and keeping them from destroying a condo. We went to Panama City with my mom, sister, and her husband. Tropical Storm Fay even kept her distance. We almost came home early, but decided to wait it out, and thankfully we hardly got any of the storm. It moved north before it got to us.

Walking on the beach.

We attempted to get some pictures of the girls at the beach, but we didn't time it right I guess. We didn't want to get there too late and it be too dark, but we ended up having to cast shadows on them so they would look at the camera. Oh well. Macy wasn't really cooperating anyway.
I managed to get her to fall asleep under the canopy. Speaking of sleeping, that was a challenge with her. The first night she screamed once we put her in the pack 'n play. She was NOT happy. We tried a few times and then I gave in and put her in bed with me. I bet you can guess where this went. Every time we tried to put her down it was the same thing and we ended up laying down with her to put her to sleep and then moving her to her pack 'n play. Fast forward to coming home yesterday and surprise, surprise, she won't go to sleep. I ended up rocking her to sleep and of course she woke up when I tried to lay her down. Daddy is the only one that can move her and keep her asleep. So she cried. We let her cry a bit and then she settled down. We were watching her on the monitor and she sat up for a while. Then she started nodding off. We watched (and laughed hysterically) at Macy sitting up and falling asleep. She kept nodding her head and jerking it back up. A couple times she almost fell over, but it took a good 5 minutes of this before she laid down and went to sleep. Today for her nap she did great putting herself to sleep.

Picking up shells on Shell Island.

What does a 15 month old do at the beach? Eat sand of course! Sorry it's a bad picture, but we thought it was funny.

First Day of School

Kayla had her first day of school last week. She is going with me to our church on Tuesdays. I teach 1st and 2nd grade science for 3 hours, and she is taking 3 classes as well. She has an ABC/123 class, an arts and crafts class, and a storytime class. She really enjoyed it last week, but as soon as we were done we left for the beach. I'll be doing preschool at home with her 3 days a week as well as Timothy classes.

Kayla's Haircut

I took Kayla in to trim her hair up, and I'm somewhat regretting it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's really cute, but we've worked for so long to get her hair long. The stylist showed me where she needed to cut to get rid of the "baby hair" and make her hair healthy. I saw what she was talking about, and it was only about 1 1/2" or so. Well, it looks like a lot more than that now. I like it until I see a picture of her before it was cut and realize how long her hair was getting. Oh well, it's cute and it will grow back.

Macy's new thing is to scrunch up her nose. She will occasionally copy us if we do it. We've been trying to get it on camera and I finally did. Unfortunately the camera was on the wrong setting and it turned out blurry.

Fun Pictures

I just thought I'd add a few pictures to show some of the things we've been up to. Here is Macy taking a ride.

My 3 favorite people.

Relaxing in the pool.

Macy loves climbing up in these chairs. I spent some time today getting Kayla's preschool work together and the girls had some fun coloring. Instead of enrolling Kayla in a preschool program I'm going to home school her. She is getting to the point where she really needs and wants more structure and activities in her day. Right now the plan is to do home school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays while Macy takes her morning nap. On Tuesdays she will be going with me to our church for 3 hours of fun classes. She is so excited about starting school.

Did anyone stay up and watch the men's swimming relay last night? I'm not usually a Summer Olympics watcher, but I'm really into it this year. Especially the swimming and gymnastics. Anyway, that race was INCREDIBLE! It's nice to see competitors that don't smack talk everyone. They just focus on their race and get it done.

Cookies

Today we decided to make some cookies. I hadn't really let Macy in on the fun yet, but decided that today would be the day. Kayla insisted that she wear her apron. I thought it would be too big, but I was able to tie it up so it fit.

This would be after her first taste of cookie dough. After this I was sunk! She would fuss and fuss until I gave in and let her have another lick. When I tried to give her one of the cooked cookies she just crumbled it and spit it out. I think it must be a texture thing. She doesn't really care for cookies.
The professional beater licker.

Happy Birthday Jackie

More birthday music!