We love BIG HAIR but HATE washing our faces.

 My brother under water in the hot tub.  I just realized he stuck his tongue out.  WHO sticks their tongue out under the hot tub water?  YACK!

Daniley and Dan's crab hunt adventures.  

Mrs. Priss Bent.  That's my niece.

My beautiful grandmother having lots of fun and walking a little closer to the edge than normal.  :-)

This would be my sister-in-law.  Sometimes she can be a little crabby but for the most part she's alright.  ;-)

So you're at the beach and have no seafood tools.  No problem.  Pliers work too.

We came home from the beach with Honey and GPaw and turned around 2 days later and went back with Danson and Brooke.  It was a really good time!  Mawmaw Nina went with us, because after all, she needs a vacation too!  (Not sure if she got one, with 3 kids!)  :-)
Anyway, here are some of our favorite pictures!

These are only Dan's pictures.  I'll get the ones off my beach camera soon.  There are a lot more fun things to share!  Have a great weekend everybody.  Roll Tide!!

Last weekend Honey and GPaw invited us to the beach with them.  It was a fun and relaxing time.  Thank you so much to Honey and GPaw for being so generous to us.

There are only a few pictures that need an explanation.  First, if you want to be popular at the beach, catch something alive in a sand bucket.  Kids will visit for that.  (See a couple of pictures with crowds around Dan.) 

One day we were at the slide and Daniley was doing "Slide Ballerina."  You can barely see her toes pointing up as she shoots down the slide.  I love that kid!!!!!  I love both of them, actually.  :-D

Today was my Sugar Booger's 4th birthday!  I took the day off and took her, Danslen, and Mawmaw to the zoo.  It was great fun and we stayed ALL DAY LONG so I'm whooped!  Happy Birthday Sugar Booger.  (I hereby announce I have the cutest kids ever....just look at them!  I can't quit staring at LD she is so cute!!)  ;-)

Family Party. 

This year I separated the family from the friends.  The parties are always so hectic I feel like the family doesn't get to have personal time with her and I feel rude because I haven't gotten to socialize with the friends.  This was so much better!

I love my family and it's always a real hoot when me, my sister, and my brother get together.  When the "grown ups" go home, the good times roll!  I wish we all lived next door to each other.  JUST KIDDING.  I mean, we DO want to continue liking each other.  ;-)

I love this next picture of Daniley.  See that man in the red just to her right (your left!)?  That would be my Dad, aka Pawpaw.  She looks just like him!  This picture really shows it!

Daniley got some cash for her birthday this year (first time).  She opened the envelope and exclaimed, "MONEY!!"  haha.  I will get that deposited or converted into stock ASAP.

So Ms. Judy, Daniley's adopted grandmother, gave her this Cinderella dress.  We had to pause the party so she could put it on.  She LOVES playing dress up.  She's not particularly the "princess type" but she still loves dressing up. 

 

We had a wonderful time with our family today!  This is what life is all about!!  Thank you all for coming and thank you for the wonderful gifts!!  She loves them all!!!!!

Saturday was Daniley's swimming party at Crissy's and we had a lot of fun!  Thank you so much to those that came.  We also thank you for the birthday presents.  She loved it ALL!  By Sunday morning, half of her consumables were gone.  She stayed up til almost midnight wearing it out!

Turning 4!

Turning 4 is a lot of fun.  We've been partying since Friday.  Friday afternoon we had cupcakes at Daniley's school.  I stayed and played with the kids for a while and it was a lot of fun.  The BEST part about this day, and just about in my life so far, is when Daniley gave a lecture to her class about what a great and wonderful Mom she had, who had been at home all day baking her favorite cupcakes with her favorite sprinkles (which I bought, not baked, haha) and how this was just the best day of her "whole entire life!"  She really lays it on thick.  And it worked.  I sure do love that kid!

Have you ever gone into a restaurant and been invited to sit with someone you didn't really know?  This only has happened to me once before (which I declined) but this Friday night I felt adventurous so Daniley and I had dinner with Ms. Irene, who happens to be the meal director/cook at BeKare.  I can only say, I was REALLY impressed with what she does at BeKare.  Of course I love BeKare anyway, she just put the cherry on top!  We had a fun evening and made new friends!  (Ms. Irene offered Daniley a crouton.  She asked her if she knew what that was.  Daniley simply replied, "Yes, Rocks."  LOL) 

Danslen + Daniley = The Destroyers

Danslen + Bentley = The Pet Coons

They're into everything!!

But just look how cute they are!!!  Danslen would get her a bite, then give Bentley a bite. 



A couple weeks ago I was busy as a bee, and walked into the living room and Lil' Darlin' had opened her up a drawer in the coffee table and climbed in for a rest.  LOL.  She is so hilarious.  She loves the climb and she loves playing with the rocks that live in this drawer.  She's a little stinker.  I should rename her.  She's learned the words "no" and "mine" and I think she's going to be a little more rebellious than Daniley.  But she's still sweet and I love her to death!



MAKING KRAUT!

We made kraut last weekend and I got to looking for Lil' Darlin'.  It had been quiet for way too long.  Mawmaw and I were on one side of the bar and when we got to looking, we found her just right under our noses, on the other side of the bar, PULLING THE KRAUT OUT OF THE CHURN and putting it on the floor.  Now that was funny.  But what was REALLY funny was watching my grandmother lose total control of herself laughing!  Those are fun times.  :-)  (AND CAN'T WAIT TO EAT THE KRAUT!)



I have so much to be thankful for!!

This picture totally made me laugh out loud.  :-D

Funny conversations involving Daniley never cease to amaze me.  Here is one that got a little extra laugh.
Mom:  "Daniley, I got that stain out of your shirt."
Daniley:  With excitement, "DID YOU USE OXY-CLEAN STAIN FIGHTER?"
Mom:  Rolling on the floor laughing. 

So we got out the slide again.  We used this when Daniley was little.  We inherited from my Uncle Michael.  It is at least 30 years old.  Daniley played on it like she had never seen it before (although she clearly remembered it because when I mentioned "the slide" she asked her Daddy to go get the "slide with the green sides and squares and circles on the sides."  That was way more than I remembered.  LOL.  Anyway, Lil' Darlin' climbed right up that thing and she loved it.  Here she is on her first trip down.  Then after bath time they went right back to playing.  Fun times!  Love my kids TO DEATH.  It was such a lovely weekend!!

One of the beauties of having girls is all the fun things we do in the kitchen together.  Daniley loves to help me cook.  I can promise you she doesn't get that from me, but I suspect from my grandmother Nina, also known as MawMaw.  Rolling out homemade biscuits is part of our Sunday morning ritual, but here she is trying to help me with dinner.  I hope she washed those potatoes good, because I did not go behind her.  :-)

Thursday night, Lil' Darlin' stayed up waaaay late, like 10:30.  She was just in the bed restless, climbing on us, pulling pranks, and laughing.  She FINALLY got to sleep....and my reward came the next morning.  She slept until 10:15am!!  (VERY unusual.  We're all early birds.)  That was great, because I had all the upstairs computer work completed by the time of her awakening.  We had a BIG day planned so I had been awaiting her.  I thought, how can I quickly give her a bath?  MOST efficiently?  Well since this is something we do every day, you'd think I would have asked myself this question before.  But I hadn't.  (Shows how we can be more innovative if we stop and THINK.)  Here's what I came up with.

Yes yes, it was fast and easy, and she liked it, and so did I.  I didn't have to get on my knees (one of which still isn't comfortable  to sit on due to surgery back in March).  Anyway, after this we were on our way out to town.  I had a to-do list a mile long, so we were out running errands for....NINE HOURS.  Yes, me and a 1 year old out for NINE HOURS.  I don't ever remember being so tired and exhausted.  I had to take Tylenol when I got home.  Here's one reason I needed Tylenol:  I was carrying her while she was asleep in Costco, and I had to pick up a 40 lb. bag of dogfood and put it in the buggy while keeping her comfortably balanced on my shoulder.  I'm not talking about putting the dog food on the bottom of the buggy either.  (no room there!)  I had to lift is all the way in.  It's amazing what you can do when you have to.  Got everything on the list completed though, happy and proud to say!! 

Click the pictures to enlarge.  This one cracked me right up because apparently, Daniley is trying to suffocate Dan.  LOL.

And when I saw this picture, the look on Dan's face just cracked me right up!  She is giving him a pillow so he'll be comfortable....right before she body-slams herself right onto his midsection.  LOL more.

This weekend we went to a swimming party hosted by Lisa and Chris and their sweet daughters.  It was VERY fun and I'd love to have a pool in my backyard so I could have my own swim parties.  Here are some pictures!  Thank you for inviting us ya'll.  We had a really fun time!!

Saturday was swimming with Cwissy and Shane.  WHY did we not take a group photo???!!!???  We had SUCH a wonderful time.  Thank you so much for inviting us over.  We can't wait to come back.  So hurry up and invite us again.  :-P

Daniley never meets a stranger.  By the time she left 3 entire families knew her life history!

This past Saturday was Liberty Day.  It was H.O.T. but also very fun.  I found some patriotic fabric at a yard sale a while back (several yards, different patterns, all for $2!!) so Mom took it and had Daniley and herself a clown suit made.  Well Daniley's clown suit was about 3 sizes too small (??) so it got handed to Lil' Darlin' and Mom had about 3 days to have another one made.  They were all clowns in the parade, and if I must say so myself, they were very CUTE clowns.  After that, Brooke invited us to the fireworks.  We had a REALLY good time.  The kids ran around all night long.  It was hot and sticky, yes, and they had grocery store feet, yes, but it was awesome.  The band was good, the music was rockin', it was just an all-around great weekend. (Please pardon the pictures running backwards.  I don't know how to stop that without renaming all my photos.  (hardly worth it).)