Odds and Ends

First Ballet Lesson Day

The trouble with not being a faithful blogger is that now there will be an almost unbearable amount of verbage for you to endure with all of our updates! Sorry about that! Let's start with Ballet! Oh how we love Mondays! Lilly's first lesson began with much screaming and kicking (not very graceful kicking at that) as the teacher took her away. She then proceeded to sit through the first half of the class doing nothing but shaking her piggy tail clad head "no", but then she warmed up and decided she might like to participate after all and I must say she did the best tippy toe - hands over head maneuver of anyone else in her class:)! The second lesson went much better. We have done a lot of practicing at home and I do mean "we" Papa included...too bad we can't find a big tutu for him!

Twirling Twirling Twirling

Kite Flying Fun

Moving on to kite flying. Lilly got a bug kite and with a little practice has become one independent 2 year old kite flyer. It is pretty fun flying a kite on the beach. Just today she even met another little 2 year old on the beach, so they flew that kite together...so stinkin' cute!

Cooking with Aunt Tobe

Labor Day weekend we took a little road trip south to Florida to see Great Great Uncle Lee and Aunt Tobe. We had a blast just relaxing at their beautiful place, enjoying coffee on the front porch, many stories from Uncle Lee...he has done about everything you can imagine...from working for McCain's Dad at the Pentagon to Alligator hunting, which he has Alligator hide boots from a gator he caught...how amazing is that?! Aunt Tobe had Lilly right by her side in the kitchen helping to make bread and Coleslaw...which leads to a funny story. Back when we had Ben Uncle Lee decided to help Lilly name her Cabbage Patch Doll...he suggested Coleslaw (get it, cabbage...coleslaw) anyway, the name stuck and since then we have a bald headed Cabbage Patch baby that used to be mine named Coleslaw. Well, Lilly was helping with dinner and asked Aunt Tobe "what's that", well dear Aunt Tobe informed Lilly that we were going to be eating Coleslaw for dinner. Lilly's eyes just about popped out of her head as she let Aunt Tobe know that we could not possibly even think of having Coleslaw for dinner...you can't eat my baby! Oh how we laughed about that! At the end of our not long enough weekend we felt so refreshed and loved on and can't wait to see them again.

Lazy Days Outside At Uncle Lee & Aunt Tobe's

CUTENESS!!!

Back home again we had a visit from Grandpa Ed and Grandma "Charlotte" as Lilly calls her. They were able to stay for a week...can you believe they travelled all the way from Colorado to ride out Hurricane Hanna?! Talk about storm chasers:) They did get here just in time for our first almost Hurricane...ended up being nothing more than a tropical storm:) They were a big help getting everything ready and we did end up with some rather impressive winds but no damage which we are thankful for. Lilly kept them busy playing ring around the rosie, reading approx. 1,000 books and talking, talking, talking. Benjamin enjoyed being passed back and forth between the two for lots of snuggles and was quick to share his beautiful big smile and spit up as well:)!

Snuggles with Grandpa Ed & Grandma "Charlotte"

So now, all is quiet on the home front, just enjoying the end of summer and days at the beach and daily thankful for two healthy kiddos. We are so blessed with our Lilly who keeps us laughing and our sweet little Benjamin who has been such a joy...even after only 12 weeks, I can't remember life without him as part of our family. He is up to a gigantic 16 pounds and 24 1/2 inches long...putting him in the 95th percentile...that's baby lingo for HUGE!

Whew, you made it! Hopefully:) so until the next update....farewell!