I have been SO bad...

I have been SO bad..... I haven't blogged in forever and ever.

But in my defense.... we have been very busy since our return from Key West.

The usual...work, work, cheer, cheer, and added to the mix Hailey auditioned and was casted in a role in the Tar River Players production of A Christmas Carol. So in addition to school, tumbling, cheer... we add rehearsals to the mix.

I'm getting a little off subject here, but just this morning I was thinking about Hailey and her over achieverness (I'm aware that's not a word, but I'm known to make up descriptive words every now and then).

Just the other day she brought her report card home....straight A's yet again. She has never had a 'B' on a report card before. I kinda dread it for her if, and probably when, she ever does. She takes everything so seriously. She is the only 5th grader I know that stays up the night before tests studying until 10pm...because she wants to. Sometimes I'm going to bed and peak in at her. She's sitting at her desk studying away like a high schooler or college student would.

She flies on a senior level competitive cheer squad... and takes it very seriously.  Practices at home all the time, and then at the gym with her team for several hours a week.

And then she comes to me and begs to audition for a role in a local perfoming group's Christmas performance. And after she makes a very good case for why she should be allowed to audition, a great experience and all that... I relent, thinking it's only a couple of months and then it's done...if  she even gets a role.

I secretly doubted she would.

They had two nights of auditions and the night she went it was packed with people trying out. She went in and grabbed a script and came back out to the car where I was waiting with Bella and Kat. She ran through the lines a couple of times and, I have to admit, I was impressed.

And then I started to worry....uh oh....she might just get a role in this.

And two days later, when the cast list was emailed out.....she did. So we are juggling that right now too.

And while I love that my child is so driven in life ( her pediatrician assured me she would be based on her head strong nature as a baby...haha), I realize that, with this child, I will have to moderate how much she takes on. I have assurred her that after this production runs in December....it's cheer and school only for her!

On another note, Mary Kathryn has started a cheer team at the same gym and loves it. I love seeing her little personality develop. While she is a hard worker, she is also more laid back than Hailey...so far.

And Bella is still Bella....fun loving, high spirited, head strong (uh oh), and sweet as can be.

Now....for what I promised a month ago.....pictures from Key West. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XOXO,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somebody decided to RAIN on my parade!

So...Guess who's trying to rain on our parade???

This big meanie below.....

 

Tropical Storm Isaac is expected to make landfall in Key West on Sunday evening through Monday am as a category 1 or 2 hurricane. And our flight was supposed to arrive at Miami international airport at 8am on Monday morning---- right smack in the middle of Isaacs temper tantrum. The big ole meanie had me wanting to throw a temper tantrum of my own.....

 

 

And it's maybe possible that I did get a little grumpy when my carefully laid out plans went washing down the drain..... But after many calls to American airlines, Casa Marina, and bookit.com and a really healthy dose of persistance on my sister's part, we finally had all 4 of our tickets on all 4 flights and both resort rooms rearranged so that we could go a day later....thereby missing the storm. I'm just praying there is no flooding or damage there!

 

Now the excitement and anticipation is back and, hey, now I have an extra day to pack and get the girl's stuff together for when we're gone. And of course to soak up an extra day of sugar & spice & everything nice in the form of 3 sweet girls!

 

This is what I hope to be looking at in a few days.....

 

 

 

Here's to hoping and praying that the next post I do is filled with pics from Key West!!:)

 

A little bit of this and a little bit of that;)

As usual, I am always playing catch up on my blog. I think if I get a few posts in a month then I'm doing good! A couple of weeks ago we took off with the girls for Myrtle Beach for the week. We have fabulous family friends that let us stay at their place right on the ocean. It was so nice to be able to walk out our door and right onto the beach. The location was wonderful with lots of other children, an ocean side restaraunt that had a live band every night and fireworks over the water that we could watch right from our porch. This week was all about the girls (My husband and I have our own little vacation coming soon;). We filled it with lots boogy boarding, pooltime, walks on the boardwalk, ice cream, shopping, you name it! This is our second visit this year but the first one was packed full of cheer competition stuff so we made sure to do all the things we didn't get to do last time!

And just for fun here is a video of Bella dancing on the beach. She is quite a dancer in my humble opinion;)

Well, all good things must come to an end and after our week was over we headed back to home and work. Unfortunately, Michael was scheduled to work July 4th (along with every other holiday this year, I think). So the girls and I spent it together. We started out, as we do with all holidays big and small, learning about the history of the holiday. Why we celebrate it. I think it is so important and a vital part of my job as a parent, not to allow my children to grow up thinking important holidays are only about cookouts, presents, food, ect. So while we did have fun celebrating we also had a good time learning all about why we were celebrating!

Next on the agenda to celebrate is Bella's 2nd Birthday July 17th! And with that comes her 2 year update. If you'd like to look back over her life I have month by month updates of Bella's first year and then every 6 months during her 2nd year. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!:)

Beachy Post:)

I am one lucky girl:) To celebrate Mother's Day this year we made the short 1 1/2 hour trip to Emerald Isle for the weekend. ( I so appreciate how convenient it is to live so close to the beach!) Our Saturday was spent with our sweet friends the Braxton's on the beach soaking up the sun. Unfortunately we didn't get too many pics that day because we were so busy chasing kids:) But my girl's sure did love their 10 month old Knox and I loved getting to have his momma Jordan to hang out with:)

Day 2 ~ Aka~ Mother's Day was awesome. We spent it playing with the kids on the beach near fort macon and relaxing just the 5 of us. It truly was a perfect Mother's Day. Of course Hailey, who has been studying the pirate Blackbeard, was filling us in on all kinds of fun trivia. Like that Blackbeard's house, the Hammock house, is a few miles away in Beaufort and that his ship is, according to Hailey, underwater 12 miles off the coast at fort macon. I love that she is really into history like her momma:) We saw lots of fins in the water which were, of course, dolphins. Though you never know on the NC coast!. Tons were out Mother's day, jumping all around near shore. It was so much fun for the girls to watch! And the subject of fins brings us to our all time favorite week of summer~~~~ SHark week~~~. Yes, we know we have a couple of months to wait, but we are shark fanatics here and we anxiously await it every summer. And we are getting so close to summer! Just a few short weeks of school left for the girls and then off to Myrtle beach for our summer vacation! Can you tell I'm getting just a little bit excited for summer.... until then here are our pics from our beach Mother's Day!

Happy late Mother's Day to all of my fellow blogging mommies!! ( Okay, I'm a few days late but, hey, I'm a mother of three and part time worker bee. But I do try:)

Wordless Wednesday....Myrtle Beach

Last cheerleading competition of the season.....

After this trip I am SO ready for summer!!:)

Bella's 11 month Update!!

Look what Bella can do!!
Over the last couple of weeks Bella has started standing on her own constantly. And what a proud little thing she is. Almost always, she will clap her hands in glee....after the initial look of amazement. We have so enjoyed watching her achieving these milestones and have all loved trying to guess when the next one will occur. It is really hard to believe that she will be 1 year old next month!!

Here is her 11 month update~

Weight this month~ 19 pounds even!!

Feedings~ Bella is drinking approx 4-5 ounces of breastmilk every 4 hours. She is eating 3 meals a day and a snack in the morning and afternoon. Some of her favorites this month are mashed potatoes, pancakes, cheerios, and cheese puffs. Over the next couple of weeks I will be starting to add some whole milk to breastmilk in a sippy cup in an attempt to start the intro to big girl milk. I'm praying her determined nature will not interfere with this weaning process:)



~Bella's 1st Father's Day~




Sleep~ Oh boy, this is a fun one. Over the last 6 weeks Bella's sleeping pattern has degressed to waking every 2 hours. I think the initial culprit was her very first tooth coming in and her waking in pain. Gradually she became used to waking and us coming in to comfort her and there started the bad habit. But the past 3 nights Bella has slept from 7pm until 6am! I was a little hesitant to start the crying out techinique at her age but thanks to some much appreciated advice from Tara, after one night of letting her cry in small increasing increments, she relearned to soothe herself and did wonderfully that night as well as the last two nights since. It is SO nice to have mommy friends that you can trust to help you through the trials of parenting when you are too tired to think for yourself!:) Thank you so much Tara for your help!!

Play~ Bella loves to play in her play area in the livingroom. She is still emptying the toy box but is now climbing in and playing inside it. She loves to look out the window, look at books and climb on anything and everything. As evidenced by the picture of her trying to escape her play corral below....

Development~ Bella talks/babble constantly and can say Mama, Dada, byebye, and a word that sounds sorta like Hay-ee. I first noticed her copying me when I was calling Hailey from upstairs. I was calling "Hailey" and Bella was repeating "Hay-eeee". She has said it several times since but I'm not sure she correlates it to Hailey yet. She also understands the word "no" and will often look at us before touching something she shouldn't. She plays patty-cake and peek-a-boo and loves to drop things and watch us pick them up! She picks up absolutely anything and puts it in her mouth. Keeping small object off the floor is top priority this month. Biggest worry...Barbie accessories!

~Favorite things to do this month~ Stand alone, climb, eat finger foods, give eskimo kisses, and of course, playing with her sissies!!

Here is a video of Bella standing all by herself!~

We love you Bellabee and can't wait to celebrate your 1st birthday next month!!

A Day at the Beach!

So, last weekend we decided to take a day trip to Nagshead. It is the closest beach to us, and a straight shot down hwy 64. I had my reservations on whether a day trip to the beach would be more work than it was worth with a baby in tow. But, we found it was both fun and relaxing and well worth the less than 2 hour drive it us took to get there. The weather was gorgeous and all three girls had such a good time playing in the sand, water and sun. And Michael and I were actually able to relax some as well! We had such a great time, that we all agreed we will be making many beach day trips this summer. Cost wise it required little more than the gas it took to get there and back. I packed a picnic lunch and filled the cooler with lots of drinks and snacks, so we had everything we needed right there. We stayed all day and went home exhausted and happy:)
Here are some of the pictures from our day trip....

Such a fun day! And it's back to the beach for the weekend next week to celebrate the end of a successful school year!:)