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:)

Part II of photo catch up

Well, It's midnight and I have just gotten home from a very busy night at work with some very sick people. And it's a good thing that I am way too wound up to sleep, because I am baking 3 dozen cupcakes for Mary Kathryn to take to school for her birthday tomorrow. And what do I notice on the kitchen counter when I get home?? Krispie kreme donuts, that's what! How in the world am I supposed to ignore those when the smell of cupcakes is making me want something sweet??!:) I"ll let you guess whether I ate one or not....:)
So before I ramble on anymore in my sleep deprived state, I am going to go on and post the pictures we took Easter Sunday:) Unfortunately, Michael had to work that weekend, but the girls and I went to church and then to my sister and brother-in-law's house for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. It was a gorgeous day and Crystal and Chris are excellent cooks, so we all had a blast and brought lots of food home for Michael to eat when he got off work.
I could not, for the life of me, get all three girls to look at the camera, but this one is the best of all three that I could get.

The girls and I

So now I am off to bed to get a few hours of sleep before the girls wake up. Luckily no work tomorrow yay!:)

Job status change:)

As of January 1st......

I am officially PRN!! Yay!!
For nurses, this means I make my own hours and can pick which departments I work and when. PERFECT for our family of young children and a police officer (CRAZY hours!). Thank God for answering my prayer on this and for everyone that prayed for me. I am so grateful.

I am so looking forward to what 2012 brings to our family. We were certaintly blessed in 2011!

Happy New Year!! I am praying that this is a great year for you and your families:)

I look forward to more time with my family~

Christmas Memories

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday filled with family and fun and the making of lots of Christmas memories. I think what made this Christmas so special was not only having my husband off work to enjoy it, but having so much of our family here on Christmas morning. Here are some pictures of our Christmas...


Starting with Christmas Eve..


This year the five of us stayed home and enjoyed this yummy spread of fingerfoods....

We gave the girls these cute matching flannel pajamas as their Christmas eve present. Aren't they the cutest??:)

Michael and Bella on Christmas Eve:)

Here is how the livingroom looked after Santa visited on Christmas Eve. Since we have three girls, Santa is thoughtful enough to wrap each girl's gifts in a certain wrapping paper so they know which gifts are their's in the morning.

Aunt Crystal and Uncle Chris stayed over on Christmas Eve and we had a great time watching the girl's and each other open gifts.

And then the fun began!....

Then Grandma and Aunt Abby came and it was like Santa visited again!

Aunt Abby and Mary Kathryn

Aunt Abby and Hailey

Grandma and Bella

Just take a look at this livingroom!!!

Afterwards we went to Grandma Lynn's house for the best food ever and took these pictures...

Grandma Lynn and Hailey, Mary Kathryn and Bella

The Lynn Sisters and the girls

The girls and I

We are truly blessed to have a happy, healthy family on Christmas and all year long!!