Summer Fun at Laguna Beach

This past May,our family again had the great privilege of going with Sam and the student ministry to beach camp.  This time our church hosted our own camp in Panama City Beach at Laguna Beach. And to make it even better, Caleb came as the worship pastor for the week...which of course means Lia got to come too!!! I was soooo excited.  They had not seen Clara since she had been born, Missouri was a LONG way from North Carolina! And of course I'd need extra help with my kids while Sam was occupied with teenagers, so my mom came too!  It was a perfect week! The boys were thrilled to return to the beach. I was unsure about taking Clara as a 4 month old but she was a champ. Loved every second...and the students did too! Hoping to return next summer.

Seriously?!?! Yes, they just are this sweet :-)

This is the "cabin" that my fam stayed in. It was so perfect. Very "beach campish" but just right! 

Uncle Caleb and Aunt Lia with Clara for the first time. It was love at first sight ;-)

Playing in the water with Daddy. They were not near as nervous around the ocean waves as they were last year. They just loved it!

Mac had decided at home before leaving for the trip that he knew he was going to find a shell that he could hear the ocean in. If you go to the beach much you know that sometimes you go, there are lots of shells. Other times, none. This was pretty much a "none" time. But it didn't stop Mac from looking and believing. We couldn't stand for him to be disappointed, so Mom went to a souvenir shop, bought two huge shells, and hid them on the beach while we were walking and searching.  They totally thought that we just stumbled upon them and could not believe how lucky they were to find shells to hear the ocean! It was priceless!! It never once crossed their minds that we had looked for days, found no shells, and then all of a sudden we found two perfect ones. Love their innocence. Won't last forever!

Aunt Lia and Uncle Caleb are so great to all of their nieces and nephews. All of the kids adore them and love playing with them. Caleb and Lia are such great sports!!!

Sweet pumpkin on the beach. On the first day we lugged loads of stuff to set up on the beach, kept her out there maybe an hour or two, then never took so much out there again. haha  

Swimming time

All three of my favorite things!

Yay for an awesome Camp Pastor at a fun retreat center! (crazy enough, this is the same place that Lia went to camp in the summer when she was in high school in Texas...good memories)

The day we drove to the beach was my birthday.  My mom is so great and thoughtful and bought gifts, party gear, and candy to celebrate on the hour for the entire eight hours that it took us to drive there. It made my day, and the kids thought it was so great! And who wouldn't when you get lots of candy the whole car ride! haha

Just beautiful

Bathing Beauty

The students played glow-in-the-dark capture the flag on the beach. Truly awesome!

With CeCe

Aunt Lia

Yay for reunions! All we needed was the Hills and PePaw

They were sooo excited to finally return to the beach.

She's a natural.

Bathing Beauty now a Sleeping Beauty

Their shells!!! "We can hear the ocean!!!"

A little downtime hanging out in the cabin

The last picture our family took on the beach I had just discovered I was expecting Clara. Now she's here with us!

This is SO Drew

Christmas PJs Still Going Strong!!

The annual Christmas PJs continued this year.  We were sad that Lia and Caleb couldn't join us for Christmas, but they had pjs to wear in Orlando along with us! And I have to say, I think this is pretty decent for a self-timer picture with all those kids!

Jess painted the cute shirts again for the kids. And of course, the men dusted off their gray shirt and black pants to wear :-)

Our first Christmas as a family of 5. Love this crew

Oh these kids...they are just precious. And crazy. And they love each other like crazy

The girls! Ellie is glad to have another girl on her team

We used Facetime to get Lia in our pic...she has on her pjs! 

Thanksgiving at Momo's

For Thanksgiving, we traveled to Momo's on the Coast on Wednesday, drove up to Magee to spend the day with Sam's family on Thursday, and then I drove up to Jackson Thursday evening to Black Friday shop with Mom and Jess while Sam and the kids stayed in Magee.  This was my very first night away from Clara since she was born!!! And it would've been glorious to spend that night sleeping, but I wouldn't trade sleep for the fun and bargains we had shopping.  We finished off the night/morning with breakfast at Waffle House at 4am!

The boys always want to do a "silly face"

Momo with her great-grandkids.  They bring the excitement and energy everywhere they go! haha

CeCe and PePaw with the kiddos

And you know, silly faces again.  We bribe them by telling them if they take a "serious" one then we can take a "silly" one

Roasting marshmallows for S'mores

Enjoying the gooey goodness!

Everyone getting in on the action.  The holiday eating has begun!

Gingerbread Mansion

CeCe and PePaw stayed after our Christmas program so they could make a gingerbread house and take the boys shopping for the gifts they would give to each other, Clara, Sam, and me. My mom has always done a gingerbread house with us as kids and now with our kids. Love it! However, she's wised up over the years...instead of making the house from scratch in the kitchen, she had my dad cut the frame out of cardboard.  And when dad is involved, you know its going to be good! It really is an impressive cutout and is quite large. The boys decided it was more of a mansion than a house (we had recently learned the definition of a mansion so it was fitting!) so we had a gingerbread mansion. 

Drew took his job very seriously.  Mac was very serious about smacking gumballs! haha

Everyone working on it

Pretty impressive, right??

Proud of their work, both with a mouthful of candy

CeCe reading "The Gingerbread Mouse"

Shopping at Dollar Tree.  Drew is always very decisive and quickly makes his pick

Mac likes to look at every single thing and takes much longer to come to a decision. He's holding up their money that they took with them to buy some gifts.  They had a great day!

Merry Christmas Columbus!

Our family was asked to participate in the church Christmas program, "Merry Christmas Columbus." We were told we'd have a few scenes to "act like a family" with minimal lines, so we decided it sounded harmless enough.  Well, the script included lines for the boys as well so about a month before the program, we began having to attend practices. The boys caught on pretty quickly, and we really talked up how special the show was going to be and that everyone was going to be watching them.  They were excited! But they were also a bit fidgety during our part at practice! Out came the bribes!!! 

When the day of the show arrived, I felt pretty comfortable in our ability to pull it off but still a bit nervous. You NEVER know what a 3 and 5 year old will decide to do! They were coached, bribed, and ready. Scene 1...boy was that something!!! It started out pretty well until they realized they could see us up on the big screens in the sanctuary (which we had warned them of and about the need to ignore them!) and the funny face making began! Eek!!! They got plenty of laughs out of that until the media crew had the genius idea to just turn the screens off to redirect them.  

When that scene was over, we went backstage, redirected and talked about what to do and were ready to proceed. The remainder of the program was great! A few funny things here and there but overall the boys did a fabulous job, all things considered.  I feel it was a great privilege to be a part of a wonderful program and make family memories we will always have! 

Just realizing they could see us on the screens

Making their funny faces up on the screens...whatcha gonna do?!?!

Close up look at some funny faces, as Sam and I are desperately trying to continue and recapture their attention

The program really was great.  Our church has so much talent!

We made it!!!

Again grateful to have both sets of grandparents come enjoy our performance.  CeCe and PePaw told the boys they'd take them wherever they wanted to eat after if they did well.  The boys pick? McDonald's, no surprise there!

With Sam's parents

We are so thankful to live close enough for family to experience things like this with us!

Oh, and let me not forget to add that Sam had a solo for the last song of the program and did an amazing job! So proud of him and glad he's mine!

Clara's Baby Dedication

Clara's Baby Dedication was on April 27, 2014.  With her birthday on January 27th, she was exactly 3 months old! We had just moved into our house in Columbus the week before, so life was still plenty crazy...but we were grateful to have our house and family reunited and to be able to have the dedication at our new church at Fairview.  We quickly experienced one of the perks of being back in Mississippi as both sets of grandparents and longtime friends were able to be a part of the day.

Our pictures up on the screen

There were several families participating in the dedication service. All of the babies were perfectly quiet! And Sam held Clara just right, making sure her dress and bow stayed fixed the whole time :-)

Sweet thing

Mim & Pop and CeCe & PePaw

I LOVE this little girl

Our Monticello "Family," The Bayles and the Hewitts were able to come as well! So thrilled they could be there!

Busy morning and lunch wore this little thing slap out.  But she has great brothers to protect and look after her!