Our Princesses

Meet Cinderella..
(or Emma's interpretation of her)

And Princess Belle,

The Beach!

For Memorial Day, I spent the weekend at our (new) condo on the beach with a few of my friends from school. (We had a blast! It was the first trip my parents let me go on that was unchaperoned!)
Since the girls hadn't yet been to the beach, we decided to bring the family up for the day. (Well.. almost everyone, except for a certain young lady who had way to much attitude and had to stay home.. but that's another story!)
The little girls had an absolute blast at the beach! They loved playing in the sand and searching for shells. However, they weren't too fond of the waves and I don't really blame them. It's been really windy lately and that day the waves were HUGE! The girls went in to the water, but were way to scared to go near it again. So.. they just played on the safe, dry land. Having my friends there was great.. more people to hold and pay attention to Emma & Esther. =)
We'll definitely be spending a lot of time at the beach this summer!!

My friend took all of these pictures.. so for once I'm not the one behind the camera!

My friend Erin and Emma

Lazy Summer Days

This is how we spend our summer days...

Enjoying lunch outside

Smiling because of the beautiful warm weather

Being silly

Just being outside enjoying the sunshine

Taking naps

Going for a swim

Beautiful flowers

"Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy." Psalm 96:11-12

"The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Psalm 19:1

Let's Go Fishing

These pictures are from a few months ago and I totally forgot I had them until today!

View from the dock

Those are gator tracks from where they slide on their bellies.

I caught a fish.

Gone Fishin'

Waiting for a bite.

Elly is Home

The newest living creature joined our family the day before Mother's Day.
Elly is her name.
She's pretty darn cute.
The other dogs absolutely hate her. (Hopefully they'll get over it!)
She tends to sleep a lot!

NEW Asher Pictures!!!!!

Head on over to Asher's blog!!!

We're Home!

Yummy Maryland crabcakes make a delicious breakfast

Well, we are finally home from our little vacation.. if you want to call it that. To me, a vacation is a cruise to the Bahamas.. lots of sun and relaxation. This was far from that. =) Nah.. we did have a fun time in Maryland. It's nice to get away from the hectic pace of life and just spend time with your family. Maryland is always a second home since we always go and visit every year or so. My mom was born and raised there, so she really enjoys our trips "home."

Traveling with six children is a pretty hectic job all in itself. Just imagine trying to lug eight suitcases, eight backpacks, a laptop case, two strollers and six children through the airport.. it's quite a sight especially when you go through the medal detectors!! But we persevered and survived! We just limit these kind of trips to a once a year type thing.

The girls got folded up in the sofa-bed.

Ian and all of our luggage (minus one suitcase and a few backpacks)

A last visit with PopPop before we left

Oh, I must mention the fact that the biggest surprise that greeted us upon our arrival was the fact that our trampoline was sitting upside down in our neighbors yard! There were some pretty bad storms and our friend (who house-sat) watched the tramp fly over the fence and land 75 feet away. What's weird is the wagon (weighs about 20 lbs) was still in the exact same place we had left it, and it was only about 20 feet from where the tramp had originally been. It took four big guys to actually move the trampoline back into our yard, because it's so heavy. All we can say is that something powerful must have been responsible for it's movement.

So now we're looking at getting a new trampoline since ours has pretty much bitten the dust.

The Wedding

Here are pictures from the wedding:
The happy couple, my cousin Katy and new husband, Kris

Our family at the wedding

Cousins Jake, RJ and Ian.. future juvenile delinquents

The reception was located at the Jarretsville Fire Department so we took the kids to visit with the Fire trucks and they had a blast.

I asked Emma to pose with the fire trucks, and she was happy too. =)

Inside the firetruck- Esther, Kayla, Jake, RJ, Emma & Ian

Ian and his new (second) cousin Nathan (only 3 weeks old!)

Esther and Emma playing with Uncle Matt

Beautiful Alyssa- my cousin's daughter

Four Generations!
That's my Mom's father in the center, and next to him on the left Mom's sister Cathy, granddaughter Alyssa and son Michael. On the right, Mom's sister Linda, grandson Nathan and daughter Michelle.

Ian and Kayla getting their groove on at the reception

Mom & Dad

Esther getting her groove on with the groom.

Elena holding baby Nathan, Ian & RJ

Dad taking his turn dancing with the bride

Me and baby Nathan.. he is sooo tiny!!

This is why Emma slept on the floor. She left me soo much room, huh?