Beach Painting

One of the fun things about our condo was that they had an activities director and several of the events were geared towards kids. Matney got to participate in the "paint a sea creature" afternoon. She picked out which creature she wanted, a seahorse, and then chose to paint it pink and blue. I had to shut my mama mouth a few times as she mixed the colors together on the brush and (once I relaxed and reminded myself this was for fun and not for looks) it was really neat to watch her be creative. She is very proud of her seahorse. He is a magnet on the fridge now and she will probably show him to you next time you're here. Doesn't she look like such a grown up girl?

Beach part 1

I actually a good amount of photos from our beach vacation and am going to have to break this up into several posts. When we arrived on Tuesday we quickly put the girls in their swimsuits and headed outside. What I don't have a picture of is the first grain of sand touching Matney's foot. It sent her into a whole new level of "flipped out and distraught". You can tell from the pictures that she was not a fan. Poor girl is like her mama and doesn't like to get dirty and the sand really put her over the edge. Halle Kate however loves almost everything and has absolutly no fear (except a 2" stuffed bunny from a book we have but that is another post!). Here are pictures of our time on the beach on day 1 - total time 5 minutes.
Some of these don't look like good pictures but if you enlarge them you can totally see Matney screaming and pointing to go back. Halle Kate is grinning and has her hands up saying "bring it on!". We've got some crazy fun girls!

Just like a Princess

How cute are my little fairies? Due to our love for Abby Cadabby (the fairy on Sesame Street) we've been on the lookout for wings for Miss M for a while. All I could find were the wire hanger types with panty hose like material wrapped around them. We knew those would be torn during the first flight so we'd never bought any. Then, mom and I were shopping one day and she found these perfect fairy wings. We quickly made our way to the checkout, purchased a pair and handed them to Matney who was riding in the back of the stroller. On the way to her hands they passed over Halle Kate who went nuts. We quickly told the cashier to ring up another pair and soon we left with two sets of wings for two little fairies.

Matney demanded to put hers on and we were walking along, not talking about the wings at all, when she turned around and said, "I feel just like a princess!". Oh, my heart grew 5 sizes! How precious is that? We stopped the stroller, shocked. She was so proud of those wings! I know I'd love a boy but I sure do LOVE having baby girls!

Here are the girls playing fairies with Daddy. This makes my heart grow another 5 sizes. There is nothing sweeter than little fairy girls and their Daddy! Sorry some of the pictures are blurry. Catching fairies in flight is difficult for the camera!















Halle Kate has decided she loves her wings. She carries them across the room to us, demands we put them on and then starts flapping her arms walking in cicrles. It is so funny. She will honestly keep them on for hours while she plays. Sweet girl!

Board Books in a Box

Our girls love to read and the sets of board books that come in a box are definitely their favorites. We have the Sesame Street, Disney and Disney Princess sets and we read them all the time. There are 12 books per box and when they come off the shelf Jared and I try to be the first one to escape the room so that we don't have to be the one to read them! They are EXTREMELY condensed versions of their stories. For example, Cinderella is "Cinderella was a gentle, charming girl who loved to dream. Cinderella's stepsisters were cruel to her. Her stepmother was even worse. The King sent an invitation to the royal ball. Cinderella was not allowed to go. But Cinderella's fairy godmother helped. Cinderella and the Prince fell in love at first sight. It was a dream come true!". And this is one of the better books. Ugh.
This particular morning both girls were content to look at books on their own. I was thrilled and had to snap a picture!

I can do it MYSELF!

OH BOY! We are quickly entering the world of "let me" from Halle Kate (and the extra time and mess required may just be driving me CRAZY!!!!). She won't let me feed her anything from a spoon but if I let her try she'll play for a while. Every 1 bite out of 10 actually gets food in her mouth. I'd forgotten that in this phase mopping the floor and giving a bath are often part of every meal.

Lickin' the beaters!

The best part about baking with Mommy? Licking the beaters!
Ever since Matney "helped" make (ok, eat) HK's birthday cupcakes she's asked to cook with Mommy. And we all know that licking the batter is the best part. I've tried to find some healthier alternatives for things we normally buy already made and I've tried to pick things without eggs so that she can nibble as we go. This day was yummy whole wheat blueberry muffins. If you're coming over any time soon don't worry, what Matney helps cook I promise not to serve you!

We Escaped!

Guess who finally got to go on vacation!?!?! The Healds! Monday morning I woke up not looking forward to another week of illness because Matney was still up every night sick. While getting us ready to go back to her dr we got a call from some great friends. They had a condo on the beach in Panama City for the week and were not going to be using it...so, if we wanted to we could pack our bags and it was ours! You know what I decided? If the choices are be stuck at home sick or stuck on a beach sick, pick the beach! I called Jared at work and amazingly enough he was able to clear enough of his calendar to leave the office with no notice (that never happens). So, without thinking about it we ran to Walmart, packed our bags and hit the road early Tuesday morning. Oh my goodness, we are beyond tired but we had the best week!

We'd talked about taking the girls to the beach this summer and decided to wait until next year. Halle Kate does NOT travel well, the girls don't sleep well out of their own beds which makes for LONG days and nights, etc. However, when a free week on a beautiful beach lands in your lap (especially when we had been wanted to get out of town so badly) YOU PACK QUICK! Not having time to stress about packing, sleep arrangements, etc made things easy...and we may have gotten HK her own DVD player so that she could watch "Bar-Bar" (Barney) and hopefully not scream the entire ride.

I have tons of fabulous pictures to upload but I am exhausted. It has been a long time since our girls were both asleep before 8pm but tonight they crashed. So, if you called or emailed us this week and haven't heard back we'll get caught up soon. Right now we are headed to bed and dreaming of the water!

Backyard Water Fun

Here are a few snapshots of our summer fun in the backyard. The only way to survive outside this time of year in GA is to play with water!