School Picture Day

Charlotte

This lovely Corn Spider decided to make a home in our front entryway.  She became Lew's pet spider.  Every night he would find and catch a bug or moth and throw it into her web.  Then he would watch as she wrapped it up and saved it for later.  In the morning the whole thing would be gone.  She stayed for a while, made 4 egg sacs, and is now gone.  I made Lewis take the egg sacs to the woods so the baby spiders don't think they can make a home here too!  He has been checking on them too.

Gone Fishin'

 Lewis and I got to take a trip together a couple of weeks ago.  We went to San Diego because he had a conference there and his mom came to watch the kids for us.  Thanks Grandma Dee! Lewis came home after 4 days and I headed up to NYC to hang out with my sisters and dad.  I had lots of fun and will post about it later, but while I was gone Lewis and Grandma Dee took the kids fishing.  Here are some pictures that Dee took of the event, looks like they had fun!

Beach Trip

 After we got home from our Utah trip we had a couple of days at home before we piled back into the car and headed to the beach.  The gulf beaches are my favorite ever and when I found out Lewis had a weekend conference in Orange Beach I made sure he knew we were invited.

 The first evening we were there we decided to take and evening walk on the beach and I tried to get some quick pictures of the kids.  It wasn't long before Cate was done:

 And then Brooks:

 Aiden too:

 And the poor poor baby was left all alone.

 Luckily Dad came in for the rescue:

 He was even able to get her smiling again.

 That day was Brooks' 7th birthday.  What a sweet boy our Brooksie is.  He's

 One of our favorite beach activities is searching for shells.  Brooks has to show me all the best ones and I love it.

 I hate it when he does this but I always take pictures.

 We had cake and ice cream to celebrate the birthday boy. Even got Lego candles because I'm the craftiest mom this side of the Mississippi!

 We enjoyed dinner at Lulu's with our friends the Morlandts. The kids love it because they can play in the giant sand pile while we wait for our table.  Because we don't play in the sand enough while we're at the beach.

 After lunch we headed to the beach again.  This time we went to the state park right across from the place we were staying.  A storm was rolling in and it got pretty dark for a few minutes.  Everyone else left the beach and the storm passed in just a few minutes.

 So we had the beach to ourselves for the rest of the afternoon.

 Here are a few more random, out of order pictures from our weekend at the beach.  I guess I forgot to take my camera to the pool which is a bummer because there were several 3 tiered infinity pools, a lazy river, and waterslides that the kids really enjoyed.  My favorite were the indoor pools because they were the warmest!

When can we go back?!?!?