14

Our Baby Root Beer is turning 14!  It is a crazy thought for me.

She should still be the little one running around the house, doing silly things like sitting in pots and pans.... sigh.  

But she is growing into an amazing young lady and I am so proud of her and the choices she makes.

Since it is an even year for her she gets to have a party.  She asked if we could all go to Crystal Hot Springs.

So we fed everyone then piled into our 2 cars and made the 45-60 minute drive there with lots of laughter in the car.

 

 

Then after wards we headed back to our house for cake, ice cream, and presents.

 

 

 I am so very grateful for everything about this amazing girl of mine.

The big 1 0

I can't believe that this little lady is 10 years old!!!

We helped her celebrate by having friends and family over for a swim party at her Nana and Papa's house.

Time goes by too fast! And I am grateful that I get to be her mom.

Besties

I am thankful for Best Friends.  =)

Dress up

Sometimes I have to remind the kids that she's not a toy.

I am thankful that they didn't want to do anything too drastic to her.  

And I know I know mom.....its time to take the pacifier away from her.  =)

We made it!

Yesterday afternoon we made it to sunny (?) San Diego!  

We pitched our tents and officially started to enjoy our vacation!!

All I can say is that I absolutely LOVE camping on the beach!  Falling asleep to the sound of the ocean was the best last night.

Even though it wasn't sunny yesterday when we arrived and it wasn't sunny when we woke up this morning we weren't about to let it ruin our fun.

The kids were begging to go down to the water as soon as they were up.

So after breakfast we headed down.

The kids didn't seem to mind the cold water....at first.  lol!

And ,man, I though the water was too chilly for me to go in it....not near as warm as the warm ocean water of Florida that I grew up with.

But after an hour some of them were ready to change out of wet swimming suits but they still had fun on the beach.

Baby Ponyo loved the sand and the seaweed.
She especially loved trying to eat it.

As you can guess, Little A just couldn't stand being out of the water any longer so she decided to put her wet swimming suit back on and brave the cold ocean again.  Silly girl.

Baby Root beer was such a trooper and she stayed in a wet swimming suit the whole time and was pretty much in the water the all day too.

These too girls had so much fun braving the waves together.  It was fun to watch them talk about their adventures boogie boarding in the surf.

I am grateful for good friends.

Finally

Finally!

At least that is what the kids were saying this morning when they woke up to a bunch of snow.

So we jumped into our snow clothes and spent the morning sledding in the front yard.

I am grateful that we have a hill in our front yard to sled down.

Art Project

Construction paper

Glue stick

Cotton balls

and some markers.....

...make simple Santa's that these girls loved.

I am thankful for these 2 peas in a pod.

Fall fun

Little A and her best buddy are so cute to watch together.

Every morning shortly after her sisters leave for school she asks if its too early to play with her friend.

Today when they got together they couldn't resist the leaves that were starting to collect on the front lawn and inside the house I could hear them laughing and laughing while playing in them.

So, I went out to capture some of the fun.

I am thankful that Little A has such a good friend to play with.

A treasure hunt?!

Our friends oldest is going to stay with us a few days.....so the kids can spend some more time together.

So today we headed to the park.

We decided to have dinner there....

and just hang out for a little while.

And then we went on a treasure hunt. We gave geocaching a try. We just used an app that my hubby had on his phone....which was fun but I thin using a real gps would have worked a lot better.

Anyway.....

so we looked here

and we searched there

all the while trying to follow what the phone app was showing us.

And it turns out that at the end it was right under our nose

under the 'cap' of one of the fence posts.

The treasure may not have been much, but if you took something you are supposed to leave something in its place. We chose a prize and in return left a pack of glow sticks.

I am thankful for a nice glass of ice cold water after searching the park on a very hot day.