{merry Christmas}

{a Trip}

Dane recently went pheasant hunting over a long weekend. He tried to make me jealous that I was home with our children while he was out having fun by sending me pictures of his luxurious motel and room.

Motel...seriously? If you look closely, you can see flamingos in the grass as "decor".

and the room...4 beds?

I asked him kindly to stop sending me pictures. I couldn't take much more.

The kids and I ventured out to burn some energy. This is what we parked by at Target.  The kids wouldn't stop talking about it. "He" was from Montana and had a Christmas tree in the back of "his" truck. He just starred at us.

and then dad returned home with gifts in tow.

{halloween}

One fireman less his coat, one midget butterfly thingy and one majestic butterfly princess. Yes, a motley crew indeed.

{as Promised}

It's official, I couldn't find the missing tire. Just to bring you up to speed...Brady likes to remove tires from his little trucks and trailers and has so on several occasions. On two of those occasions (one being from the picture in previous post) Paisley has been in the vicinity when he has performed his tire removing ceremony. So, our theory is that she has now ingested 2 said tires the size of a cheerio. Just for the record, Dane has always been out of town when this happens, always. Seriously?!?!

The tire eater...and yes, that is chocolate from a cookie she was enjoying one day during our route home. See exhibit A in her hand!

{teaser}

Soon, I will explain this picture. But I am still trying to locate all the tires!!!

{all about Paige}

This post is dedicated to our first born...

She LOVES to play with the iPad and on this day was showing her baby an Elmo video. The baby looks real...a little too real!!

She loves to perform and loves to dress up so we enrolled her in dance this fall. She loves it! The ironic thing is she has the same dance teacher that Aunt Ashley had 20 or so years ago!!! I find this very intriguing.

And, she lost her first tooth and was super excited. We lost the tooth right before bedtime but the Tooth Fairy found the tooth on a cleaning spree later (what? your Tooth Fairy doesn't clean when she visits?!?!) and left a note for her to leave it the next night and she would be back. Which reminds me to tell the Tooth Fairy to hit the ATM on the way home!! What does a tooth go for these days?

We love you Paige. You are a constant reminder of how I must have been as a little kid and I am surprised that my parents survived raising me! But with the drama comes the love and you have lots to give.

{no reason}

{not sure}

Not sure what we've been up to lately and I have no pictures to remind me. Dane and I work pretty hard at making sure we aren't filling up our lives with busy stuff...and leaving margin for the things that matter in this season of life we are in. Some days it feels as if we are just boring people and other days I am thankful we haven't stacked our schedules!!

{wow! 365}

52 weeks ago, Paige went on a field trip at school to see the fire station. I dropped her off at school, took Brady to the sitter and went to work. I got sick at work and went home for the day. Long story short...Paisley was born the next morning at 2:00 am. Today, I dropped Paige and Brady off at school for their fire station field trip for this year. Weird, ironic, timely, emotional, grateful, blessed, on and on...lots of thoughts ran through my head. Grateful for wise doctors still 1 year later!

Paisley - you made it one full year in this crazy family. And we couldn't be happier!

Birthday girl with Nana.

Blowing out her candle and looking concerned.

Having to help her get started.

We had planned an outside party with bounce houses and fun but had to relocate inside because of rain. We thought a pinata would be some good inside fun! Well, it was but the stick Dane found was a wee bit too long. :)

 Paisley's yummo cake!

Paige at her 1 year party...all I can say is I thought Paige didn't have any hair! She has lots compared to Paisley.

{i see a Hole out there}

Let me narrate for you...

"hey guys want to dig a hole to China (Carter)?"

 "sure, let's dig (Holt)"

"this isn't working, we need help (Paige)"

"hey, will you help us dig to China (Brady)?"

"yay! let's slide to China, but let's come back for dinner I hear we are having brown chicken (Brady)"



{i (heart) 30A}

There the stinker is again.

Baywatch?

 I'm not sure, but something tells me Brady might have thrown something at Kennedy...

 Even when we listen, we are dramatic! Brady - love the thumbs in the pits!!

If you visit the beach on 30A be on the lookout for our Cabela's bag with plastic buckets, shovels, barbies, and basically crap in it. Whoever stole this got more value out of the bag! Suckers!!!

 This is what she did at the beach...everyday. Who can blame a girl!?!

 I think we were formalizing our plan. More on that in another post.

 And these 2 twin cousins...I have an entire post devoted to them.

 See what I mean. Stay tuned.

 We had a great trip. See you soon 30A!!

{this gal}

This small thing has been the reason for my lack of beach picture updates. Since we returned from paradise we have not slept, have ran fevers daily, have been clingy, fussy, cranky...I think you get the idea. Well, after 2 trips to the doctor and several calls to the nurse they finally found her problem. She has 2 ear infections! Go figure! Because of the tubes it was hard to tell, until her ear drums got bad, that she had one or two. So, here's hoping the antibiotics kick in quick because this small thing is the center of a party this weekend.

{first Day of school}

Preschool started back up. And this year, Brady gets to tag along. They both love it. This is a last minute, oh my goodness we are going to be late, where's your sister at?, wait, wait we need a picture, Paige don't squeeze him that hard, no Brady smile this time kind of picture!

{chaos in Paradise}

We're back!

We survived the drive both ways, the week with family that contained 3 different "family units" and 9 kids under 5, the jellyfish encounter, the shark race thanks to Russ, the daily haul to the beach (I mentioned 9 kids, right?!?), the massive amounts of food we ate, the massive amounts of sunscreen we applied, and just the overall laziness of it all. We wore no makeup for 9 days, wore no shoes, wore basically no clothes and our feet hurt when we had to put shoes on and resume our regularly scheduled activities this week. I had to fix my hair, apply makeup, dust the sand off and get back to reality. When asked if we would do it again...our answer - of course, the cousins had a blast and I think the adults had limited run-ins with each other and after a year to recoup...sure, we'd do it again...maybe :)

Until the pictures are downloaded, here is a view from our porch.

And Paisley...just because she turned 11 months during all this chaos.

{SDC}

We took a last minute (decide at 7:30am and leave at 9:00am) trip to Silver Dollar City for the day. It wasn't very crowded and temps were great. This is the only picture I took. Paisley napping as she waited on the others to get back from their train ride.

{Camping}

We went camping. I'm not a happy camper - let's just get that out of the way. But, I went because I knew how much the kids loved being at the lake with Papa and Grandma Addington. So, off we went on what was one of the hottest weekends on record. Please note, Lil P stayed with Nana. She would not have been a happy camper.

Headed out for some water fun.

 Dad trying to remember how to ski. Brady was impressed.

 Impressed so much that he wanted to try. (I have a video of him skiing that I will post later).

 These 2 were content sunbathing in the boat.

 But, I did get Paige to ride the "hotdog" with me.

Taking it all in.

 More sunbathing.