courtney's topsail visit

(see, i told you i was updating this blog!!)
this past week, courtney and some of her friends rented a beach house in topsail. since they were so close, the girls and i decided to make a trip to visit them for the day. it was a great visit! their house was right on the beach so all we had to do was walk out the back door, over a wobbly deck, and out to the beach.
since it was march, i assumed the girls would not be going in the water... i was wrong. they enjoyed running in and out of the waves. the waves got the best of brooke a couple of times, thus we had several wardrobe changes.
all in all a wonderful, yet tiring, day! thanks court for having us down :)

(i did not take my camera, so all of these pictures are thanks to nana and my old camera!)

madeline and i enjoying the beach

madeline hanging under the shade of an umbrella

hana running...

the girls running in the waves... (brooke's first outfit)

brooke playing in the sand (in her second outfit)

everyone eating lunch (only half of the table!!)... brooke's third outfit!

what a great day!

hana's easter egg hunt

i have fallen totally behind on this blog... i have been doing a lot of photography sessions (which is great!) but means that my personal pictures are last on the list to be edited. even though i am far from done editing my sessions, i thought i would do a quick catch-up.
last wednesday was hana's last day of school before spring break. they had a school wide easter egg hunt.

all of the eggshana waiting to go find some eggsand go!! find those eggs :)

she had a great afternoon... now it is time for spring break!

Brooke's 3rd birthday- weekend!!!

brooke's 3rd birthday party was this past weekend. as luck would have it, my sister and her friends rented a house in topsail so she was able to come down and join in the festivities. so did nanny, nana, poppy, and mimi. it was a full house!
i will start with the family visit... the fam came in friday night. the kids enjoyed playing outside. this is only about the second time that all of the sings on the swing set have been full at once :) luckily the kids got along really well!


then saturday morning we headed over to the park for the party. with a small mix up with the balloons out of the way, the party went on without a hitch. the weather was perfect!! the day could not have been better. brooke had a blast! i still can't believe that she is 3...
(and here come the pictures!!)
there was climbing...playing...bikes...food...cake..(the cake was HUGE!)more cake... she might have had some help with the candles :)presents...and friends!!!it was a great birthday weekend!!

brooke-isms... part 4

like i said, brooke has taken up the slack in the -ism department. so i have a couple to share. and i thought i would throw in one hana-ism for good measure :)

• yesterday, as i was cleaning, brooke was watching the land before time. it is the girl's new favorite movie and they have seen it about a million times. when they get to the end and the little dinosaurs find their family in "the great valley", sarah runs to find her dad. (if you don't know what i am talking about and haven't seen the movie, you should, it is really cute!) brooke says "where is sarah's mother? probably taking pictures of other people." yup.
• also yesterday (a good day for -isms...) i was nursing madeline and brooke asked me to wipe her nose. so i told her to go get a little piece of tp (we don't usually have tissues, tp works just fine). she is walking back to me and i don't see any. when she gets closer she has a teeny tiny piece, not even the size of her little finger. i guess she was practicing being a good listener.
  
• and lastly, the hana-ism. yesterday (a really good day for -isms), hana and brooke were coloring pictures the give to other people. brooke asked me what to do with them and i told her to make a pile for them. then hana proudly comes over with her picture and says "mine is prettier than brooke's. should i make another pile for the prettier ones?" nice... not vain at all!
  

addie is one

saturday was addie's first birthday party. it was a girl party dedicated to cup cakes and girly kitchen play. the girls, of course, had a blast. they loved decorating their cupcakes :) there was a game of pin the candle on the cupcake... and lots of fun friends to play with.

noah playing pin the candle on the cupcakethey got special chef hats :)decorating a cupcakemore decoratinglots of decorating
addie enjoying her first birthday cupcake

fun was had by all!

just when...

just when i thought my girls were growing up. becoming more mature. we awoke this morning to something quite the opposite. we have repeatedly told the girls to stay in their beds until we come to get them in the morning. they are certainly not to leave the room. the only exception is for hana to get up to go to the potty. normally if they are out of their beds and playing, we can hear them through the monitor, well not this morning. so what did we wake up to? them playing in the soap and water in the bathroom. we could not hear them because they had closed the door to their room, thus shutting out our ability to hear through the monitor. when we found them, they were wet and soapy. i did not take any pictures of the bathroom, but i did get one of the soap they used up... it was opened yesterday and was brand new.
there are a couple of positive things... if you really want to find them (you have to look hard!)

• you can see the nice green color that i painted their bathroom (in the background of the picture).

• i bought the soap with coupons and paid very little for it.

• their room will seem really big for the next little bit since they are loosing most of their toys.

• the bathroom smelled very nice and clean this morning.

ahhhh sigh... just when i thought they were growing up...

the warm weather is here... hopefully to stay!

since this is the first laptop i have ever owned, i have been looking forward to the day that i could bring my computer (and therefore my work) around the house. i dreamed that i could sit in bed and edit pictures or even bring it outside while the girls play and edit pictures. so today i decided to try the latter. it is a beautiful day here (finally!!). it is sunny and 70. how wonderful. it is so beautiful, that while the girls snooze, i thought i would bring out the wonderful laptop and edit away. there is but one problem. the sun. while, it is bright and beautiful, it is much too bright to edit pictures. i will have to settle for sitting outside and merely blogging... or checking email. whatever the reason, i am just thankful that the warm weather is here!!!!
and i thought i would share a sneak peak of the newborn pictures that i took sunday... the ones that i should be editing!
(isn't she adorable... i can't believe they come that small and how quickly they grow!!)
the rest of the pictures will be up soon on my photography blog. as soon as i come in from the warm weather and finish them!

2 more brooke-isms

(new picture added... i took it the other day of brooke and madeline. so cute! i love when sisters get along!)

brooke is definitely taking up the slack in the -ism department. last night hana, brooke, and i went to hana's preschool literacy night. it was not what i expected and brooke was stuck in the room with me watching a power point presentation on helping your children read (the way it was presented, as Dr Seuss's birthday party, i thought it was going to be fun... not so much!). as brooke and i sat in hard uncomfortable chairs, she added to the brooke-ism list...

• at the end of the talk, they showed a video. in the video there was a group of children singing "wheels on the bus" (you could not hear them but they were doing the hand motions.) the wheels of the bus going around in a circle... brooke looked at me and said "false start." for those football enthusiasts... they were indeed making the motion for false start.
• when we first got there, we sat in front of another couple (who were almost as excited to be there as i was). brooke was walking around and looked at them, and stuck her tongue out (we are working on this... i am not sure how she learned it, but we are trying to get her to stop doing it!). of course the man burst out laughing (which does not help our cause in getting her to stop!). i looked over at her and told her to stop, to which she looked at me and said "my tongue just kept trying to get out." uh huh nice.