Harper is six months old!

Hi sweet baby girl.  Thanks for letting me take your six month pics.  You are growing into such a sweet little angel and I adore watching you grow.   Thank goodness for you, Greta and Willa - if Dan and I are destined to be parents of boys and never have a daughter of our own, we can take comfort in knowing that we have the most adorable and wonderful nieces!  

Our photo shoot took place on Art Hill in Forest Park.  We were blessed with great weather, incredible light and a happy six-month old that can sit up all on her own (makes makes the photography much much easier . . . :)  Here are few of my favorites:

I LOVE this one.  I love her sweet smile and the fingers in her mouth and the amazing sparkle in her eyes.

Karen, TJ and Harper - Enjoy the video!  I hope that you like it!

Beach Vacation - Part III

Beach Vacation - Part III is my final vacation post.  I have officially gotten through all of our vacation photos and I am still glowing from such a wonderful family trip.  I seriously can't wait to get back to the beach.  I enjoyed it so much that I'm eagerly awaiting the right moment to approach the subject with Dan to get next year's trip on the calendar.  While we were considering a trip to Disney World for next year's vacation, it actually makes me a bit sad (selfishly, of course) to think that a trip to Florida next year wouldn't involve powder white sand and deep hues of blue ocean for as far as you can see.

While I know that I loved the ocean, I believe that Drew did too.  Drew has brought up our vacation several times since we've been home and it makes me happy to realize that the memories are not only there, but that they are sticking.  I think that Owen liked the vacation too but his needs can never be entirely satisfied by a comfortable condo and beautiful scenery (he is our whiner and can find anything under the sun to be upset about).  Evan, of course, is too little to express an opinion on the topic but he enjoys sitting on mommy's lap (like now) and watching the pictures/videos appear on the monitor.

The story that my kids will tell someday depends on me and I want these vacation memories to be a part of it.  I am writing their book and I want their childhood chapters to be full of traditions and memories of happiness and a cozy home.

I think about this a lot - what will my kids remember?  If it's measured by present enthusiasm, I'd say that Drew will remember his enormous collection of monster trucks and transformers and how every bit of motivation we employ in our household somehow centers around him earning this type of incentive.  I suppose that Owen will remember his deep love for sports and wrestling with his brothers.  My guess is that Evan will recall many hours at the dinner table given that eating is one of his highest priorities as a toddler.

It is my hope that my kids will remember the ways that holidays glowed in our house.  The food, the decorations, the gifts . . . I hope that they recall our celebrations warmly and with pride and love them so deeply that they want to carry them forward into their own homes one day.

I hope that they will remember how I let them make messes.  That we prioritized vacations.  That we hugged.  That we ate meals together.  That we played together.  That we listened to each other.  That we apologized and respected each other.      

I hope that they remember that we worked hard, but we played hard too.  

But most of all, I hope that they remember without a doubt, that they are loved so fiercely and so deeply that it makes my heart ache just trying to describe my love for them.  Perhaps the heartache exists because I know that they may just never know . . . after all, how could they possibly get their minds around something so significant?

Now back to the beach vacation . . . we took a dolphin cruise that was super fun.  While Evan capitalized on the relaxing light breeze and took a snooze in the stroller, Drew and and Owen took a front row seat in the boat in order to be the first to spot a dolphin.

Eventually, we saw lots of dolphins!

Eeeww! . . . we saw lots of a jelly fish on our first day on the beach!

Ahh - the beach, oh how I miss you.  Until next year . . (I hope).  I'll leave you with a some of our 'blissful chaos' in the video below!

Drew likes to scare the birds with a bit of a 'roar' and Owen, well, he just needs to put his swimming trunks back on.  Poor baby Evan, can't quite figure out how to keep the sand out of his eyes.  Ahhh - blissful chaos!

Beach Vacation - Part II

It is late at night that I get most of my blogging done.  The weekends are really my only open opportunity to review my photos and because I'm with the boys during the day, I don't like to take any precious time away from my time with them.  So I wait until everyone is asleep, pour a glass of wine and sit down to indulge in one of my 'guilty pleasures' and get lost in all of my favorite photography sites.  I hardly look up once and I realize that not minutes, but hours have passed.  And as is my semi-regular Saturday night ritual, I am sitting here at 3:30 am wondering where the time has gone.

Well, this week, I have extra special photos to edit.  Like this one - seriously, how would this not keep you up until 3:30 in the morning . . starring at it and loving it.  My amazing four-year-old who is getting more grown up by the minute.

Or this one.  Even though I know that our Owie-bear was in the middle of a whine when I snapped this particular photo, I can't help but to smile when I look at it because I know that it so accurately captures him at this exact age.  I can almost even hear his voice as I look at this sweet picture.  Sweet and sensitive Owen.  

We had such an amazing time on vacation.  Dan may tell you a different story (his may be one of exhaustion and frustration from kids not listening, which of course, is a valid point), but for me, the vacation was restorative and made my heart smile.  I got to spend every single minute of every day with my kiddos for the past week and really got to enjoy them.  No alarms were set, no deadlines were upon us and we lived the past week very carefree.  I got to fiercely love my babies with no distractions.  And of course, I enjoyed my babies on one of nature's most beautiful backdrops . . . watching them experience the ocean nearly brought tears to my eyes on several occasions.  I couldn't help but to think of how wonderful motherhood is and what a privilege it is to have a front-row seat to these miracles growing in front of us everyday.  God heard quite a few thank-you prayers uttered from me this week.

The boys loved the beach - especially Drew.  He never tired of chasing the waves and running away frantically as the tide returned.  I already can't wait to take our boys back to the beach.    

Our condo was very nice and was the perfect accommodation for our stay.  We had comfy beds, plenty of TVs (with individual DVD players so that everyone could watch the DVD of his choice) and a kitchen stocked full of accessories that allowed us to make most of our meals at home and enjoy lazy days around the condo instead of stressing out about taking three little boys to a restaurant:)  This is the view of the ocean from our balcony.

It didn't take much beach time to wear baby Evan out.  

Of course, I enjoyed some lovely bubbles in the master bedroom's jacuzzi tub (actually, I only got to enjoy for one night since I got severely sun burnt early in the week (more sunscreen, next time Lauren . . . )

The drive was long but the boys did well.  We allowed ourselves one overnight stay at a hotel on each way so that Dan and I didn't end up driving in the wee hours of the night/morning (I will never understand how some families do this . . . this Mommy and Daddy need sleep too!)  Our mini-van and the DVD player in the mini-van really made the trip work.  

We enjoyed some Rendezvous ribs for dinner while passing through Memphis on our way to Destin.

And I will leave you with some more fun playing on the beach and a tour of our lovely condo.  Oh - how I can't wait to return!

Beach Vacation - Part I

Ahhh - vacation . . . I can't wait to blog about it.  As you can imagine, I have millions of photos to edit so I'll leave with you some video footage in the meantime.  Check out the multicolored hues of gorgeous blues and greens in the ocean and the powder white sand.  Pure heaven for all of us.