Morgan's trip to Bama

Morgan has been going to Alabama every summer & staying with her grandparents for the last 5 summers & she loves it...I was thinking this may be the year she didn't want to go, being a teenager and all but no, she was excited about going.

Morgan loves seeing her cousins and she also likes the youth group at my parents church.  Morgan went last night to church and had a great time.

The picture above is of Morgan & her friend Haley. They always hang out when shes in AL.

And she went to dinner with my sister & her cousins.

Morgan & Cason

Cason, Morgan,Chandler, & Chase

The one thing that I feel guilty about living away from family is that my girls never get to see their cousins. They always have so much fun together. I have three girls & my sister has three boys so it's always a good match, especailly since they are all close in age :)

Today Morgan went swimming at a friends house:

As you can tell, Morgan is having a great time and we're pretty sure she doesn't miss us at all!


Happy Thursday!
Melissa

playing around

Just playing around trying to get some underwater pictures...It is much harder than I thought it would be!

That was the best I could do with Madison:)



Melissa

IT'S OFFICIAL

Madison is officially 5 today! I took a few 5 year old pictures while we were in Capr Coral:

I have no idea where she comes up with these poses but they are all her own..I didnt tell her to do
any of them.

We went to sweetie delights today & she picked out asweet treat for her special day:

She has enjoyed her birthday weekend but she was very sad to see her Nana & Papaw leave this morning:(


Both Morgan & McKinley were suppose to go back to Alabama with my parents for the next 2 weeks. However, McKinley got a little nervous about leaving us for 2 weeks so at the last minute she decided to say home which is fine by me, I was really going to miss her.And Morgan really wanted to be going by herself so it all worked out.


Happy Tuesday!
Melissa

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

We had Madison's birthday party today, It went great and I am TIRED! We kept it very simple this year with only 4 children so that she wouldn't get to overwhelmed. 

 The theme was "lady bugs" and let me tell you I could not find hardly anything with ladybugs. I went to publix, walmart & target and none had ladybug cakes or cup cakes & wouldn't make them for me.
So thank goodness for my creative Daughter, Morgan! She made ladybug cupcakes for me.

We had a bouncy house & swimming.

 Ethan wasn't in the above picture but heres the  little cutie eating his cupcake:

This next picture Morgan took and it is so funny because all the girls are jumping in the pool but it totally looks like McKinley is walking on water:)

Madison LOVED opening her presents and she has played with each & everyone all afternoon long.

 

Happy Birthday Madison! WE love you.

Madison

On July 23rd we will be celebrating Madison's 5th birthday. July 23rd is the birthday the orphanage director gave Madison the day they found her.  The orphanage did measurements and decided she looked to be about 3 months old and so they went back three months to that day and that is how July 23rd became her birthday.

Madison has been asking for over a month when her bday was. She has watched us celebrate McKinley's birthday in February and Morgan's in April and she is ready for her turn:) I cant blame her, she is turning 5 years old and this will be the first time she has ever had a celebration or even a recognition of her special day which makes my heart hurt.

Today she got her first birthday card in the mail from my Aunt & Uncle and when I told her she had a card she ran into the kitchen and grabbed it. Madison then said "I want to open my card in my room" and she ran to her bedroom. David & I looked at each other and then both headed back to her room. I grabbed my camera because I want to document EVERY first she has and I am SO glad that I did. She was absolutely precious opening this card. I have to share the three photo's I took:

I started crying when she did this:

 
Then she wanted to show her card to all her stuffed animal friends on her bed:)

Madison has carried this card around with her all day. She will lay it down for a while and play and then throughout the day she will come to me & ask "wheres my card?"

I cannot wait to see her at her very own party Saturday!

Melissa

And it's back to reality

The suitcases are unpacked and all the laundry is done. I hate that part of vacation...you know the part when you come back home and have to unpack and do all the laundry:)

McKinley bought new fingernail polish today and couldn't wait to use it. Now she doesn't have the best track record with nail polish so I told Morgan to paint her nails.  While Morgan painted McKinley's fingernails she didn't paint her toes because she had to get ready for church.  Well, McKinley got inpatient & decided to paint her toes by herself and next thing I know there is ELECTRIC BLUE nail polish on my carpet..GRRR

Bless her heart she scrubbed that carpet for literally an hour. We had the talk about how you never ever paint your nails without a towel, etc,. So all was OK in my OCD world until 3 hours later when I took Morgan church and as soon as I came home there was McKinley sitting at the kitchen table (with a towel I might add) attempting to paint her nails again (purple this time) when all of the sudden I hear a big commotion and since A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS here was the result...

Ahhh back to the real world for me (and David since he had to go buy Acetone to clean the tile)...our peaceful vacation is definitely over!

Day 7, 8, & 9- Cape Coral

Day 7:

It rained and was yucky all day so we went to some outlets and walked around for a few hours.
Then drove around for a while & explored the area. Day 7 was a "stay in your PJ's kind of day.

And because we were bored I did a little funny faces of McKinley photo shot.

Day 8:

The sun was back out so we did our usual playing in the pool and David fished a little more ( the fish just have not been biting, so he has been a little disappointed:( But he did catch several blue crabs.

And David took the two Little's on the kayak:

Day 9:

Our last day:( It was a beautiful day until we decided to drive 45 minutes to the beach & then it came a downpour. We have had a great time away but we are all ready to get back to routine (Madison the most) So we decided to check out a day early and head back to good ole' Valrico.

My parents are coming to town on Friday to celebrate Madison's first birthday home! So I must get home & get my house spic & span and in order for the grandparents to come:)

waterpark fun!

Madison LOVED the water park. I mean she has been asking ALL day to go back.
Here are a few pics:

And we have our first injury...

OK I have to share this funny story real quick, and before you think i am mean & cruel for sharing this with pictures please note that this is Freddie's account of what happened. Last night David & Freddie were outside fishing it was 9:45 and very dark outside, When David came in I could tell something had happened & he was trying to hold in his laughter. Here is what happened as told by Freddie: "It was about 9:45 pm at night, David and I were fishing off the dock.  I was walking back from the end of the dock and suddenly I fell - hit the side of the dock on my way down - and I was in the dark waters of the Caloosahatchee River.  I lift my head up out of the water, somewhat in a daze, somehow I manage to find my glasses that were floating in the water and I find one of my flip flops.  When I lift my head out of the water I see David sprinting from his dock side chair in my direction (I had never seen him run so fast before).   I yell out "I'm OK - I'm OK".   David assists me up the dock ladder.  Somehow the fishing rod I was holding was laying on the dock safely.  (Or so I thought - as I later realized that the fishing rod was snapped in half).   I was very fortunate - though I did sustain some minor abrasions - all in all I'm OK.   Minutes later David breaks out in laughter - wishing that Melissa and Julie had witnessed my fall".  

Oh How I wish I would have witnessed this myself but we were inside doing facials with the girls:)

See you thought I was lying about the facials didn't you?

We are off to the little small town waterpark today.

Happy Saturday!

Melissa 

DAy 6

Today we had some friends come to visit with us. They have 2 girls that are close in age as Morgan & McKinley and they all get along really well. We had such a fun day! I will let the pictures speak for themselves..

They were not about to leave their "big Gulp" slushy's behind:)

The above picture was taken with David's cell so its a little dark but I wanted a picture:)

Morgan & Julianna wanted to ride the bikes down to the gas station 2 miles away to get a slushy and being the overprotective cool parent that I am, I let them go.....BUT I made David follow behind them in the car:) They ended up riding a total of 8 miles on the bikes today!


Oh and this morning Morgan caught a baby lizard and Madison loved letting it walk on her arm:)
 ( random I know, but wanted to add those pictures too)

 And we ended the day with frozen yogurts:)

Melissa