Last "few" pictures

(and I use the term "few" VERY lightly) :)

I love these happy little things. They don't go anywhere w/o the other.

There were 4 outdoor pools and 2 indoor ones, so we got PLENTY of swimming done....and sometimes, you just don't feel like salt water and sand, right?

Not surprisingly, one of the boys' favorite places to go was to walk down to this pond thing and feed the turtles bread.

The plan was to throw the bread out, then closer, and closer and closer until they lure the turtles RIGHT in front of Camden so he could SNATCH them. Camden IS the fastest and can sit the most still so he had the best chance.

Meet Conner and Bitester (just ask Iris how that turtle got his name). They hung out in the boys' room and on the back porch the whole trip.

(Turtle update: they TRIED to sneak the turtles into the van for the ride home when we told them to walk them back and stick them in the lake.....but we foiled their plan. When I put the turtle close to the pond he couldn't have run faster to get back in there!)

And THIS is where I see my blood shining through....... check out 5 of my kids just sitting in that hot tub, when there's a PERFECTLY good swimming pool to dive into. Yep, I'm a hot tub WOMAN!!

Brooks finally convinced them to come over to the other pool though w/ a few of these.....

And daring Emerson to touch those flags.

FINALLY, Royce contained in the water makes both mom and Royce happy!

The last day it was cooler.....and when there's a wind there, you do NOT want to get in the water. The night before we left we got on our new Outer Banks attire and walked along the beach. ..... (Emerson is showing you "Flat Stanley")

That picture of Bronson turned out so perfect.

But what would make the trip even MORE perfect? Well, meeting a CELEBRITY on the drive home, of course!!!!

We stopped in a TEENY town along the highway at a McD's. We sat down and started eating and a guy named Mort said (the usual), "Are those kids all your's?" to Brooks. Then he followed it with "are ya havin' any more?" Wow. Talk about an ice breaker. Brooks talked w/ this Mr. Hurst for a while. He now works for a Portable Toilet company (information I USUALLY don't like hearing while eating). Turns out, this guy has the record for eating 16 double-decker Moon pies in 10 minutes back in 1989......and before you get TOO impressed, he ALSO holds the record for eating 38 soft-boiled eggs in 29 seconds (which resulted in a stroke....but he recovered and competed again........what a man!)

I know, I know, you're jealous, but I can't help but think, what if we DIDN'T pick that McDonald's to eat at?!?!? We would've NEVER met MORT!!!! The thought just makes me sick thinking we would've missed out!

Jordan Dunes

About 20 miles down the road was a park full of sand dunes, Jordan State Park. It's pretty close to where the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane. Anyway, we loaded the kiddos up and made our way down there.

(I just love that bunch....they are so cute)

It was kind of a little walk to get to the big ones though. Iris gets spoiled by her older brothers though (ALL.THE.TIME!) and so she got some extra help.

We went up some steeper hills that almost KILLED the kids......or you would have thought by the way they were panting....Aleeya and Iris pulling up the rear, with purse in tote.

Once we got to the top though, the jumping commenced.

And the throw-your-posterity-off-the-ridge game did as well.

Aleeya just slid down the hill......w/ her purse, of course.

And I got some MAJOR air when I jumped...............not.

And as always, he showed me up. :)

The Royce Man liked it too.

With all that exercising going on, Brooks and I decided to take a break.......I like those kinds of breaks. ;)

So you're probably thinking it was all fun and dandy and the kids LOVED every minute of it.....to be honest, they got burned out FAST. We forgot water, they were hot and kept getting SUPER tired of being there. See?

I know you think this is just a picture of Royce, but please notice the President of the party pooper club in the background that was BEGGING to go home and melting into the sand.

We told him we weren't leaving until Emerson and Daddy were done building their tunnel, and well.....we got this reaction.

And since we were NOT leaving in a timely matter (according to Camden), he just upped and left. ....or shall I say, stormed off. He started the long-ish walk back to the Yeti.

Brooks thought it would be a GREAT idea for us to leave the other way to teach Camden a lesson that he needs to stay w/ us. So the kids all ran the other way down the dunes and I reluctantly walked down HOPING that Brooks' "lesson" wouldn't have me left w/ one less child.

As Brooks thought would happen, Camden looked back and didn't see us, it freaked him out so he came back, etc. Brooks caught up to him (while I hiked out holding 2 kids through the sand......all in the name of a lesson that needed to be taught.......seriously, the things I do!) and had a nice long one on one talk w/ him.

The plus side about this little outing? Well, I got some cool pictures, my kids got to meet sand dunes, and the BEST part was we found a 7-11 on the way back to the beach house (we don't have any where we live!)

The beach

I mean isn't that why we went anyway?!?!? So here are a few pictures from the whole week actually at the beach a short walk from our house.

Royce is the water man....and kept trying to crawl TOWARDS the water.....really fast. I had to keep my eye on him.

Bronson

I LOVE this picture. It's probably my favorite of the beach pictures because check out Camden chasing this bird. Camden is SO fast and smooth that his feet don't even touch the ground in this picture!

Emerson tryin' out the little boards.

Bronson w/ the surf board

The kids and I were making holes/castles, of course, but this hole happened to be my FAVORITE one!!! You see, it served PERFECTLY as a playpen for Royce so he couldn't b-line it to the water.

I brought 2 books to read there and finished them after 4 days.....guess I should've brought more books. Talk about PERFECTION......reading, beach, relaxing, w/ my kiddos.

Did I mention we played in the sand?

By the end of the trip Royce started WALKING to the water. His longest stretch before falling was 17 steps. Little stinker.....but he was BOUND and determined to not get all sandy and dirty again and the only way, was well.....walking.

(love that picture!)

I'm sneaky sometimes

After I announced we'd be going to Outer Banks for a WHOLE WEEK to the blogosphere, I started thinking that wasn't too good of an idea having people know no one will be at our house. SO I was SO sneaky and figured out how to schedule those last 2 posts to post while I was gone. I don't know why that sneakiness gave me a little rush, but it did.

AND, as I mentioned we were gone for a whole week TO THE BEACH!!!! AH!!!

It was a longer drive there then to other beaches, but it was fun. We stopped at this rest area to well.....rest and release all bodily fluids of all little Smith bladders in the back seats because I did NOT bring extra water bottles and let's face it, now I have girls. When I got back from the bathroom, I came outside to find my kids like this.

Daddy apparently is ALWAYS more fun, whereas I probably would've noticed the other family sitting close casting their horrible-parenting glances our way (even though their kid asked to get up w/ my kids as well).

After a short pit stop WE WERE OFF (again) to THIS..........(beware, this picture that I got from their website is REALLY big)

It had 4 stories and plenty of rooms. We didn't even USE two of the beds! We ran down to the beach before it got dark and then the kids came home and wanted to do this.....which I can't blame them, because I did it quite a few times as well!

The next day was Sunday so we decided to venture out on that hot day to walk to the lighthouse a block down (built in 1850s).....w/o shoes of course.

And there was even this cool sign that said "water access" down this path and it would lead us to the OTHER ocean water (not the beach w/ waves but the other side of the island to calmer salt water). We thought it would be a cool little walk.

we couldn't see over all the tall grass so the anticipation was killing us of something awesome.....

And.,......we found nasty looking swamp water, that Bronson put his foot in and got pinched by a crab....or something... to the point of bleeding and Aleeya was scared by oversized grasshoppers and I was worried the whole time of the pier giving out from being worn down from Hurricane Irene and dropping us in the snake/animal filled swamp.

And for the record, I wouldn't be surprised if there were creepy alligators in there too....like the size of a semi-truck or something. So all that hot walking for.....well......a crab pinch.

We all looked pretty pathetic/hot/worn out after too.

(Emerson trying to get SOME shade!)

So we bagged it and went home to play all the games and puzzles that the house had for us.....for hours.

Oh, and Bronson caught a baby snake, so it wasn't all bad, right?

And I also had a wonderful I-told-you-so moment as a mother that day. You see that cactus patch behind Bronson and Royce? ( I know it's hard because those 2 are so cute, but just TRY!)

Well, Camden thought it was fun to pick off those pink things w/o getting poked by the cactus. I DID tell him that he would get hurt, that's not a good idea, yadda yadda, but he didn't listen. Most of the time he was successful in not getting hurt.....and I say MOST, because the last time he got some prickly stuff in his fingers.

Later that night he came complaining how he couldn't eat because his mouth hurt and he was about to lose it. I looked in his mouth, and I didn't see anything. So I asked him why it hurt and it turns out he couldn't get the spikes out of his fingers so he used his teeth to get them out and then they got stuck under his tongue and he couldn't get them out.

One of the best Momma-knows-best moments of my career. But thank GOODNESS he did it at the first of the week, because it made for a GREAT Family Home Evening lesson the next night.

Please enjoy

Check out these ADORABLE pictures of my sweet girls at dance class. Aren't they SOOOOO CUTE?!?!?

THIS IS MY FAVORITE PICTURE!!!!!

Little Michaels

For SOME reason, Michael Jackson is the "cool" singer to know at Bronson's elementary school so he's been asking to watch "I'm Bad", "Black and White", etc. movies on youtube. I have resisted and resisted, but then I thought, heck, why not give them a little MJ! right?

So I caught them on video trying to dance like MJ w/o them knowing. I love it that they had NO idea I was taping!!!! HA HA HA!

Eeeeeee!

This month sometime we're heading to the "Outer Banks", NC. That might not mean anything to many of you, so here's a map to give you an idea.....

You see that long line of islands (Nags Head, Hatteras Island, etc.)? Well, we're going to a beach house along there for a whole week and the kids couldn't me MORE thrilled!!!! AH! AHHHH! Ok, okay, I'm a little excited too!!!!! YIPEE!!!!

Meet "Ducky"

What? Did you expect Camden to have caught another duck? No. Meet the REAL "Ducky".....

He got his sweet nickname from these....

If you'll notice his 2nd and 3rd toes are connected on both feet. I absolutely love them and they are SOOO cute and endearing on him.

Well, back to his nickname. A month ago the boys and I were watching "Wipe Out" (big shocker huh?) and Camden noticed Royce's toes for the first time. The boys were mesmerized with them. Camden said, "Wow, Royce is sure going to be a good swimmer when HE grows up." Then Emerson said that they were like a duck's feet....and wa-lah, his new nickname.

But it's the underside of his toes that you can see it the best, so I HAD to include a picture of it. I'm pretty sure there are not a set of webbed toes like these in the WORLD that have been kissed more then Ducky's.

These two.........Sheesh. Does anyone see a problem with the dairy-allergic child throwing handfulls of cheese into her mouth?!?!?!? or introducing my 8-month old to shredded cheese?!!?

You can tell by the look on Iris' face that she's not sorry at ALL for what she did and will stand her ground......she usually does.