Beach Trip with MimMim!

MimMim had the great idea to take a little beach trip with the boys.  They've been to the beach once before, but Lincoln was still a little too young to really enjoy it, and Liam was DEFINITELY too little to enjoy it.  We rented a condo on the beach in Panama City (much nicer than the place I remember staying on college spring break, HA!) right down from the new Pier Park.  It was so very nice!  And since school was still in, no spring breakers!  Win-win!

 The boys REALLY enjoyed it!  Actually, as long as you weren't trying to get them IN the ocean, they were loving it!

 Castles were built, pits were dug, gulls were chased, shells were caught -- we even caught a pretty good sized crab!

 Some minnows washed up one day, and Lincoln was like a hawk catching them!!  He decided to throw them back into a little overflow pit and -BAM- the seagulls got them before we could even blink!

 The room we stayed in was super nice and we made breakfast in the room most mornings, then ate on the patio. 

 As you can only imagine, these guys were POOPED by the evenings (and yes, even after naps!).  Needless to say, evenings out were a little hit or miss.  There was a "Biker" event going on that week, and we all know how Lincoln is about loud noises.  He pretty much walked around with his hands over his ears the whole time (see below).  And yes, Liam is completely freaking out over this statue.  Good times.. :)

 Ha!  I love Lincoln's face in this one. 

 It was super toasty, and we made the decision to eat outside at Margaritaville.  Between the bikers passing, the Jimmy Buffet cover band, and the guys walking around on stilts -- these two had had quite enough...

 So we came back and ran the beach instead....

 My momma, my BFF.. :)

 Best hole in the wall restaurant ever (of course I can't think of the name of it now)!  We ordered crab claws and the kids demo'd them!

 Luckily, we had pretty great weather while we were there.  Overcast for a day or so, but mostly good.

 Yep, those are definitely my two...

 And they DO love each other sometimes.

 We (read: me and the kids -- mom was missing dad) were not ready to go!  I tried to con her into one more day, but no such luck...

 So, on the way out, we decided to stop and walk the pier.  Lots of fishermen were out, so it was a good day to.

 The guys got to see a few rays swimming by, so they were pretty excited.

 And some of the fishermen were catching some bait minnows, of course both guys wanted one! 

Check out that huge mackerel!

 And a few last minute shots on the way out...

We had such a blast!!  Thanks so much MimMim!

Easter 2013

 Easter this year was so much fun!  All of the kids at mom and dad's were big enough to hunt eggs AND it didn't rain!  Yay! 

 This is such a super terrible picture -- but it's about par for the course these days.  Mom's hair a frightful mess, dad's eyes half closed, Lincoln being the hulk, and Liam just plain showing off.  It's just how it is folks.  Nothing but real life here...  :/     Regardless, it's the only pic we took as a family that day, so there ya go.

 MimMim and Pap with the guys.  I'm not sure what's up with Liam here?

 Before the big egg hunt, the guys got to decorate a few eggs.  Pretty fun stuff!

 Cousin love.  These guys LOVE Annalee.  They both want her attention at all times!

 And even though dad has... antlers?? here, everyone is actually looking and smiling.  Its my favorite family pic!

 And at this point, the children are like, "why aren't we hunting eggs yet?"

 And here we go!!  All three of them actually understood what they were doing this time.  Annalee is still young enough to want to inspect all the insides of the eggs before moving on, but it didn't matter -- my Mom (God love her) loaded up 100+ eggs....  Yeah, she never overdoes anything really....

 Liam needed a little help balancing the basket while raking in the stash.

 And Lincoln took every pink egg he found and put it in Annalee's basket.  You know, since they are "girl" eggs and all.

 So excited!

 A little love in the middle of the hunt.

 Another perfect photo!  Liam in mid-candy chew and Annalee so excited she can't contain herself!

 Meanwhile, at home, we spent our days practicing the art of egg hunting, and creating our own decorated eggs!  The guys LOVED making their own eggs - and it actually wasn't as disastrous as I imagined it being.

 They both dyed and decorated monster eggs.

 Liam got pretty bored after the eyeballs were stuck on, but Lincoln stuck with it and ended up with some pretty awesome monsters!

 On Easter morning, the boys followed a trail of eggs that the Easter bunny had left down into the basement, where they found their baskets and gifts.  A new sandbox for the backyard was the hit!

 On our way to Ninny and Papoo Jonas' for Easter dinner!

 It had rained some that day, so we had an indoor hunt instead.  Baby Braxton is still a little too small to hunt eggs, but he had a good time watching!

 Digging through the loot.  Mentos!!!

 Ninny and Papoo Jonas with the egg-heads.

 A little more cousin love!

 And I'm not so sure why these last two pictures are out of order, but if anyone uses blogger, you know what a debacle it is to try to move them around.  So here they stay.  Hope everyone had a happy Easter!

SOOOO ready for spring...

 Let me tell you something...  Having these two trapped inside is exciting!  It's pretty fun for a while, but COME ON!  Could someone send mother nature the memo that it's March already??  We need some warm!  We are getting stircrazy up in this business!

 We had this tiny little snippet of moderately warm (read: 40 degrees) that almost made us think spring was coming.  But no...  Just more snow!

 We've played tractors, we've done art projects, we've cooked, we've danced, we've even taken trips to CMOE, Amazonia, the Owensboro museum (see below), the train museum, etc...  Now we need sun.  And temps above 50.  Please?