Big Girls

Each week I take the girls to a playgroup with some other moms from our church. They so want to be like the big girls at playgroup. Here they are sitting at a big girl table eating lunch. I want to cry....they are growing up way too fast!!

Like Father, Like Daughter...

I asked Shane to hang a sheet over the window in the girls' room so that the sun wouldn't come beaming in SO brightly at 6.30 in the morning. The girls watched him to this task. He had to stand on their kitchen set to be able to reach the curtain rod. Later that afternoon, the girls were playing in their room and I hear Jocelyn start screaming..."mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!" in this terrified voice. I walked in and this is what I saw. She just wanted to be like her daddy...she just couldn't figure out how to get back down :)

The MAC Cruise

Every year the Master's of Counseling (MAC) class takes a fall retreat. It is usually at some random hotel in Daytona Beach. Well, this year they decided to step it up a notch and go on a CRUISE instead!! AND spouses could come as well!!! whoop, whoop! To say that I was excited is a major understatement :) It was a 3 night Royal Caribbean cruise that left from Cape Canaveral (which is only like 45 minutes from where we live). Gran (Shane' mom) and HayHay (Hayward, her new husband) graciously volunteered to watch the girls for the weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I had been on one other cruise when I was in college. This was Shane's first one. He was very nervous about getting sick (he gets HORRIBLE motion sickness). Needless to say, he stayed drugged up the whole time and wasn't sick at all despite the ocean being very rough and the boat rocking pretty much the whole cruise. I was shocked he didn't get sick. Very glad, but shocked.

I love getting to dress up for the dinners. My normal daily wardrobe consists of running shorts and tank tops, so I was super pumped about wearing "real" clothes :)

Our ship..."Monarch of the Seas"

Our first stop was in Nassau. It was overcast and kind of chilly, but we still had a blast. We took a boat over to the Atlantis Hotel to have a look around. They definitely pack the boats to the brim....

The Atlantis hotel was, well, just a little bit nice (haha). The arch you can see in the picture is a suite that you can stay in for the small price of $25,000 a night, oh, and there is a 3 night minimum requirement. We will definitely be booking our next vacation there.

We snuck into the aquarium that is inside the hotel. I mean, we didn't lie or anything, we just walked in and they didn't stop us. We were really happy about that! The fish were way cool!

There was this really huge, crystal thingy in one of the lobbies. ..

The hotel also had a private beach....very nice...you had to pay just to walk on it. We opted to just get a glance from a distance

Formal Night :)

Here are some of Shane's professors and supervisors that came on the cruise.

Some of the girls in Shane's class...

On the second day we were supposed to be spending the day at a private island called CoCo Kay (not sure of the spelling). However, due to the hurricane that was out in the ocean, the waters were too rough to dock, so we had to spend the day at sea. We were a little bummed, but still had lots of fun on the ship. At least it was a beautiful sunny day!

This is Dr. Coffield and his wife, Mona. He is one of Shane's professors and supervisors. He is also the counselor that Shane and I have been meeting with on a regular basis. We are VERY grateful forboth of them!

Zach (one of Shane's classmates) and his wife, Ellen.

Of course one of the most fabulous things about a cruise is the FOOD!! And the 24 hour access to the food! I think I ate enough in those 3 days for the whole year. It was definitely Shane's favorite thing about the whole weekend :)

That, my friends, is a enormous piece of meat...

My favorite part of dinner was the desserts! Yes, this is where I was sitting. Yes, that is 4 different desserts. They all looked so fabulous I had to try them all and they were all AMAZING!

Our Waiter...he and Shane became great friends :)

Here is Shane (blue), Demetrius (pink) and some of the girls in their class breaking it down one night at one of the MANY dancing locations on the boat. Fun times :)

My Little Ponies

First of all, I stole the title of this post from someone else that did a post about their daughter's first ponytail (I think it was Robyn, am I right?). I loved the title so I decided to use it, too :)

I've said before and I will say it again...if I had not lived with Amy the past year and a half, I don't know if I ever would have tried anything new with the girls. It is always her idea to try something new....like pigtails! Gabbie LOVES having her hair done. She is such a girl :) She has an awesome mullet going on at the moment, so two little ponies in the back work best for her...

Jocelyn's has like a whole other head of hair on the top of her head....so the single top pony works best for her. She, however, was not a huge fan of the idea (as you can obviously tell in the pic:) She left it in for about 3 minutes and decided that she was done with her little pony....

Costumes, Party, etc., etc.....

The YMCA had a costume parade. All the kids dressed up and then went around to different candy stations around the Y. My little ballerinas thought is was SOOOO cool. They loved getting candy....surprise :)

My camera was being stupid and almost all my pictures were blurry....sad times

One of our neighbors had given Amy a couple of costumes to try out on Jayden and Journey. Well, the girls found them and insisted I put the costumes on them over the dresses they were already wearing. Hilarious.

Introducing Puppy and Pumpkin...

Isn't Gabbie the cutest little pumpkin ever?!?

Gabbie got tired of wearing the green pumpkin hat so she gave it to Jocelyn who loved wearing it. Green pumpkin hat, puppy costume, striped dress and Journey's pink snow boots (that Jocelyn refused to take off most of the day even through it was like 100 degrees). It just doesn't get any more stylish than this....

On Saturday, Amy had a birthday party for Journey/Halloween party. The girls did not want to wear the ballerina outfits. The puppy and pumpkin won out...

Yes, I have on bunny accessories. No, this was not my idea. I did not originally dress up, however, Melonie (aka Lady Gaga...see below) brought these props for me and insisted I wear them. Too bad the picture doesn't show the bunny rabbit tail pinned to my shorts....nice.

Gabbie stayed in this position (glued to my lap) the ENTIRE party. Yes, it was slightly annoying, but it was the only way she wouldn't scream her head off. Fun times.

Where was Shane you might ask?? Well, one of his classmates gave him a ticket to the Florida-Georgia game. He was like a 5-year-old going to Disney World....SOOO excited. Unfortunately Georgia came up short. Sad times for him.

Not-so-happy puppy...

How cute?!?

One of our little friends, Henry, was a cute little Monkey. His birthday was the same week as Journey so the party was for him too...

Sandy, one of Shane's classmates, showed up to the party and we looked at each other and just started laughing. No, we did not plan to dress EXACTLY the same.

Journey in her Tutu...

The Summervilles...Amy was a prom queen, Jayden and Demetrius were Magic ballas

This is Melonie aka Lady Gaga. Her entire costume was homemade. Classic. Her daughter, Selah, maybe was the cutest thing I've ever seen. She also handmade her outfit as well.

The birthday kiddos

The girls got tired of their costumes. They would rather have no clothes on if it was up to them. Our neighbors had hung a pinata from their tree for the kids to smash. While we were waiting on the smashing to begin, the kiddos cruised in the neighbors cool truck. Wow, my kids look like total rednecks!

Yes, she will kill me one day...but I had to put this pic on here. Please notice the "plumber's crack" she is sporting. Nice.

I think the pinata was made of cement. It took like 3o minutes and an adult ripping it open for the surprises to come tumbling down...

The contents weren't candy.....stickers, plastic lizards, and bouncy balls were the surprise instead. The girls are currently obsesses with stickers...can you tell? They love sticking them on themselves and each other....hilarious...