More Vacation Pictures!!

What an amazing vacation!! We have had so many relaxing days of lounging on the beach, shopping, and just spending time together. Best of all, our vacation buddies, Uncle Dan and Aunt Jenn got engaged and we were there to share the excitement!! Thanks for taking such beautiful pictures of our family, Aunt Jenn-uh!! We are so happy for you.

A Perfect Day

Our little family is currently enjoying an immensely relaxing beach vacation on St. George Island, Florida. I must say, I could go home tomorrow happy even though we have only been here one full day. The weather has been perfect, the ocean water is like bath water, and I'm finally getting to spend some precious time with my two favorite people, Aly and her daddy. What could be better? You simply can't look at the ocean without finding yourself to be incredibly blessed and unspeakably thankful.





























































































After last year, we were a little afraid that Aly wouldn't go near the water or even put her feet in the sand. It took us a little while to warm her up to the idea, but once she got used to it, we couldn't keep her under the umbrella for anything. We just kept reapplying the SPF 50 every ten minutes and let her have her fun.































































After dinner, we went back to the beach just to walk around a little and ended up collecting shells for about two hours! I don't know if I have ever seen my child more content than she was as she dug through the sand looking for shells and saying, "Oh, wow!" and "Pretty!" She ended up filling an entire bucket. I haven't quite figured out how to get them all home yet, but I am going to do it if I have to leave half of my wardrobe behind. Much too sweet of a memory to let go!


I know it's been a while since I have posted, but check back soon for more vacation pics! I promise to keep them coming. Wish you all were here!

Brace yourself for this cuteness!!!

Makeup

My Little Girly-Girl

This is my favorite thing that is happened in a long time. I have never taught Aly the importance of make-up or the role it will play in her future life as a woman, nor have I ever taught her how to apply it. I was hoping to take the "you are beautiful just the way God made you" approach. However, my little girly-girl has watched me do this tedious chore to my own face several times. (As all mothers know, you can't leave a toddler alone to go do your make-up.) On this particular occasion, Aly climbed up in my lap, asked for the make-up and instinctively started applying it to her own precious little face. Now it might look like she is wearing lipstick in these pictures, but her lips have actually looked like that since birth, literally. She only thought she was making herself more beautiful when actually, in our opinion, it would be impossible for her to be any more beautiful than she already is.

Happy Easter, Aly!

This was Aly's second Easter. She is acting so grown-up and is so interested in anything new, so we assumed that she would be fascinated by the whole Easter egg experience. Well, we had our moments of fascination and our moments of being very tired and confused. She could not figure out why we kept insisting that she pick up all of the "balls" in the yard.

Dying eggs didn't go the way we had hoped, but Daddy was a trooper anyway.


























We went to our first official Easter egg hunt at Caroline's new house. Being the city girl that Aly is, she wasn't used to walking on the rough terrain that is their front yard, so she had a little trouble and became very frustrated. She finally decided she had enough and wanted to go inside and read books. However, we did have so much fun getting the girls together and creating new traditions.






























We tried the Easter egg hunt again at our house. We can't wait for next year's first Easter Bunny experience. She's growing up so fast!

Spring Break!

For Spring Break we took a mini-vacation to Kansas City. It ended up being a very kid-friendly trip and we had so much fun! Aly is just old enough to get to really enjoy all of the things we got to do. We went shopping, ate some wonderful food, and went to the zoo! She enjoyed every minute of it and we had a great time watching her reactions.

We stayed on the 7th floor of a beautiful hotel. Aly loved the view.


































We got lots of rain, but we didn't let it spoil our fun! Aly got some new rain boots and her new stroller has a rain guard. Yes, she's our little bubble girl...





































We went to the T-Rex Cafe, Rainforest Cafe, and Crayola Cafe! Aly loved them all, but the T-Rex aquarium was her favorite.













































Every 30 minutes, they would have a meteor shower. She wasn't so sure about this part...

















Being the animal lover that she is, she was fascinated by the zoo. Thankfully, we had beautiful weather.





































She didn't want to leave, but is very glad to be home. We can't wait to go back!