Two and a half weeks ago, I did what every good worn out mother does, left my husband and children to fend for themselves and hit the beaches of Florida.

It was a fabulous *mostly* girls trip with Daniels parents and all of his sisters.

We flew into Tampa and stayed the first couple of nights in Clearwater beach, on the beach.  The harbor view from our room (open ocean on other side):

 The crew on the pier.

 We were watching a the ocean wildlife.

A pirate ship- some sort of entertainment for the kids.

The dark blob in the water is one of a group of sting ray we saw on the pier about 100 yards or so from where we were swimming. Yikes!  We know it was a sting ray because the college kids swimming right on top of them went under with goggles and came back up screaming.

The first full day of being there we rented chairs and set up a spot on the beach and we would go from the water to the warmth for a snack  and back to the water.  I was sitting on the beach with Alynn and heard, "Oh my gosh!  I just saw something.... like... a fish!".  I was thinking ok, we've been seeing little fish all day when I looked up and saw where she was pointing and saw the fin out of water just behind where the rest of our group was swimming.  We both kinda freaked out not knowing whether it was a shark or dolphin or what?!?!
My body wanted to start screaming, "shark! shark!" but I kept control and we realized with was a dolphin by the way he was swimming and what others were saying :)
Every time I tried to take a picture of it, he would go under and not come back up.  The closest I got was a splash.

We got a little adventurous and went para sailing.  Because we had such a large group they gave us a discount of the longest length of rope so we went all out.

Teresa and I up in the air.

A Clearwater beach sunset.

Here I am the morning we left Clearwater.  It was a pretty cold day and we didn't do a whole lot of swimming.

 Hanging out at Miller Sports park watching the motorcycles and karts racing proved to be an entertaining way to enjoy a Saturday.

We had a visitor...

 Uncle Brennan came and stayed with us for a couple days and Chase loved every minute of it.  Besides following Brennan EVERYWHERE, he talked Brennan into fixing his toy drill with his "sire iron" (Soldering iron).

He also took over Brennan's Computer to watch "Tom and Jerry" and I could hear him randomly telling Brennan every couple of minutes "Brennan I can do it all by myself right?  I can find Tom and Jerry by myself!"

Chase was sad to see him go, but I was even more sad because I rarely get some free time in the middle of the day.

Brody turns 1 (with a whole lotta' pictures)

 I'm definitely not a cake decorator, but I spent a lot of time on Chase's first cake so I wanted to do the same for Brody.  I found the idea for a candyland cake in Parents magazine and decided to make my own.

 Complete with Lollipop land

Ice cream cones

Gingerbread men and the candy path the follow.


I really didn't think it would take all that much to make this cake, but it ended up taking me all day.  And when all was finished I set the cake out of the way to wait for Daniel to get home.  Turns out the ice cream cones were too heavy for the cake to hold up that long and a couple hours of sitting on the table I noticed this:


 A hole in the cake that took me ALL DAY to make :(  I decided to just shove the ice cream cone back in the cake more towards the middle and a couple hours later....

a BIGGER hole in my cake :(


Oh well, I just turned that around to the back.  See can't even tell there is a complete disaster in the back.

The birthday boy checking out the cake

 The many expressive faces that came from the next twenty minutes.

 This was the only handful that made it in his mouth and it came right back out.  He thought it was lots of fun to pound and smoosh with his hands, but not good for eating!


A birthday kiss from Chase

My boys

A quick family shot with the remote (seriously the greatest invention for the camera!)

And here's my big boy.

I took him to the doctor today and he weights 23.5 lbs.  He is catching up to Chase pretty fast.  Despite the chunky legs and cheeks this kid is only 50% for weight and a bit higher for height.

Ugh!  Again with the snow.  So we took Chase to see Tangled, which happened to be our first 3D movie in theaters.  Unfortunately it was too lovey-dovey for him and he just wanted to leave the whole time :)

I was in a pretty bad mood from being tired and waking up to snow, so I found a way to turn things around and enjoy the snow.

Watching Chase trying to make his "funny face" today but bursting out with laughter before he would mold his lips into the right shape provided a lot of laughter in my day.