Moody Beach, ME

THANK YOU! Sarah and Eric for inviting us to your vacation cottage for the day, it was wonderful! The kids had a blast, it was nice to see everyone and I have not laughed like that in a long time. It was a great day!!
Aubrey and Ben

Edie really wanted to Boogie Board but the tide was coming in and the waves were really powerful and full of seaweed so instead we built sandcastles, and played in the sand.

Sam

Ben

Liam

Hey Boo Boo!!

"Hey Boo Boo. What Do You Think Is in That Pic-a-nic Basket?"

We spent Friday and Saturday camping. We've been camping with the kids before, we go every year, last year we went several successful times either alone as a family or with groups of other families. But Camping this year came with it's series of challenges. Even with the challenges and bumps and bruises the kids did have a good time. It was a good adventure to share with friends and family. Although I felt thoroughly stressed out and unprepared the kids keep talking about how much fun they had.

Sunday morning I was up at dawn and hissed away the squawking crows that seemed to congregate in the tree tops above our site. There were masses of them cackling and cawing back and forth. It made for a very early morning on Saturday and the campers were not to happy about their wake up 'caws'. Sunday, I kept them away for a while so the rest of camp could sleep.

It was fun for the kids (big kids too). The campground (which was absolutely packed!) had a kids water park. It was a shallow pool with dumping buckets, a waterfall mushroom and sprayers.

The kids were thrilled they didn't have to wear their 'swim vests' or their arm floaties.

Edie is cooling off under the mushroom, Todd and I got in on that too, the kids had fun with us being silly and splashing around too. That morning we packed up and drove to Story Land. We spent most of the day there until the park closed!! We rode most of the rides with the kids and had a great family day. Aubrey's favorite was the roller coaster with Daddy (look in the last car :). I took Reagan and she came off with a bloody nose! which made it NOT her favorite.
We did lot's of waiting in line, and the girls were VERY patient.

We did however find a ride WE could ALL go on as a family. The kids needs to be 48' to ride alone on most of the rides. My girls are 46', 46,' and 44'. Which meant we had to take turns going on with one girl, then one of us would have to ride a whirling, twirling, twisting, spinney, stomach churning second time. It was a BLAST!! With this picture I'd like you to think ahead 11 years from now.

Picture it....

picture it..

I know! I scared me too!

Mini me strikes again.

A Day At The Beach

This is our 4th trip to the beach! Here are today's highlights.

Edie, I still see some 'baby' on her face. I can't believe how big they are!!

Check out the look on Edie's face in this one.

Waiting for the waves.

Grammie on the look out for a good wave.

~It's What We Do~

I feel like all my posts look the same, but they really are different days. We drive the 10 minutes it takes from our house and go to the lake for emergency swims. Some days we are there for the day, some days we go in the mid afternoon when it's unbearably hot and everyone is grumpy, and needs to let off a little steam (like today) It's what we do.

This 'hand me down' bikini has caused more fights in my house than you can believe. It's currently on a 'wear and wash' rotation, and believe me, THEY know when it's their turn, and if it's not clean be prepared for the melt down that follows. Dang sparkly bikini 'hand me down'!
Aubrey's summer freckles have surfaced.

Reagan has been experiencing some freedom by swimming without her arm floaties or 'swim vest'.

-4lbs

I've been away for a while, but I've been busy!
As most of you know I still have not lost my 'baby weight'. Edie is four now and I'm a 30 something! It's time to do something about all this 'extra me'. I went from gaining 70lbs with the twins right into another pregnancy. The last four years of diet and exercise are pretty much a blur. I've tried this and that only to be discouraged and give up. Granted I'm pretty used to the plus sized me but it is a lot to carry around while trying, and not always being able to keep up with three little ones. I've put my foot down, step by step, one by one and I've started to do something about 'me'.

Three weeks ago I started something new. It's called The Couch-to-5K ® Running Plan. Now listen it's only been three weeks but I've lost 4 pounds and I'm feeling stronger, and my clothes already fit better! I am thrilled about this 9 week program and I'm working towards running my first 5k this fall. My sister did her first last year and she is an inspiration to me. My sister runs, my sister in laws run, my friends run. And only after two weeks I'm hooked!

Today is week three, day one (w3d1) of the program and today I understand it's about endurance, and I was shocked to see my own endurance with controlled breathing today! I'll be sure to keep you posted on my successes, thank you all for your support so far!

FREE

Todd found this slide on the side of the road on the way to camp with a 'free' sign on it. It was non stop sliding on Saturday, with our cousins Ethan, Sophie, and Olivia. I even went down, sorry no one captured that moment on film!

By Sunday ALL three kids were swimming with just arm swimmies! We've come a long way in a few short weeks with our level of courage!

Aubrey

The look of concernThe green pepper look. But, we soon discovered after taking this picture she gets REALLY bad reflux from green peppers!

MOM

~IT'S ALIVE~

After resting comfortably in a bag of rice for 4 days, 1 can of compressed air, new batteries and some gentle encouragement, my camera still didn't work. The LCD screen didn't work, and it appeared the lens was stuck open in a super macro zoom setting. I let out of sigh of defeat and talked options with Todd.
'You should look into that one at BB I told you about, let me see that one.' he said
'Yeah, I'll take a look on my way to work, I need to make a decision whether to go bigger and better or smaller and sacrifice some of the features I like'. I said.
As Todd was checking out the camera,...Beep, beep, beep, the power to my camera came on, the flash went off.
'This works fine.' Todd said as he fired off a few pictures.
'REALLY, NO WAY, WHAT DID YOU DO?!!!' I snatched it back and began my evaluation. There were still some grinding sounds inside with the zoom, but sure as heck the dang thing worked!
The girls and I went out to the lake for a quick swim. Super Macro is NOT an option the lens gets stuck in that setting and I have to power it off and start over, there seems to be some delay when I manually adjust but it works and it took some good pictures!
I called Todd to inform him of the patients condition and mentioned checking out that one he had seen at BB. His reply, 'Why that one works.'
So my trusty little camera and I are back together again, and Chicago's 'Your the Inspiration' swirls through my head every time I think of our ordeal. That was the song on the radio as I rushed back to the house to gather the rice and large zip bag I needed to hopefully save my dear camera!

We've been swimming for the last 8 days, here, there, everywhere. My children are growing gills at this point.

And on the 8th day everyone was brave enough to jump right off the end...well with some hesitation.

Reagan has graduated to just arm swimmies. She has been shouting 'CANNON BALL!!!' and launching herself off the end of the dock since our first day out. She can somersault, back flip and just be a fish with her new freedom in the arm swimmies.Their favorite part of swimming at the lake house is, when your hungry, you swim up to a blueberry bush and have a snack, then jump right back in!

July 4th

Sad day today.
My camera went for a swim in the lake.
It is resting comfortably in a bag of rice we'll see what happens in a few days.

July 3rd

'Almost blue' blueberry picking.