Girls' road trip 2011!

It was that time again, time for me and the girls to head out on a little road trip! This time we headed straight down south to Indian Rocks Beach, FL to visit our sweet friends, the Johnson family. The ride down there was great...lots of movies watched, snacks eaten and Marissa only asked me about a million times...."Are we almost there, mommy?"

Well, we made it and immediately hit the beach.

The next morning, Marissa found some seashells and McKane found some sand dollars. They were showing off their finds during lunchtime.

Riese and Allie were there to see all their cool beach treasures!

McKane telling her about the seashells...

which was apparently very funny....I love this picture:)

Allie took a little break after lunch to watch a movie.

After naps, it was back out on the beach for some more fun!

"Mommy, my hands are dooooty!"

Riese was so sweet to play with Marissa and help her dig in the sand. They had so much fun together!

Sweet friends!

Building sandcastles and spraying them with colored water...they loved the squirt bottles and changing the sand different colors!

Another day on the beach....taking a water break! Thank goodness for the wonderful sea breeze because it was HOT.

Allie l.o.v.e.d McKane. She didn't stray far from his side the entire time and he was so sweet to her:)

He showed off his skimboarding skills for us one day...which were very impressive!

Check out those moves!

Marissa took the boat out for a little ride! She was not scared at all of the ocean!

Me with my sweet girls!

Mr. Cooper...who has grown up so fast!!

So, Allie got a little embarassed when I told her to take a picture with McKane, so instead, she put a plastic fish in her mouth and made a silly face. McKane thought it was funny:) Silly, silly girl.

The girls. :)

My girls.

Surfer chick. She did this for about an hour one day. She had the surfer pose perfected!

Riding the waves ;)

jumping on her board.....

which didn't always turn out the way she hoped.....

But she always came up smiling:)

This was probably her favorite thing to do...

Posing with her "surfboard"

Digging in the sand was just fine with Allie...she had a blast!

After our baths one night, we went out on the porch to eat a popsicle and watch the sunset...which was the perfect end to a perfect day:)

Sisters watching the sunset together.

Not sure what's going on here...but they look so sweet together:)

The sunsets are gorgeous:)

After a few days with the Johnson family, we headed across Florida to Jacksonville to visit The Martin family, some of my most favorite people in the world! They have two sweet blonde-headed babies, JP who is 5 1/2 and Reagan who is 1 1/2. The kids played so well together and we had a great time! We went to Ponte Vedra beach one day...here are the 3 older kiddos.

Marissa loved to jump the waves!

Headed out to the beach:)

Little sisters were more interested in playing in the sand!

Still running...she looks so old to me in this picture! My baby is getting so big.....

Action shot!

Allie being silly, what a surprise:)

JP and Marissa chasing each other...they were the best of buds by the end of this trip :)

There was also a pool nearby that had a very cool water slide that the bigger kids got to try out...Marissa would have done this all day long if she could....and she did so great!! She slid into the deep end and swam all the way to the shallow! I'm so proud of her swimming skills these days! If you look to the right of the picture, you can see that JP was waiting for her just to make sure she made it out ok :)

Swimming!!!

and still sliding!

Unfortunately, Allie was too little to slide...so she had to watch from the sidelines...
but she didn't seem to mind to much:)
After a long, fun day at the beach, everyone was pooped. Time to relax and watch a movie:)

Then it was time to head back home...which is always the best part of our girls trip, because no matter how much fun we have...we miss daddy!! Many thanks to the Johnson's and Martin's for a wonderful trip!! Can't wait to do it again!! :)

Pregnancy Highlights-halfway there!!

Ok...so this would be way better if I had started this from the beginning, but I just found it on another blog and thought it was a cute idea! Better late than never!!

Pregnancy Highlights: Halfway there!! (actually about 22 weeks...)

Baby is the size of: a spaghetti squash. he's about 11 inches long and somewhere between 1-2 lbs. His lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and he's even developing tiny tooth buds beneath his gums. His eyes have formed, but his irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment. (info from babycenter.com)

Symptoms: first trimester...very,very tired. not much sickness, thankfully. now...not many symptoms. just a growing belly :)

Baby-related purchases? a picture to hang in his nursery and 2 little outfits that were marked waaaay down at wal-mart.

Maternity clothes? oh yea. definitely. mainly a lot of sundresses. easy and comfortable in this hot, hot weather!

Sleep: i have taken a couple naps since i got pregnant, but unfortunately, i'm a terrible nap taker...so mainly just going to bed earlier. i am definitely falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. and i now have to sleep on my side...with lots of pillows.

Fun moment this past week: finally deciding on a name......(you have to wait to the end to find out.)

Movement: A LOT!! he's a wiggly little guy...this morning after my boot camp class...he was going wild! it was the first time i felt his arm or leg go across my belly...marissa and russell have also got to feel him kick! marissa loves to put her hand on my belly to see if she can feel him move. :)

Food cravings: eh...nothing in particular. just enjoying a less strict diet since i don't have to worry about my "bikini body" haha.

Gender: BOY!

What I miss: a yummy margarita!

Weight gained: at my last appt. which was 2 weeks ago, I had gained 15 lbs.

What I am looking forward to: getting his nursery decorated!!

Moments to remember: the past few nights, when i put marissa to bed, she points to my belly so i will show it to her. then she will give it a kiss, a hug and say, "i love you, mccoy." oh...it's so sweet. she is going to be such a wonderful big sister to him! :)

I will post a picture next month...I don't have anyone here to take one...plus I should have some good ones to post soon since the girls and I are headed down to the beach next week!! I am determined to take lots of pictures while we are there!

OK...and baby boy's name is...
MCCOY SNIDER NICHOLS. (Snider is Russell's grandpa's last name (his mom's dad)...they were very close and Russell has many wonderful memories w/Bawbaw so we thought this would be a wonderful way to honor him. :) )

"Happy birthday to youuuuuuu"

What more could a mommy ask for on her birthday than to get serenaded by her two sweet girls. (Actually, Marissa is not so much serenading me as screaming to me...but oh well, I'll take what I can get.)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

*be sure to keep reading...two posts in one day. I'm on a roll.

Big girls don't cry....

Well, that's how the saying goes...but that's not entirely true. You see...about a month ago we finally decided it was time to get rid of the Paci. It was actually waaaay over time, but I have to be honest...we were totally dreading taking away this small piece of plastic that had been in Marissa's life since Day 1. She was attached, very attached. So, needless to say...there was always some excuse we could find to just "keep it for a couple more weeks". Well, the time had come...I followed in the footsteps of some other stories I had heard and decided to be a little sneaky. We started by telling Marissa that sometimes when kids get so big, they just suck the ends right off their paci when they are sleeping, then one day during naptime, I snuck in there with a pair of scissors and snipped the end right off, put it back in her bed and got out of there :) I then sent Russell a text that said, "the Paci is gone." and he replied, "Nooooooooo!" Haha. Anyway, the deed was done and she woke up, came downstairs, not crying but kind of whimpering and said, "Mommy, my paci is broke!" I then proceeded to remind her about being so big she sucked the end right off and told her what a big girl she is now!! And that was it. I thought, man this is so easy...we should have done this months ago.

Ha! That was until bedtime. That's when the real meltdown began. There was no consoling this girl...she wanted her paci and nothing else. I kept telling her over and over that she is a big girl now and I was so proud of her....So I started racking my brain trying to think of fun things that "big girls" get to do. My first thought was piercing her ears, but no. That's her decision to make, not mine. I finally remembered how much she loves painting her fingers and toes! A pedicure!! So, I told her all about going to a special store to get your toes painted and how they can even put a fun design on them! She loved the idea and I finally calmed her down enough that she would lay down, but still wanted her daddy to fall asleep with her. :)

So, the next day, I loaded Marissa up and off we went to The Pink Nail Bar. We walked in and Marissa sees these huge, pink butterfly chairs and is sooooo excited!! She picks out her color, which started as blue, but then changed to pink :) We got her in the chair and the very sweet lady gave her a bag of animal crackers to snack on and the pampering began!


Look how cute those chairs are!!! She looks so big in these pictures :(

She had her legs wrapped with warm towels and the pink polish looked so pretty!

The finished product! Complete with butterflies!!

My big, paci-free, girl!!! (sorry for the quality of the pics, they were taken with my phone!) She was so proud of her toes and showed them off to everyone she knew!!

So there you have it...the long, drawn out saga of how we got rid of Marissa's first love....the paci. So you see...big girls do cry but they also get pedicures which, on a bad day, really can make almost anything better:) Next on the list...Allie's thumb. Pretty sure cutting the end off that isn't going to work...