Back from the beach, where I laughed, played, splashed...and got called a terrible mother...

Our trip down south was lovely. 12 days away from home was nice - well the hours in the car weren't my favorite, truth be told, but the kids actually fared pretty well, thankfully.


We went to Virginia and visited our good friends the Tolboes, then down to North Carolina to visit my father-in-law and his wife for a few days, then back up to Virginia to play at the beach for five days, and then to Richmond to visit my cousin and her family for a couple of days. Friends, family, and the beach - what is better than that?


I completely flaked and didn't take any pictures of our visits with family and friends (for which I am still kicking myself - but alas, we were too busy enjoying ourselves to stop for photos!), but I do have some of the rest of our trip:

North Carolina

That was at a marine museum - her name was on the old life preserver - cool!

Maria and Josephine hamming it up, as usual.

Maria posing in an old bread over at Fort Branco (from the civil war period).

The kids and I making Lou VERY nervous standing on top of Fort Branco. Hey, I live dangerously. :)

Edward and I getting ready to blow the place up.

Virginia Beach

"Captain Brown Beard" - aka, Edward eating way too much sand, and loving it just a little too much.

Searching for baby crabs

"This looks interesting..."

"WHOA, where did all this water come from?!"

"Much better with Daddy's steady help"

We did it! We found a baby crab! Lou wanted to use it for bait for fishing, but Josephine, our resident humanitarian, would not allow it.

At the beach Edward got to be outside basically all day - he was in heaven.

Sisters. :)

Josephine flying her kite (by the way, the beach is AWESOME for kite-flying!)

I love this close up shot of her maneuvering her kite.

This crab was no baby - it was big, and ready to pinch!

Edward taking a snooze on the beach and Lou being a goof.

Inside the Virigina Aquarium, apparently being eaten by a Great White - bummer.

Trying to pet a sting ray, which we all ended up doing - it was so cool.

Posing in front of one of the aquariums - we spent over 2 hours here. We love aquariums!

Edward trying to climb through the fence to get to the birds

And Daddy doing double duting on the piggy back rides.

Seals!

Maria and Edward chillin' on our hotel balcony - we were right on the ocean, and it was awesome!

Mama and Maria

"Watch out - I WILL throw this sandball at you" Love her expression in this one.

Lou showing off his "perfectly formed" sandcastle.

Lou sticking his tongue out at me - typical. :)

Shot to the face!

Can you see Lou in this picture? He's the one holding Maria up!

Josephine preferred to stay on shore. ;)

Richmond

Hiking up a waterfall at Maymont Park

There are a lot more pictures, but these were my favorites - I love family vacations. :)

Rainy Day Fun

A couple of weeks ago it was raining...a lot. Like, everyday. We had just gotten back from somewhere and were getting out of the car and filing into the house when Edward wiggled out of my arms, ran over to one of the many large puddles in our driveway and starting splashing around, displaying the joy that only a child can experience doing such thing. I almost yelled - "Edward - get OUT of there - your feet are going to be soaked!!!" And then I realized, who cares? So he gets wet. We weren't going anywhere right then, so let him be a kid and splash in the puddles.

And so the fun began...
(sorry it's sideways, I couldn't get it to rotate - annoying)




The kids and I had so much fun splashing around and getting absolutely soaked. I'm glad I lightened up for an afternoon and just let my kids be kids. I need to do that more... :)

The sweet tooth strikes again...

I do not like Twizzlers. Like DO NOT LIKE them. I think they are L-A-M-E. I don't care how bad I am craving sugar - Twizzlers are just never going to do it for me. I hate how they are so stiff to chew, and I think the flavor stinks. Yuck.

HOWEVER, Twizzlers are on my "A" list as of Easter, when Lou left these in my basket:

Sweet and Sour Filled Twizzlers. Oh. my. gosh. yum. And I mean SERIOUS YUM!! Oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about eating these. They are soft and chewy, and the filling is extra yummy - even softer, with an awesome sour flavor that is just enough, but not too much.

Just look at those juicy centers - don't they look mouthwatering?! Yes, as you can tell, I am a candy lover...

Seriously, you MUST try these - they are quite possbily my favorite candy right now. The texture has a terrific mouth feel, and the taste is the perfect blend of sweet and tart. You NEED these in your life.

But WARNING: these are seriously addicting, like crack addict addicting, like eat-the-whole-bag-in-one-sitting-addicting (not that I would ever do that...)

Easter Pictures

I tried to get a picture of all three kids - not happening. As I said in my last post - Edward does NOT sit or stand still for pictures. I tried about three times and just gave up - he just kept running away. So, I did this:

Here are the girls by themselves...

And here is Edward by himself . He was wandering around the parking lot, and I just kept taking pictures of him walking around until I got a decent one. He stayed still for ONE second in this picture because a squirrel had caught his eye...

Well, I didn't get one of all three kids, but as Moms we have to be flexible, right? I did get pics of all of them in their Easter outfits, even if it was separately. As my mama always told me: There's more than one way to skin a cat. ;)

Bzzzzz, clip, clip, snip, snip!

It was time to chop the locks. Edward's hair is starting to get a little bit of curl to it, and being half curly, half straight AND getting longer on top was becoming a serious hair emergency.

You can't see it very well in this first picture, but what kept happening was that the bottom part of his hair would lay flat, and the top part was thicker and would frizz out like crazy, making his head look like it was a mushroom shape sometimes - not good.

Lou has a set of clippers, so I thought I would be brave and try to do it myself. It took me three weeks from my decision to build up the nerve actually to do it.

Here is the "before" picture. The towel that I put on to keep the cut hair off of him didn't last long. He ripped it off right after I took this picture and wouldn't let me put it back on. So much for minimizing the mess...

The lollipop was my trick to getting him to stay in his seat and stay happy. It worked...sort of. Everytime I brought the clippers close to him, he would whip his head around to see what I was doing. It was probably really funny to watch, me trying to cut the hair on a constantly moving target. But the lollipop did help enough that was he focused enough on eating it that he didn't try to get down from the chair.

Okay, the big part was done, now it was time to trim the areas over his ears and the parts on top that were uneven. I have to tell you, at this point I looked at him and thought I had butchered his hair. I thought it looked terrible - what had I done to my baby's hair?!!

And here he is after he is all done. Look at his onesie - COVERED in lollipop slobber!! But boy was he happy!!

I was still unsure of how it looked - I didn't really like it, so I decided to turn to some good old hair gel and see what I could do.

And here he is! Some gel up on top and it suddenly turned super cute! The part in the back looks funny in this pic, but it's not hair sticking out, it's just the shadow on the wall. I couldn't get him to sit still for me to take a picture, which is why it's not the greatest shot. I always have to photograph Edward on the run (he basically NEVER sits still, especially not for pictures...)

This one is a bit closer and you can see it better. Anyhow, although I was unsure of my little-boy-hair-cutting skills at first, now I love his hair, and have gotten enough compliments on it that I don't think I only like it because "I" did it. :)

Fabulous dinner idea for Cinco de Mayo

Good gracious how I love mexican food. And one of my favorite websites, ourbestbites.com, has triumphed once again in this area. Here's what I made for dinner tonight, each and every element a BIG hit (I should have made a double recipe)!!

Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos

(click on title for recipe)

Yes, baked, not fried, so a healthier version of one of my favorites. So stinking good. I even cheated and used canned chicken (looks kind of like tuna fish - please don't judge me!:), and they still turned out finger licken' good! Crispy, flavorful shell and yummy filling - my family gobbled them right up! Oh, and another side note: I used reduced fat cream cheese, and again, it didn't take away from the flavor at all.

Quick and Easy Black Beans

(click on title for link)

Another HUGE hit! These were fast (ready in about 10 minutes), super easy and had loads of flavor. Lou and the girls were actually dipping their taquitos in their beans, so I tried it, and yes, it was really yummy that way, too! Seriously, TRY these!!

Simple Green Salad

Okay, no recipe for this - just make your favorite green salad - a great fresh tasting compliment to the taquitos and beans.

Anyhow, loved loved LOVED this meal - it's going into the family favorite folder for sure!