Part 4 - Happy Birthday!

While we were at the beach, we celebrated all the June and July birthdays. That included my dad, me, Maryella, my grandmother and my Uncle (who had to leave before we had the cake). We had cake, homemade ice cream and opened gifts! Fun, fun!

The cake

Birthday Folks

Maryella opens gifts

I open gifts

Ma-don shows off what we gave her

Granda shows off the picture we gave him

Part 5 - Other Miscellanous Pictures

Here are a few other pictures from when we went out to do things.

We met Jan and Mark, our friends from Apalach, and their daughter Becca (the same one from the pool) one day at my favorite Apalachicola restaurant - The Owl Cafe. Here are all the girls on the porch while we wait on our food.

Shopping in downtown Apalachicola

The grown up girls went and got manicures and pedicures one day. Here are Trista and my mom getting their pedicures.

Part 6 - A preview of pictures to come...

These are just a few pictures I took on my camera the night that we had a photographer come to take professional pictures of all of us. These are mainly just the girls. I was taking these while the photographer was busy with the rest of the family. I'll post the "real" ones when I get them!

Kaylin

Annlee

Maryella

Elianna

A few of the girls together

Lindsey and Chris

Marmie and Elianna

Another Maryella Story

Most every time I talk to Mama, she asks if I have any new Maryella stories. And there is usually always a story where Maryella is concerned. She certainly keeps us on our toes! So here's a story for your entertainment...

A bit of history... As I think I've mentioned before, Maryella likes to escape her room at night. We tried putting a child proof lock on the knob, but she figured that out in about 15 minutes. So we've resorted to turning around her door knob and locking her in her room. (Believe me, I never thought I'd have to resort to that! But you do what you have to do!) Well, it didn't take her long to find a toy in her room that she now calls her "key" because she can unlock the door with it. As she finds these keys, we confiscate them, but she seems to have an endless supply.
OK, now for the current story...
Yesterday, the three older girls were playing in Maryella's room when Annlee decided to lock her sisters in there. (That actually happens quite often and drives all of them crazy) So Kaylin starts going nuts and screaming for Annlee to let her out, but Annlee had gone and hidden in her room. So off I go to rescue the prisoners. I opened the door and Kaylin immediately starts a new hissy fit in which she's crying and screaming and going on and on. I look over at Maryella who is standing calmly in the corner and she opens up her hand to reveal yet another "key", shrugs her little shoulders, and with a confused expression says, "I don't know why she is crying, I have the perfect key."

Family Picture

I forgot to post this picture! We took it a couple weeks ago for a brochure the church is making for the new building. I thought it turned out pretty good!

My Silly Girl

Oh, Maryella! What in the world are we going to do with this child? For a long time now, she has insisted on bringing things with her into bed at naptime and bedtime. I guess it's been going on every since she moved to a big bed from her crib. She will start out with a few things that she asks for, but then she will get up and get more and more. We never know what she's going to have when we go wake her up. She's been wearing shoes before, sometimes she'll change clothes, occasionally she takes off her diaper (yeah, that one is pretty nasty!)

Anyway, I just had to take a picture when I saw her yesterday. I think this might be a record for the amount of things in her bed with her. We often wonder how in the world there is room for her! Notice the pink nightgown that she's got on her back like a cape! That cracked me up!

A few more from Daytona

I forgot that I still had a few pictures on my camera when we got home. Here are the last ones we took at Daytona...

The girls enjoy some ice cream on our balcony

We went to the pool after our ice cream snack and had only been in about 20 minutes when a storm came in. I wish I had my camera down at the pool with me, because it was very impressive to see those clouds rolling in. This is what everything looked like by the time we waited on the elevators (along with everyone else in the hotel!) and got back up to the room. Police were trying to keep people off the beach and our pools were closed.

After the storm, we were rewarded with a beautiful rainbow!

The sunrise on our last morning

The girls feed pigeons on our balcony