{ Sleeping Beauty }

I don’t think I have ever had a child be so tired while they were in Kindergarten. Abby has been having a super hard time this year-I don’t know if it’s because they start the school day a little earlier or what, but she is SO tired and a lot of mornings SO grumpy. (see Abby’s emotional goal for this year) There are many mornings that she complains that she doesn’t feel well, so she can sleep in. A lot of the time I give in and let her sleep, but sometimes we end up helping her with everything from getting dressed to eating to brushing her teeth just to get her going. Some mornings it’s kind of funny to listen to her new excuse of why she can’t go to school-her neck was sore was her latest one (not throat, just neck). Of course it got better later when Scott needed someone to play with.

After school almost everyday she falls asleep. I am glad she hasn’t fallen asleep and gotten left on the school bus yet, but after being home about an hour, she’s gone. She usually falls asleep up in the playroom or in the car if we go pick up Brianna and Austin from soccer or track practice, but lately she has been doing this:

…Sleeping at the table.

This night she actually laid down on the bench to sleep, but many nights she will just put her head down right on the table and we think she is looking at something on the floor, until we realize she has been quiet for quite sometime, and is dead asleep.

We carefully carry up to her bed, and there she sleeps until morning.

One day she was throwing a fit about something, and I asked her to go upstairs to her room. She fussed that she was too tired (which was probably why she was throwing a fit in the first place), and slowly stomped/crawled up the stairs. At the top of the stairs she threw herself down and proceeded to fuss. I went downstairs to continue making dinner, and when I went back upstairs for something a while later, she was asleep at the top of the stairs. She was on her tummy with her hand outreached like she was trying but just couldn’t go any farther. Poor thing.

I think this girl is definitely a girl after my own heart-one that LOVES to take naps! Unfortunately, Kindergarten these days doesn’t have a naptime like they used to, so until then we will just enjoy having an extra girl around some days to share naptime with us.

Sweet dreams Abby!

{ Mike and Desirea’s Wedding }

I am still in my constant catch up mode from last summer even. This house building thing totally threw me for a loop, but I will get caught up! Here are some pictures I took for my brother Mike at his wedding down in Destin, Florida in September. It was so beautiful there, and SO hot. I was happy to get to document this special time in their life. Congratulations! We love you guys!

Their wedding ceremony was preformed on a strip of beach they had rented for the night. It was nice to have a slice of the beach all to ourselves. Mike and Desirea built this bamboo alter, and Desirea did all the flowers. It turned out beautiful!

The whole Family-Mike, Desirea, Tayleigh, and Tori. Desirea also made the girls dresses. They were so beautiful and classy. I love that pink color. Desirea is so creative-I love having such a talented sister-in-law.

This one is one of my favorites from the whole day.

Some of the bride.

It was so hot there that day that by the time it was time to cut the cake, it was almost melted. I love the little twist they did on the regular feeding/smashing-of-the-cake. They were about to feed each other the cake, and the girls were all eagerly looking on as we were kind of heckling them about smashing it into each other’s face. They were about to, but then turned and let Tayleigh have a little cake. She was completely taken by surprise, but such a good sport about it. I think she secretly loved getting to taste the cake before everyone else.

Love those cute little chubby baby hands!

…And they lived happily ever after

{ Destin Florida Trip-Day 2 The Beach }

We chose to stay at a hotel in Sandestin, which we loved. When Aaron and I came to Destin for my birthday last year we had stayed in a hotel here, and it was so nice to be within walking distance of the beach. Our hotel was the very left one on the bottom picture.

We slept in a little, ate a quick breakfast, and then headed to the beach just across from the parking lot. With our room we were able to get a free umbrella rental, which was great with the babies, and also a few hours of boogie board rentals too. The kids went straight to the water, while I hung out with the little boys on the beach. Aaron went to meet Mike and Desirea and their kids outside the resort gate to let them in so we could hang out together for a bit. They were headed to Sea World for a week long fun family honeymoon later that day, but the kids had a blast being able to swim together before they had to head out.

I am so in love with his little curls. The humidity made them super curly all day long. Ryan loved the beach, and was most interested in eating the sand. I don’t what it is with kids and eating sand, but he was eating it by the handfuls.

Ryan and Tori hanging out under the umbrella with Brianna and Desirea.

Erika, Tayleigh, and Abby

The weekend we went, the ocean had tons of seaweed in it. It normally is crystal clear, I felt kind of bad for talking it up so much to my brother, only to have a tons of seaweed there. The place we swam though, had a sand bar out a little ways. If you swam out past this 6-7ft deep part to the sandbar the water was totally clear and bright blue. It was beautiful. We took turns swimming out with the kids, and while we were out there we saw at least a dozen jelly fish. Aaron got stung on his side, and we watched a guy pick up this huge dead one. It was the biggest one I had ever seen in real life.

After we had had our fill of sand and sand castle building, we said our goodbyes to Mike and Desirea, and then went to swim in the hotel pool for a few more hours. We ate a quick supper picnic, and then headed back. It was a super quick trip, but so worth it. Every time we come we say we should come back sooner, and stay longer. I think that will have to be a must for next year.

{ Destin Florida Trip-Day 1 The Wedding }

We planned our trip to Destin for the same weekend that my brother Mike was getting married. We drove down Friday, had the wedding that night, and then spent all day Saturday playing and drove back that night. It was a quick trip, but a lot of fun! It felt like we had just been there with everyone, and I couldn’t understand why the kids were SO excited. I knew going to the beach was fun, but they were beyond excited. When we went back and looked through our pictures we realized it had been almost  5 years since we had been there as a family! Some of the kids hadn’t even seen the beach before. I couldn’t believe so much time had gone by since we had been there. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend for some playing.

We went straight to the beach to help set up for the wedding, and the kids were great sports to “play” at the beach and still staying somewhat clean.

When we got to the beach we had a hard time finding the place that was supposed to be reserved for them. We saw some other wedding parties setting up, and had found our spot by the process of elimination. After we had the bamboo alter, and table for the cake all set up, another wedding party came looking for their spot. The spots were not marked good at all, and we had ended up setting up in the wrong spot. They offered to just set up in our spot, but since they had a lot more people attending than we did and that spot was by the pavilion where they told there party they were, we moved. Mike had rushed back to get dressed and pick up the girls, so Aaron and I moved everything with the kids help. We were totally sweaty! I was glad I was just the photographer/supportive older sister, and not the bride that day. I was happy that Desirea didn’t have to worry about it, and was able to stay looking nice until she got there. It was such a hot day!

This was the first wedding that I had photographed and I was super nervous. I was thrilled when I saw the pictures-they turned out so great. I was really happy for the experience, mostly to help me appreciate how much work being a wedding photographer would be. It’s a tough job for sure. The kids were great to let me take some quick pictures of them. They were SO hot. Our nice wedding dress turned out to be sweaty hair, sticky clothes, and red faces.

I usually say “Just one picture”, knowing I can get quite a few out of them. Not today. One picture meant one picture for them.

Brianna 13 Years old

Austin 11 Years Old

Brooke 8 Years Old

Erika 6 Years Old

Abby 5 Years Old

Scott 2 1/2 Years Old

Ryan 10 Months Old

After we finished taking the wedding pictures, we changed clothes and went out to eat at one of our favorite seafood places-Joe’s Crab Shack. It was super busy there, but we were hungry for crab legs we were willing to wait. We had such a big party that we ended up waiting for about a half hour to get in (which wasn’t bad), but then had to wait at our table for another hour. It was almost 11:30pm before we got our food. It tasted even better since we had to wait so long. We used our time being a little crazy with the crab crackers…

..and feeding the kids tons of saltine crackers. They were so tired by the time their food even came. 

We ate and then crashed hard at our hotel.