It's coming...

My neighbor finished today!  Today!  I can't believe it!  From starting to build the cabinets at his house to putting things in here, the project took my neighbor 7.5 weeks!  He did 98% of a kitchen renovation by himself.  Wow!  We feel so blessed and we are so happy with the outcome!  

I absolutely can not wait to show you the finished product!  

But, first, this is my and Will's evenings...

We started last week and have some stuff left to finish.  We have been priming and painting trim.  I bought the paint for the walls this morning.  The blog may be quiet for a few more days.  But, I imagine, next week the blog will go crazy with kitchen renovation posts!  

For now, I better go grab a roller or paint brush!

BFF's go to the Beach

One last beach post, because this one absolutely can't go unshared!  Ashley and David, me and Will, we are one of those unique pairs of couples where husbands and wives get along.  The kids all get along and play well.  But, Anna-Kate and Anderson are absolute best buds!  

I love that this picture was photo-bombed by Camden.  For Anna-Kate, Camden can pretty much do no wrong; she adores him!  But, Anderson is her total bff!

Their relationship is characterized by:

LOTS of laughter,

adventure, 

sharing,

 playing and imagination,

(at this moment, they were rescuing "the golden clam")

and true love and acceptance of each other!

Love watching these two grow up together!

BFF's in training!

Anna-Kate at the Beach

Anna-Kate loves the beach!  

(isn't this a neat picture?!)

Anna-Kate was always moving, did.not. want to stop for the camera,

so I am impressed that she paused for me.

 Running away from me makes it easy to get sweet pictures of her going toward the ocean 

At the end of the trip, especially, she was back to finding more shells!  She loves showing off her seashell collection!

Here she is showing me one of her treasures!

Still her favorite treasure-hunting buddy!

This is her favorite picture,

but I might be more partial for this sweet image!

Benjamin at the Beach

Benjamin at the beach...He got so excited to see the water!  He did not get excited about how the salt water stung his eczema!  

Benjamin enjoyed the water from a distance, on a towel.  He also didn't love the sand very much in the beginning.

That combo made it easy to capture sweet selfies with my little man!

He definitely enjoyed hogging the beach chairs!

He loved water, if he was being held, for about 5 minutes.

Tuesday, day 3 of beach time, seeing him play in the sand was a BIG deal!  It was so nice to see him not bothered by the beach environment!

It took about 10 minutes of Benjamin sitting first on my lap in the water before he slowly found his way to actually sitting in the water himself.  

I didn't think this moment would happen.  Poor guy was really  not fond of the salt water and sand.  But, telling a one year old to power through, it will get better, is just not an easy task.

This was my attempt to recreate the Superman picture from last year.

Recreations never quite work, but he is a cute little man!

When Anna-Kate let go of his hand (from above picture), he was okay for about a minute.  He bent down and touched the water.  This face happened.

Luckily this was all it took to calm him back down.

This was probably my favorite of Benjamin from this trip!

Next year, little man, we will try to have your eczema more under control before heading over to the beach! 

Beach 2013 Overview

We went to Oak Island, staying in a house at Caswell Beach.  It was so nice!  A much quieter beach experience than Myrtle.  The busy-ness was not missed!  I love having so much of the beach to ourselves!  And, this trip was also the first time Will and I have taken a week vacation in our married lives.  We agreed that we should do it again!  And, it was the first time that we went with David and Ashley and Camden, Anderson, and Evelyn.  Wonderful idea!

On a vacation with your family plus some of the extensions, 

you relax!

You play a rousing game of Corn Hole, building rivalry between siblings again.

You enjoy the beach, even sometimes from a distance (Benjamin's eczema did not appreciate the ocean the first couple of days!)

You capture some sweet moments,

and you stage some sweet moments.

But, with 5 children at the beach, let's admit

you mainly capture a lot of action shots!

Camden with his boogie board.

Anderson and Anna-Kate running.

All 5 kids loooving a game of hide...

....and seek!

And, when you do finally try to stage a sweet moment with all 5 children,

this is really the image you end up with.

Beach - Wildlife Edition

A beach trip with the Simmons, I am learning, will always include a wildlife edition!  (It is also the easiest one to blog, so after a week at the beach, this is the post that can come first.)  Will loves looking for crabs or seashells, etc, and he LOVES that Anna-Kate is all about it as much as he is.  I didn't have the camera nearby when Will was walking around the beach with a jellyfish in his hands!  Jellyfish, dead or not, not something I am going to hold!

This was my favorite animal experience on the trip!  Several times we saw schools of dolphins swimming in the distance.  On Friday, our last day, there was one particularly active school swimming around!  At one point, one of the dolphins flipped in the air, twice!  

Look at this picture Will captured!!

Always crabs to find, but this one was quite cool to the kids!  A ghost crab!

 Uumm, on my beach trip, 

no thank you!

A snake in the garage!

Mom took a step back; daughter walked straight forward to touch him!

This crazy kid, in her glittery belt and her princess heels, was petting the snake and even went so far as to rub her cheek against it!  What?!

All the kids thought it was so cool!  Both the moms watched from the door!

Don't worry Uncle David, you get your moment in the sun!  It was a team effort of these two men to catch our friend, a team effort to let him go and show him off.  

Men and their fun ... showing off snakes... the men can keep that one!

What about me?!  I thought I would be your favorite!

Clearly Anna-Kate is just excited about them all!!