Day 2- Cocoa Beach

I think we got out to the beach at 9am. We wanted to make sure we spent as much time as we could soaking up the sun, salt water, and warm air.

day 2 was much better for Benson.
He played willingly in the sand with Matt and Ally.

Ally dug a hole and climbed in.

Ben kept and eye on Matt.

Matt enjoyed the peacefulness.

Ally and Matt played in the waves.

He showed her how to run from them.

And run even faster.

Ben took a nap while they played in the waves.

Matt made a flower in the sand.

She was seeing how brave she was. The water was quite cold.

He woke up. Shortly after this, I think we walked everything back up to the room and took a walk on the beach. I didn't take any pictures of that though. We walked a LONG way to the pier and thought it'd be fun to walk out on it, just to find that you have to pay to go out there. So we walked back towards the hotel and on the way HAD to find a bathroom for Ally.

Playing on the beach.

We wanted to see his reaction to the sand that was harder.

Obviously he thought it was much cooler!

It's too bright mommy!

And yes, he is in a diaper. We weren't going to be getting him wet, so I didn't see the point in using a good swim diaper and getting sand on his swim trunks.

Day 1- Cocoa Beach

I think it took us less than 5 minutes to get changed into swim suits and out to the beach. It was probably the coldest day of our whole trip and it was 72 degrees! Ally still had a blast.

She was all about the waves and the water.
Anticipating the wave..

Matt and Ben

she found something..maybe a shell.

Enjoying the warm air, beautiful scenery, and the ocean smells.

Ben's 2nd time on sand. His first was Lake Michigan over the summer. He wasn't too sure about it at first.

Daddy thought he'd see how he likes the water....and he didn't.

Ally tripped and fell.

And had sand all over her face and body!

Yum!

Ben and Daddy

We thought we'd try out the pool since it was getting too dark and chilly for the beach.

The pool was warm and the kids LOVED it.

We tried to hit the pool every night after dinner, that way they were tired and VERY ready for bed. It worked quite well.

Strange boy

We layed Benson down for a nap one afternoon and he really didn't want to sleep. So instead he just cried and when we went to check on him, this is how we found him. Of course after I took the pictures he woke right up.

Sledding and playing in the snow

Matt took Ally sledding one morning. There was only a few other people there sledding and they only went down 3 times. Matt was tired and we had lots to do that day, so we made it a fast sledding day. Oh and it was FREEZING.

My brothers came over the night before Ally and Matt went sledding and played in the snow with her.

Ben was longing to go outside and play. Travis was teasing Ben.

Trent and Ally playing in the snow.

Ally and Travis in the snow.

Catching up from before New Years

Awesome girl

Just to show you how awesome Ally is: She came up to me a minute ago with a watch and said "The watch says it's time for my nap, good night mommy". She proceeded upstairs and put herself to bed. It's not even past her nap time. Granted, I've always been able to put her down for a nap whenever, but still. I love that she recognizes when she's tired and needs to sleep.

I'm still needing input by the way. Thanks!

I need some input

Ally has hit the weight and height limit for her current carseat. I've done so much research on booster seats, I hate to think of the time I've put into it. I need something that isn't too wide (we'll need to be able to fit 3 carseats in the backseat eventually). It needs to be long enough so as her legs get longer they won't hang uncomfortably off the edge. We are in the car enough for trips that she needs to be able to nap in it without falling over. So far I can't find anything. I've found one and we've tried it out, but I think it might be too wide for 3 in the back. We bought one, then returned it because Ally fell asleep in it and fell over (obviously not a good seat to sleep in). Any ideas? What booster seat do you have your child in?

Fun

We JUST got home a 1/2 hour ago. We've been in Florida for the past week and a half. We had a great time and the weather couldn't have been better. We have lots of pictures, I just need to take the time to sort through them before putting them on here. Other things need to get done first: laundry, buy milk, put everything away, and finish cleaning out the car. After I get those done, I will do a fun post showing everything we did. We visited Cocoa Beach, Ft Myers Beach, Sanibel Island, Blue Springs State Park, and we of course had to stop in Orlando for a few days to do a day at Disney World. Fun Fun! I think we had so much fun, we'd jump at the opportunity to live there during the winter months!

No Bare Feet

Today we were walking and Matt pointed out a sign that read "No Bare Feet". He told Ally that you need to have shoes on so you don't hurt your feet. She understood "No Bare Feet" to mean "No Bear Feet". So she said, "Daddy watch out for bear feet". Quite funny! We explained that it didn't mean bears, but naked feet. I don't think she still quited understood, but oh well.

We are having a....GIRL!!!

Gender

We found out the gender of the baby? Who wants to know what we're having?

Quick Explanation

We ended up celebrating Christmas/opening gifts and eating food, at 5 different houses. It was exhausting!

Winter randomness

Is anyone else enjoying the snow? I enjoy it as long as we don't have anywhere to go. Or at least anywhere outside of our town. I am hoping we get a lot, then Ally can finally play in it. It snowed last week, but it wasn't the good packing snow, it was light and fluffy. She REALLY wanted to make a snow man and that just wasn't going to happen with that snow.
Ally and I got all of the Christmas ornaments organized into their correct boxes (everyone has their own box for ornaments) and all of the Christmas stuff organized into tubs. Now we just need Matt to put them away for us. I am in the mood to do a complete overhaul on our house and organize everything, but now is not the time to do that. Maybe at the end of the month I can get around to that.
Benson can climb the stairs, but hasn't gotten past the first one before I catch him. He is standing up to everything and walking along things. So walking should be right around the corner for him. He is growling all the time. When he crawls, he growls, when he sees mommy, daddy or Ally, he growls. Silly boy! He likes to dump things (buckets of toys) and knock things over (stacks of books on the bookshelf & blocks). He has gotten really good at throwing things (such as pacifiers and bottles). You really notice how well he throws when we are in the van, you'll hear things hit the door on the opposite side. He loves his veggies- broccoli, peas, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn. He also loves fruit-apples, oranges, pineapple, grapes. All of which are fresh and I just cut into small pieces for him to consume. He still eats baby food but prefers the real thing.
Ally is working on letter recognition and is doing really well. She recognizes her name, Bens name, and Cosette's name right away. She loves learning. This past Sunday she got to go to all of primary. She is now a sunbeam and couldn't be more excited to be with the big kids. She's had lots of friends over to her house this week and has loved every minute of it. I'm not sure Benson always feels the same about a house full of people, but maybe he'll grow to be a social bug like Ally or a more reserved child like Cosette.
Okay well theres an update and I will try to get some updated pictures.