back to the beach!

we celebrated the beginning of spring this week with our first trip back to the beach! and as you can see, the kids were more than excited. :) you might be saying, "what were you thinking, emily...going to the beach with three small children, one being a newborn?! are you crazy!?" yeah, there was a point when i was packing up all the beach supplies that i was thinking the same thing. :) but we were going with karina and aunt kristie, who has 10 arms. really, she is amazingly helpful, even with a two year old! plus i figured it'd be easier to hit the beach now while amelia is immobile and still sleeps most of the day. and this proved to be true. it was a wonderful, wonderful day.

i dug a little hole in the sand for amelia to lay in, and it was perfect! she was propped up just about like she is in her car seat, and she just slept away under the umbrella. she really made no fuss at all the whole time we were out there! in my head i fastforwarded to the end of the summer when she will most likely be crawling all over the place. so i tried to really enjoy my low maintenance baby at the beach! :) here's some shots of amelia enjoying her first snooze on the sand.


sound.
asleep.
ya think she likes the beach!?

well, i KNOW these kiddos do! they went right to work diggin' and a pourin'. they loved every minute of it. except the minute where ethan poured water all over karina. and the minute where karina turned right around and poured water all over caroline. (and a part of me wanted to tell caroline to go pour water all over ethan, just to go full circle...) but they enjoyed all the other minutes. :)





after lunch in the shade, the kids had a lollipop treat. (thank you, aunt kristie, for getting the little ones!!) ethan and karina patiently licked theirs to the very end while caroline....oh, caroline... she chomped through hers in no time. just like her momma does. :)


these huge helicopters kept flying overhead,
and caroline thought they were a little too loud!

"thanks for the lollipop, mommy!"

this is caroline's new face... it's kind of a bashful-ish
"i'm so proud of what i just did but also slightly embarrassed" look.

ethan kept himself pretty busy with his sand projects, so he wasn't really concerned with humoring mommy with the camera. but i did get this one shot of my growing boy who loves his momma! pasty sunscreen face and all, isn't he a cutie?!


but caroline was a sweetheart and let me just snap away... i love taking pictures of this girl. and i love being her mommy.


it's a little too bright out here...
ahhh...much better!


well, our first trip to the beach for 2009 was a great one! ethan and caroline are at such a great age for enjoying the sand and staying busy without needing too much help. i can't wait to go back! (and next time i will remember to put sunscreen on ME and not just the kids! OUCH!!) we've had a few invitations to visit family and friends at their beach condos over the next few weeks, so we are looking forward to getting our toes back in the sand before too long! there's probably no use in vacuuming the van...