Vacation: Cayden at Beach

Here are some videos of Cayden on the beach. Here is a little background on the event: Cayden had spent an hour or so in the waterpark already and Amber and I were on the beach. Scott and Cayden joined us to check it out. Normally, Cayden does not enjoy getting dirty or wet. If he spills water on himself, he instantly needs to change into dry clothes. I didn't know how he would react to the sand. He didn't care about the sand at all! Then we were just going to get our feet wet since we didn't have our swimsiuts on. I was totally shocked with him. He would have ran right into the water as far as he could if we let him! He had so much fun running in the water.

Vacation: Cayden's Birthday (Again)

I have always thought, Cayden is really special, which he is, but here's my rationale this time. Not all children get to celebrate their birthdays two times, which it seems we have always done since his first birthday. Once with family and friends, and then again on his real birthday. And every year he gets two cakes, one for each occasion. And this year it is going to be three times (once at Uncle Matt and Aunt Anna's, once on his real birthday while on vacation, and then once back home with friends in ND).

We get up on Cayden's real birthday and wish him happy birthday. He had to ask me if it was really his birthday, to which I reply yes. He then gets all excited and tells his Dad, "I'm four!" Oh the joys of being young!

As we are getting ready for the day, Cayden says something to me about a birthday cake on his birthday. Oh no! I hadn't planned for that! Here we are at Myrtle Beach on his real birthday and no cake! Scott makes a quick call to his parents, and thankfully Kiki and Artie pull through for us. They were able to get us a cake!

Happy Birthday to my big four year old boy! Wow! I can't believe he is four!

Vacation: Babies on the Beach Take 2

Another try at taking the babies to the beach. This time, Scott, Cayden, Amber, the babies and myself all ventured there together. Lucky Amber got out of having to pull one stroller, however, I still got to manuever one, while Scott took the other one. Anyway...

This trip was a bit more succesful. We got on the beach, laid out a sheet for babies to sit on, and Cayden, Amber and Scott ventured off to the ocean. The babies sat around and ate some cheerios. They proceeded to get pretty fussy, so I gave them all bottles. This was the only time I could get their picture. Cayden didn't enjoy the ocean so much this time (he loved it one of the first nights we were there, but I don't have the pictures yet). I think the waves were bigger this time, plus he realized that the waterparks were a lot of fun.

Also, at the condo, they offer different activities for the children staying there to do. One day was to paint mini-beach chairs (for a small fee). Scott took Cayden to the activity (my suggestion). Here is a picture of Cayden in action.

However, this is not what I saw when I arrived at the activity. Cayden was off in his own little world people-watching, and lucky Scott was finishing up Cayden's paint job. Apparently we need to work on our color schemes. Here is our finished project.

Vacation: Babies on the Beach Take 1

Here's the story behind this adventure. Cayden had waited "all day" (okay until about 2:oo in the afternoon) for his dad and Uncle Matt to return from golfing. We were waiting for them because he wanted to show them the waterpark and the slides that were at Kiki and Artie's (Scott's parents) Condo at the Myrtle Beach (the condo is not necessarily like everyone thinks of Condos. It is more like an apartment at a resort or hotel. They rent it out when Kiki and Artie are not using it). Then we were going to all head to the beach.

So, we get everyone ready, babies included. Load everyone with sunblock and off we go. Amber(babysitter we brought along with us) and I venture off to the beach with the babies while the others, Cayden, Scott, Uncle Matt, Aunt Anna, Kiki, and Artie head off to the waterpark. They were going to do the waterslides a little and then come to the beach.

Amber and I begin our "adventure" to the beach. We have a double stroller for the girls and Bryce is in a single stroller. I have Amber manuever Bryce thinking that he would be easier to manuever. However, I don't think anything was easy about this adventure. For those of you who may have never been to the beach. In order to actually get down to the ocean, you have to walk through this wonderful, soft, fluffy white sand (if sand can be fluffy-it's not compact anyway). This is fun to walk through when you don't have strollers to try to move through it.

Oh my! What a struggle. We ended up pulling the strollers behind us to get through this mess. I'm sure we were a sight to see! We finally get through this mess and they have a bunch of beach chairs set up in pairs on the beach with umbrellas. We get to one of these, the closest one possible, and sit. As we are looking around, we see a "reserved" sign. My thought at this moment, was oh well! We were exhausted from hauling the strollers and babies through the sand. If we needed to move, we would have.

Now for pictures: The babies seemed to enjoy their time at the beach as short lived as it was (tell you more about that-just keep reading).
Bryce really had fun blowing rasberries. He would make the sound and then laugh. Catching it as a still photo does not do it justice as a video was. Instead it looks like he is making a diaper.



The girls were just lounging around while we were on the beach.


So now, why were we there just a short time??? Well, the dark clouds started to roll in. The next thing we notice is the lifeguards were making everyone get out of the water. Still Amber and I sit waiting for the gang to arrive. We really didn't want to have to pull the babies back through that wonderful fluffy sand. Plus, we had both read in the condo that the waterparks close if there is lightening, so we figured if the lifeguards were getting everyone out of the water, the waterparks would be closing any minute. We waited a bit longer, but still no one to our rescue. So we trudged back. Apparently what the waterparks paper says and what the waterparks do are two completely different things.

I am glad we did get the babies back when we did. Shortly after getting everyone back into the condo (waterpark go-ers included), it stormed a nasty storm.

(The waterparks never did shut down even with the lightening-they have open sides and windows on the tops of them.)

Vacation: Birthday at the Beach

Myrtle Beach that is! Cayden was so excited for his Spiderman Birthday Party that his Uncle Matt and Aunt Anna threw for him. He knew ahead of time that they were going to do this for him, and he told almost everyone he saw before we left about the spiderman birthday.

Uncle Matt and Aunt Anna decorated the outside of the house.

They decorated inside.

They got Cayden his own cake.

We did presents.

Cayden's first "video game system" (we won't tell him that it is an educational video game system though).

Vacation: Amber and Cayden

While visiting Scott's parents in Aiken, SC, we took the babies, Cayden and Amber (the babysitter we took with us in case you missed that in a previous post) to Scott's elementary school playground. Scott and I were pushing babies and Cayden and Amber were walking ahead of us. I thought they looked so cute and snapped their picture. (And no, the matching outfits were not planned)

Here Cayden was crossing these ???? whatever they are. He was pretty proud of himself when he made it across.

Vacation Part 1

Flying

We took a vacation, all six of us and one of our wonderful babysitters, Amber. As we were planning our vacation, which was to see Scott's side of the family in South Carolina, we realized that we needed another adult along to hold a baby on the airplanes. It was so wonderful to have a babysitter along to help with everything besides just holding a baby.

The airplanes rides were, well, interesting. Scott had one of the girls and Cayden, Amber had the other girl (they switched off on the different planes) and I was in charge of Bryce. You ask, "Why didn't all of the boys go together and girls with girls?" Well, there is a very logical reason for this. Bryce is a good 6 pounds heavier than the girls. I had Scott hold a girl so that he could hopefully manuever better with the girl as he tended to all of Cayden's needs.

The flights went pretty well. Had a few reactions from the passengers, but most were positive. Only one person asked to be moved away, and that was before he even got to his seat next to me! I think he was half joking and half serious about it. It just so happened that this was probably our worst flight regarding the babies. Scott was holding Aleah, who decided to scream her head off for about 5 minutes before the flight took off. It didn't last too terribly long, and she managed to sleep most of the remainder of the flight.

Here is Scott, Cayden and Aleah enjoying the plane ride. Like Father, Like Son, both sleeping with heads back and mouths open!

Sleeping Babies

So I was told that I am slacking in the blogging. Who knew staying home would be so busy. And when all 4 kiddos lay down for naps in the afternoon, I take the time just to sit. I was really worried about staying home with the four kids for the summer months. I have expressed on more than one occassion to my babysitters that I really admire them for the time that they were hear while I was working. One of them so kindly pointed out that there are only 3 children here (Cayden went to daycare). I would never have guessed that adding a 4 year old to the mix really does add more "work" (if it is safe to call it that). But I am really finding the fun in being a stay-at-home mom, even though I've really only been home by myself for a week and a half. Starting tonight at midnight, Scott is on leave until he goes for his next training (June 28). So I'm looking forward to having more help during the day.

Okay, I realize that I am rambling. Now back to the post: Going back in time as in some other recent posts to late May. Scott and I were doing on nightly check on kids, and Aleah and Bryce were sleeping in some interesting positions. I grabbed the camera and prayed that I didn't wake any of the babies as I got their pictures.
Bryce
Aleah

This picture is Bryce. We discovered that he enjoyed falling asleep in one of the jumpy seats. We have three different ones, but he only falls asleep in this one. It is funny because he falls asleep jumping, and as he wakes up he starts jumping again (before being fully awake). He doesn't miss a beat!

?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Okay, so I have been careful to screen the pictures of myself that get put on here, but I decided this one should be added.

As many of you who check our blog know, Scott is deploying next month. Well, in order to deploy, he has to complete various training exercises. One of which included him wearing his flack vest and helmet and shooting a gun (can't remember which gun it was, he has to shoot two different ones before he leaves). I decided that I should try it all on (minus the gun of course). Oh my! That vest was heavy, a good thirty pounds!

Anyway, I think it is safe to say that we are all happy that it is Scott who is out fighting for our country and not me!

Homework???

At age 3? So this post really should have been done back around May 20th, but well, life happens and the blogging has taken a backseat to life.

Background to the homework. It was Family Week at Cayden's Daycare (aka: "School" to him). Apparently I picked him up too early one day (before he had a chance to make his picture) and he had to draw his family for homework. We cheated a little. I drew the stick people on a separate paper and placed it under the paper he was going to draw. Then he was to trace them. However, he did add his own special touches to the pictures.