South Carolina

To celebrate my 35th birthday, and squeeze in a little family vacation since our Outerbanks trip was cancelled, we headed to beautiful Charleston, South Carolina to visit the Holmes family. We spent lots of time at the beach, ate delicious food, and played and played and played.

ALWAYS a good time with the Holmes family!

Poor baby!

This little lovie has slept less in her 3 1/2 years of life than anyone I know! Last night was a particularly rough start, and this is where we found her when we headed up to bed. Something has got to give, right? She will start sleeping soon, right? She will grow out of this soon, right? Oh, how I wish I knew the answer to all those questions. Poor baby.

Someone is six years old...

...and someone else cannot believe it.

Zoey! You turned six years old today! I know in your little world today is all about you, but I cannot think about your birthday without thinking of how much we wanted you to join our family, what a miracle it was when you finally did, and the sacred word family that we felt very strongly the day you were born.

You have turned into an amazing little (big!) girl. You are a great listener, helper, and always want to do the right thing. You love your little sister fiercely, and patiently help her more than any other big sister I know. You are kind and polite and artistic and love to do anything outdoors. You love to build with Legos with Daddy and run with Mommy and play with Kaia. This summer, your favorite activity has been reading Harry Potter with Daddy. We are trying to make it through book 3 before school starts! It has been so fun to introduce you to that fictional world your Daddy and I love so much. We hope that next summer you will be reading it all on your own.

Today we started with Art Camp, and then we picked up Lilly and celebrated with McDonald's for lunch, a manicure and pedicure, and a long play date. She is a great friend. For dinner you chose PF Changs and we enjoyed that with our little family. Then home for gifts and cake. It was a GREAT day, and we hope you felt lots and lots of love.

 Happy birthday, beautiful girl.

Our new favorite Olsons

We went camping (yes, camping!) with our friends, the Olsons. We want to go again, believe it or not. The kids had so much fun, and the adults stayed up WAY TOO LATE talking and laughing.

Brian's favorite part: Sitting by the camp fire.

Dalene's favorite part: Getting to know new friends. 

Zoey's favorite part: Playing with bugs and eating marshmallows.

Kaia's favorite part: Playing in the tent and playing with Timmy and Ian.

Happy 4th!