Beach Babes

To back track just a little bit, at the end of June we headed to Topsail Island for a week at the beach with the DeRousie side of the family. We all shared a 5 bedroom house together, right on the ocean. By all of us I mean, 2 grandparents, 3 parents, and 6 children. Crowded but great fun. The cousins had a blast hanging out together - inside, outside and everywhere in between. I think we're still finding sand from the week! (and we even used seashells we collected to make necklaces at Hayden's party.) After the beach, we all had one more night together in Durham, before the extended family headed up to Ohio. I'd tell you more about what we did, but I think pictures really tell more about the week than words, so have a looksy!

the beach from our upper deck

playing in the sand

Double hatting it - with a cooler for snacks later!

freeze  pops for dessert for the cousin crew!

bed buddies work together on a sand project

our house is the one on the right. walk out the walkway, over the dune and there's the beach!

contemplating the ocean...

beach baby!

the digging crew

Molly and a bucket.

ocean-side spa, complete with built in chairs

M was fascinated with putting rocks thru the knothole in the deck.

M and J enjoying the evening

chillaxin' is fun!

bed buddies being goofy with treasure maps!

the younger half of the sextet

striking a pose on a cloudy evening (camera was a bit foggy from the humidity!)

Molly and me

I've had it with this beach!

looking oh so comfortable on the sand

digging a hole

beach curls!

surf was fairly rough, good to form a human chain. can you find 4 kids in this picture?

another popsicle lineup

deck chair tent

brother and sister - united again!

sparklers!

the original DeRousie family unit, plus a couple extras :)

one last cousin group shot!

Splashing Mermaids

For Hayden's birthday party, she chose a Mermaid Splash Party as her theme and we had a lot of fun planning it out. She really did help with the planning. She thought adults should be invited too, and that we should make sure to have chairs for them to relax in. She also suggested cheese cut in the shape of a mermaid, while acknowledging it might be a "little difficult"! She even got to help put the finishing touches on the mermaid cake.

carefully adding sea life

Mermaid Cake!!!

Basically we set up lots of fun wet play in our front yard for all who wanted to participate. We were "lucky" that Mother Nature wanted to help us out - the ground was a bit squishy from all the rain and at several points during the party, the 'splash water' came from above! But the kids had a BLAST running around like crazy. We made a water bed for them to play on, put out a slip-n-slide, and had lots of containers of water for ammunition for water guns and water balloons.

testing out the water bed

even Molly got wet!

let's wipe our feet off in the pool!

sidewalk chalk paint - not the most successful of our activities but the kids still messed with it

Eliza's first attempt at the slip-n-slide

slip and slide!!!!

Hayden need to "cool" off a bit

the water bed was pretty cool

look at that concentration for target practice (we set up some cans to shoot at)

 After an hour or so of playing, we brought everybody inside to a big beach blanket for snacks and cake. We served string cheesy octopi, monteray jack shark teeth, pineapple-mango jello starfish, pirate booty,  seaweed (the real kind!), pretzel goldfish, and WATERmelon and more fruit skewers. And of course there was the mermaid cake!

the spread! Can you identify all the goodies!?

nom, nom, nom (and they are watching part of The Little Mermaid)

octopus made from string cheese!

Everyone chowed down on snacks, sang happy birthday and then enjoyed some cake. Then we headed back outside for more water play - and Mother Nature was really helping us get wet then! We tried a couple races - fill the bucket race and mermaid tail race (also known as potato sack race, subbed in with garbage bags) but the races were not big hits with this crowd. However, the impromptu game of run around the yard throwing water at each other was a real crowd-pleaser! The party was so fun that people stayed for almost 45 minutes after it was supposed to be over! It was great fun but I do worry we may be setting the bar pretty high for future parties!

still had a hard time with the candles, even when we scooted her closer!

I made the mermaid talk to Hayden, thanking her for FINALLY blowing out the candles. This was VERY hilarious to all the children.

let them eat cake!

gotcha!!

wet and wild fun

Happy birthday my little mermaid! Hope you had fun!

Super Six!

A belated blog Happy Birthday to Hayden who turned 6 last week. She may have already lost seven teeth, but she's only turning 6 years old. But such a grown up, smart, amazing, six years it is! We had a great time celebrating her birthday.

To start, we made cinammon rolls for her birthday which is what she asked for. Then she went off to her final day of gymnastics camp for the morning. Molly and I picked her and Eliza up at noon and we went off to lunch with Popop at her favorite giant Asian buffet place. She enjoyed her plate(s) of rice, chicken legs, mandarin oranges, jello and one piece of a sushi roll before digging into ice cream for dessert. We had fun checking out the turtles in the fountain too!

For dinner, we made pasta carbonara (her choice again) and had dirt cake for dessert. I tricked her good by putting 'sand' on top of the dirt. In fact, I tricked her a little too good as she started to cry thinking she wasn't getting the dirt cake she had requested. Luckily it was delicious and she ate it all up! I don't know if it was the missing teeth or what, but she definitely had real trouble blowing out her candles!

summer dirt cake! (don't worry, plenty of chocolate goodness below.)

do you get more wishes if you blow them out one at a time?

 And of course, she had a great time opening presents after dinner. The princess dress we got her was such a hit, she put it on immediately and has worn it some almost every day since! She was especially pleased to get the art set which was the only thing officially on her list for quite a while!

Molly helped by testing how much weight the gifts could support.

Money to shop at the arts and crafts store -thanks Aunt Katie!

Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne. A perfect present from Grandma!

a princess dress that fits, and it's  extra long and flowy!

the art set, look at that grin

Over the past year, she's conquered kindergarten, reading, swimming, the tooth fairy and thumb sucking - she is pretty darn amazing! I can't wait to see what she'll do as a 6 year old!
 

 

Father's Day

Yes, yes, I'm way behind. I'll keep it short and sweet.

We got to celebrate Father's Day twice this year. My dad was going to be out of town on Father's Day, so we decided to celebrate with him a week early. This was also a bonus because Hayden was going to be out of town on Father's Day as well. We went to the Eno River to play and then had a fun Mediterranean lunch out. Molly loved the hummus and couldn't get enough of it!  Our river time was fun - though the water was a LOT higher than last year!

snuggles with Popop.

grumpy snuggles

Lots of waterfalls. Last year there were rocks visible to walk on.

a dad and his nature girls

Posing with Grandma

got start them hiking young!

wading in the Eno

such a pretty spot

On the actual Father's Day, we celebrated Jason with pancakes and presents. Then after nap, we took him out for a frozen treat. I'm not sure who enjoyed their frozen treat more, the girls or Jason! Thanks for being such a great dad. "Dah-dee! Dah-dee!" as Molly would say.

pancakes!

frozen custard, yum!

You are not feeding me fast enough! I will do it myself!

red tongue buddies

a dad and his girls

 Happy Father's Day to the best two dads I know!