Swimming lessons

The girls started swimming lessons last week! They took 4 lessons last year and in all honesty they were kind of a waste of time. They spent almost every day in the pool with me last summer and they got REALLY confident in the water (sometimes too confident!) and have really become good little swimmers. They love to swim more than pretty much anything else, which makes us so happy. The lessons they are taking are at the Cabana Club where we belong and so they are super comfortable there. Miss Peg is their teacher and she's been doing this for 20 years or something crazy like that. The girls adore her! Every morning when we get there the aqua aerobics ladies are just finishing up and they LOVE Reagan and Riley so much. Half of them stick around just to watch their lessons! Ha! The girls even know most of their names now so they love seeing them (they call them the "dancing ladies" because they're always hopping around in the pool to the music)! The girls do the lessons separately which is SO great for both of them. They each get 30 minutes alone in the water with Miss Peg while the other one sits with me. I LOVE the time alone with each girl but also love that I can watch them swim alone too. It's been great. The videos don't really show how awesome the girls are doing at this point. When they are alone with me I never hold on to them...they just swim all over the place. Miss Peg is a little more by the book...thank goodness, and is teaching the girls some really great skills. We have 2 more lessons left and we may end up adding some more because they love them so much.
I told the girls this morning that I was going to do the blog and put their swimming videos on here and they told me that they wanted me to add the picture of the shark took I found yesterday. It was a BIGGIE...we find them all the time (I'm putting the picture of our collection so far) and it's become so much fun for us every time we're at the beach we have competitions to see who can find the most or the biggest. The girls are actually getting pretty good at it...but they'd much rather run around and play then focus on the sand! Hope everyone is having a great week!!!

Happy Easter!!!!

We had a fabulous (chilly!) Easter in Kiawah with Nana and BopBop! Our little bunnies were up early and ready to hunt for the Easter Bunny's goodies! He left a LOT of eggs!!!! We went out for a nice Easter dinner at The Beach Club the night before Easter and then on Easter day we went to Cassique for an awesome Eggstravagaza!!!! They had a petting zoo with bunnies, goats, sheep, little chickens and ducks. The girls loved it! They even had pony rides (maybe next year) and the girls got to pet one of the ponies! Then they had more eggs than you could ever imagine laid out all over the driving range/practice greens and the kids went nuts grabbing the eggs! It was absolutely freezing so we had to put fleeces on over the girl's precious Easter dresses...but everyone eles was bundled up too! At least we had the fleeces!!! After the egg hunt we went out for brunch before hitting the road. The girls slept for 2 hours on the drive home...that hasn't happened in 3 years. They must have had fun!!! It was a beautiful, special day and we had a blast!!! Hope everyone else had a very Happy Easter too!!!

Weeki Wachee Mermaids at the Aquarium!

Nana Mimi saw the Weeki Wachee Mermaids when she was about 8 years old and still remembers being amazed by them. (It's women dressed as mermaids that truly stay underwater for a really long time and do shows and sing etc...). She found out that at the Charleston Aquarium when we were going to be there, the Weeki Wachee Mermaids were going to be there too, swimming and performing in the huge fish tank! So on Saturday, we took the girls to see them. They thought it was really awesome! Nana Mimi remembered it being a little more exciting than it was on Saturday....but it was still amazing! During bathtime last night both girls pretended to be the mermaids!

Fun with Cooper in Kiawah

Cooper had his spring break last week and so we drove to Kiawah on Wednesday after the girl's Easter party at school so that the kiddos could play together before they left on Friday. They have so much fun together! The weather was COLD so that let out any swimming but we did make it to the beach once (for a TINY bit...before we all got too cold because it was SO windy!). The kids thought it was the best ever to ride their bikes on the beach! They had some bike races around Nana and BopBop's street and the girls even did some painting in BopBop's paint studio wearing Aunt Laurlee's and my old painting smocks from when we were little! So fun!

Long Boat Key!

We got back last night from a fantastic long weekend in Long Boat Key! Aunt Kylie, Uncle Matt and Grace and Greta were there for their spring break all the way from Seattle. We hadn't seen them in over a year...way, way too long! So we drove down on Friday and had so much fun with everyone! We spent most of our time in the pool or at the beach! One morning we drove down towards Anna Maria Island to see if we could find the peacocks that roam around the neighborhoods there. And we did! The girls thought they were hysterical. It was really fun to see!
Grace and Greta were absolutely incredible with the girls and took such good care of them. It was awesome to see how much they've grown up! They are so beautiful inside and out! Grandpa David and Stephanie took everyone out to dinner at the Long Boat Key Club on Friday night and then on Saturday night we had a barbeque down by the beach at the condo. It was a blast and they even had a cake for the girl's birthday! It was such a fun weekend and went by way too fast! We miss them all already!

 Grace and Reagan in the pool

 Cousins at the beach...burying R and R in the sand!

 The FINAL birthday celebration...for real this time!

 I wish you could see how beautiful the sunset is over my right shoulder...it was unreal.

 Such a crazy crew!!!!

 Love these girls!!!!

Birthday Party at SweetFrog (the ice cream shop)

One of Reagan and Riley's favorite places (besides Bob Evans and Bruccis) is the frozen yogurt shop in Jacksonville Beach called SweetFrog. It's one of those places that you can pick your flavor of ice cream and then pile as many treats on top as you want to. It's all pink and green and there are frogs everywhere and they ask to go all of the time. I was originally going to skip a birthday party this year...mostly because they have a tendency to get out of hand and I really didn't want the girls to get too overwhelmed by the whole thing (or assume that every year I'm going to throw them a huge party!). So Matt came up with the great idea to have them ask a couple of friends to meet us at Sweet Frog for some ice cream one afternoon. One of their friends, Jack couldn't come but we had their friends Joshua, Nathan and their twin friends Luke and Kinsey. Everyone was three years old and it was perfect. They could make as big of a mess as they wanted to (because it wasn't my house!) and it was over in less than an hour which is perfect for a three year old's attention span! Their adorable friends all brought them gifts and we all had a great time. The only negative was when the frog mascot made an appearance and none of the kids were too thrilled about it! (It really was kind of a creepy frog if you ask me) But besides that...everyone had a great time! Success!!!! And once again...next year I'll plan it when Matt's not out of town so that he can enjoy it too...but thank goodness for Nana Mimi being in town because it would have been tricky by myself!!!

 We had little sand pail goodie bags for the kids filled with frog things and sunglasses...hence the reason they're all wearing them in this picture!

Here is Reagan with Nathan. The girls tell us every day that one of them is his girlfriend. It changes every day who it is. Think we'll need to watch out for this one!!!

Celebrating the birthday at school....

On the Wednesday after the girl's birthday they were invited to celebrate their birthday at Chapel at school! We were so lucky to have Nana Mimi drive down to come with us. It was really cute. They got to go up to the front of the church in front of the entire school and sing songs, help light the Advent candles and blow them out and talk in the microphone about what they did on their birthday. They also got a book for their birthday (that they can bring home but then bring back to school to donate to the school library). Reagan was pretending for awhile like she wasn't going to go up...yeah right. She was shy at first but by the end was dancing on the stage like she owned the place. Riley was so excited to go up and talked about it non-stop for days beforehand. When the big moment came she was NOT going anywhere unless I went up there with her. So...I did. It was super cute and they get to do it every year on their birthdays. I'm assuming next year they'll be more comfortable with it and I won't have to be up there with them! When Chapel was over (they go to Chapel every single Wednesday at school...I love that they do that), they went back to their classroom and shared a birthday treat with their friends (cookies that we brought in). Next year we'll plan it for when Matt isn't out of town so that he can come too!!