At the end of this week begins our week of vacation – so we have plenty to do to get ready to head to the beach for a week!
Reid continues to smile so bright. It’s just so cute and I love that he is recognizing our voices and faces. He is often quite happy and all smiles after he eats, even when it is 3 in the morning!
Reid has also become a master of getting his arms out of either the swaddle me or when he has been wrapped tightly in a blanket. His go to position is to have his hands up behind his ears.
I know I’ve posted a picture similar to this before, but I just think it is so cute that Griffin still loves to play with his baby toys. And I love the memory it brings to mind of Griffin being so happy and bouncy when playing in this toy in our bathroom while Kevin and I would get ready in the mornings when he was say 7 or 8 months old. 
Griffin is really in to taking pictures lately. While this isn’t a glamorous photo it’s pretty much what every morning looks like around here and I figure it will be good to look back on some day!
Here are several photos this week with Reid and Griffin together. Griffin loves helping and often when he sees me taking a picture of Reid he’ll say “I want in the picture”. It’s getting easier to get a photo with them both looking and I love these pics!
We had decided that this year for vacation we would load the car the night before (a first!) and we would leave on Reid’s schedule. Basically whenever he awoke for his early morning feeding we would feed him and then head down the road. Our best case scenario came true! Reid woke up at 5 and I fed him and then pumped while Kevin fed the dogs, packed up our over night things, and got the last minute things in the car. I went in and got Griffin and we all piled in the car. It seems like that would be pretty quick – but it took us over an hour! We rolled out of our driveway at 6:19 am – yay! We did, however, turn around twice and then stopped at Tim Horton’s for coffee and breakfast treats. In any case, we were happy with our early take off time this year.
Reid was a champion traveler. He slept his typical good morning sleep and ate 4 hours from when we left (so 5 hours from his last feeding, yay!) and we were able to make it to the Tamarack exit for a pit stop. I was starving, though it was only 10:15 in the morning, and Kevin and Griffin got me a tasty salad while I stayed in the car to feed Reid. Altogether we stopped 3 times before arriving at our traditional stop at Sharky’s in Ocean Isle Beach. Reid awoke screaming about 3 minutes from our final destination. It was an ideal travel day to say the least. 
Reid is using his hands and grabbing on to things more (blankets, his bed blanket, shirts, hair, etc). He’s really been watching his hands as he is learning they are his and that he can make them do things! When I enter the room and he hears my voice he regularly turns his head to try to find me. He is definitely tracking people father in the room. I’ve really begun to space out his feedings and sleeping. Several times he has gone 6 hours between feedings at night and he regularly goes 3 1/2 hours during the day with one or two feedings at two hour intervals. This week I also spent time switching out newborn clothes for 3-6 month clothes – what?! He is only 2 months old! But he can fill out a 6 month onesie pretty well 🙂
After we arrived at the hotel in Durham all of the kiddos went swimming in the pool. It was a bit cold until you got moving! I sat out with Reid and watched 🙂
After dinner at Elmo’s Diner we walked to Locopops for yummy popsicle treats. The next morning we all enjoyed breakfast at the hotel before getting on our way to Sharky’s. 
Griffin fell asleep about a half hour away from Ocean Isle Beach – typical!
So. Much. Stuff. Seriously our van was packed with so much stuff! By looking at it you would think we were leaving for a month! Oh, and me wearing my glasses as I developed a stye in my left eye the day before we left for vacation. I also woke up on Thursday morning before we left feeling a scratchy throat. Kevin had been sick the previous couple of days as well and it seems I got something similar. Ugh. The first few days of vacation I wasn’t feeling ideal but fortunately it didn’t last too long. 
After we all settled in to the beach house (and held Reid, lol) we headed down to the ocean! It was SUPER windy and the kiddos were full of energy after having been held up in a car seat for most of the day. It is always fun to see the joy they have in the ocean and also pure anxiety as they are fearless and run around in the rough waves with no fear!
W.I.P.E.D out on his first night. He was in a super deep sleep 🙂
Mom and Dad once again brought containers of fun toys for the kids. The straws and jacks were quite popular. The kids used their imaginations to build helmets, swords, shields, boats, trailers, steering wheels, and so many other things. 
The beach was windy as usual and Reid isn’t a fan of breeze in general so we laid him down in the tent. It was, however, hot and stagnant air in there! So after a bit we took him out and took his swim shirt off and he just hung with us out in the chairs under the umbrellas. He pretty much slept through most of our time at the beach. This year Griffin was all about the sand and digging his hands in it, wanting to throw it like a baseball, sinking his feet into it. Every time I’d look at him he was digging his hands through it. Photo credits to Amy, as she took several of the next images, as I’m sure you can tell when you see them as they are far more artistic than mine!
Here is this years annual beach pajama photo with each of the kids wearing their new pjs. Even Reid got in on the fun when Amy had the idea for them to each lay down on a different step, It turned out awesome!
Until next week!
Lily is doing well and this week went in to have her Mast Cell Tumor removed. Everything went well and we will hear in a week or less the grade of the tumor (our hope is a low-grade tumor meaning it is localized and hasn’t spread). She has to wear the cone of shame for another two weeks. Thankfully this girl is a rock star with her cone. She is gentle with it (not blasting into things) and doesn’t mind wearing it. Sometimes I let her get comfy in her crate and then put it on her as it can be a bit difficult to turn around inside her crate with it on! Her incision was pretty large as they have to remove a large area around the tumor to ensure they get all of the tumor by taking the good skin around it as well. 
After we picked Lily up on Saturday morning we quickly went home to drop her off and then headed to the fun annual Powell Easter Egg Hunt at Village Green Park. It was a beautiful and sunny morning and there were TONS of eggs so Griffin took home quite a bit of candy!
You can’t tell by the looks of their faces but this picture was taken at 4:45 in the morning at the airport! We’ve been looking forward to our trip to Florida for a really long time! Our day started really early as we woke up at 3:20 am (after having turned the lights out at 1:30 am) to begin our trek. We gave Lily and Brutus a small bit of breakfast, packed up the car with our bags, and took off for the airport. This is the least amount of baggage we’ve ever taken on a trip! Kevin and Finn shared a suitcase, I had one, and Finn had a small roller bag with his lovies and blanket and books and such in it. Kevin had his briefcase and I had a purse and that was it! So we didn’t check any bags for this flight. I was pretty impressed, I honestly didn’t think we’d make that happen. Griffin was excited for this plane ride, it is his second one, and he was all smiles once we got on the plane. It was still dark out (we departed at 6 am) so we couldn’t see too much but he got the window seat anyhow. He didn’t nap at all on the flight, instead he played games and watched a couple shows on his tablet. 
When we arrived in Ft. Myers it was cloudy and raining. Mom and Dad picked us up at the airport and we headed toward Siesta Key, stopping for breakfast (which seemed like the lunch hour to us!) at Cracker Barrel. After we arrived at their condo we hung out and then headed to the beach, as we thought we had a break in the weather. Not so much! It was windy and cool so we didn’t last too long! Finn did play for a short bit at the awesome playground they have at the beach area. 
Finn loved checking out the pool at the Condo with Grandpa (and splashing through the puddles to get there!). Compared to the air temp the pool felt super warm!
After a long morning the boys (cousins and daddy included) all enjoyed naps while watching a show. They were in deep sleep here!
Over the next few days we enjoyed lots of delicious food, ice cream, time at the beach and at the pool. We arrived in Florida a few days before the Bethune’s departed so we could all hang together for a couple of days. It was a great time!
We stayed at a hotel in Venice, a short half hour drive to Siesta Key. We started each morning with a yummy breakfast at the hotel 🙂
The water temperature was right around 70 degrees. It definitely felt cool when you first dipped your toes, but after a couple of minutes it didn’t feel so cold. We didn’t go “swimming” in the ocean but we definitely played a lot in the water and walked in up to our bellies!
One day after arriving at the beach some yelled “Kevin!”. As it turns out Kevin’s second cousin, Patrick, who lives in Ohio, was sitting directly behind us (literally 10 feet) at the beach! This is a huge and crowded beach so the fact that we were sitting right beside one another was crazy! Not to mentioned we had no idea they were in Florida and vice versa! Patrick was there with his family for winter break and his mom, Lauren, was there too. So we all hung out for a bit, fun times! 
One evening at dinner we celebrated moms 70th birthday! Wowzer, how can that be? Amy and I and the kiddos had met up at home a few weeks ago and the kids made a hand-printed platter for her. They each chose the color for their handprint and the stem of their flower has the number of leaves to represent their age when we painted it. On the back they each chose a “bug” to paint and they each wrote their names! It turned out super cute. 
When Grandma Kirk lived in Sarasota one of her favorite restaurant’s that we would go to when we visited was a place called Millie’s. We had a morning girls breakfast there while the guys made a breakfast for the guys at the condo 🙂 They are known for their apricot stuffed french toast – so that’s what I had!
Griffin had his first real taste of fish while we were in Florida. We went out for dinner at Phillipi Creek where Kevin ordered Red Snapper and Finn enjoyed several bites. 
On Saturday morning the Bethune’s headed back to Ohio and we moved from hotel in Venice to the Condo in Siesta Key. Later that morning my cousin Missy, and her husband Dave, and their kids Lindsey and Maggie came to visit. They live in Vero Beach, FL, but had been in Apollo Beach about an hour north of Siesta Key. So we hung out for the afternoon mostly at the beach. Griffin loved playing with the girls and really enjoyed playing football at the beach. Kevin had stayed back at the condo as he was very pink from sunburn! They also came back on Sunday and we met up at the local Art Fair in downtown Siesta Key and had a nice lunch together there too. Then they headed out and we went home to get Kevin ready to fly back home for a few days of work. He sent us a pic of our condo from the sky!
On Sunday there is a drum circle at the beach, so after Dad returned from taking Kevin to the airport we walked over to the beach and checked out all the action. Lots of people (and good people watching, lol!). 
