South Padre

While Tony was gone last week Madelyn learned how to blow raspberries. It's her favorite thing to do now. A couple weeks ago she started grabbing at the toys on her play mat and now she can grab on to a rattle and play with it for a few minutes. She's also started laughing more and I've discovered that she's very, very ticklish in her arm pits. I love tickling her and watching her squirm and giggle. She's such a cutie!

I had to box up all of her newborn and 3 month old clothing yesterday and it made me a little sad. They grow so fast! We also finished getting her room all ready for her now that Ava's slept successfully in her big girl bed for a week now. Well semi-successfully anyhow. She still has a hard time falling asleep at nap time. Yesterday, after she laid in bed talking for an hour, I went in and rubbed her back and sang hymns to her for about 15 minutes until she fell asleep. I haven't sang her to sleep since she was a tiny baby. She always preferred just being left alone and didn't want me rubbing her back. It was good for my soul.

It was crazy setting up Ava's crib for a baby though. Raising up the mattress, putting the bumper and mobile back on the crib and getting the changing table all set up. It seems like a decade ago we were doing all that before Ava was born and struggling to comprehend that in a few weeks we'd actually have a real, live baby sleeping in there. Now it's hard to imagine life without a baby.

A few weeks ago we were able to go to South Padre Island for a little family vacation. Tony was sharing at a church there and some friends of ours from our church here had moved down there and offered to let us stay in their beautiful condo while they were out of town.

Thanks to Dora the Explorer we made the 10 hour drive there and back (which with frequent stops to feed Madelyn took more like 13) without mishap and had a wonderful time together as a family at the beach. The first morning we went walking on the beach and Ava was so excited. The love of the ocean is in her blood and she wasn't afraid at all and just charged right into the water in her sundress.

The weather wasn't wonderful but we did get to spend one whole afternoon at the beach (where Ava spent a lot of time in the water with her dad and building sandcastles and Madelyn hung out in her stroller in the shade), swim a couple times in the condo's pool, walk around the town a bit and just relax and enjoy our time together. On Sunday Tony shared about GFA with Island Baptist church and we had such a great time with the body there and having lunch with the pastor and his wife afterward. Tony even got to go night fishing in the bay with the pastor the next night and brought home a gallon Ziplock bag full of fresh fish for us to take home.

Here's some pictures of our trip.

I love vacation!

All ready to head out to the beach.

What's taking everyone so long? Let's go!

Vacation is all about the naps.

Ava color coordinating her shape sorter pieces to the bar stools.

She was a little bothered that there was not a correct stool color for each block but she finally conceded that the pink piece could share with the blue piece on the blue stool and that the purple piece would have to go on the yellow stool.

I was super happy that we were able to take some pictures of the girls in their matching dresses in this beautiful house. And even happier that we made it through the weekend of beautiful breakables, all tile floors and snow white couches without ruining anything.

I don't know why but this one makes me laugh.

My sister's on the shelf!