Beach bums!

Haley and I started out the morning by going to this playground that is just steps from our room. Haley had the best time climbing and sliding and walking all over. I have a feeling we will be doing this every morning.

After her morning nap and some lunch, we made the trip across the highway to the beach. This is the main down side of where we are staying (that the beach is so far away). It's worth it, though, to have all of the other stuff so close to us. Well, based on past beach trips, I thought that Haley wouldn't care a thing about the beach or the sand. In the past, she has hated to have her feet in the ocean and the heat and sun just made her cranky. This time was totally different. She LOVED the ocean. We couldn't get her to go back under the umbrella for anything. Thank goodness we coated her down with sunscreen. She also wouldn't wear her hat no matter how much I begged her. We really had the best time with her.

We put a sheet down for her to sit on, but she just thought it would be better with sand all over it.

The last time she experienced the ocean, she was just a little more than 6 months old. She hated it. It's amazing how much has changed since then. This was her reaction when we put her in this time.

Jumping the waves with da da.

While we were playing, a little boy about her age walked by with his grandparents. She instantly made friends with him. They just looked at each other and pointed for several minutes.

He even tried to kiss her. Boy are we in trouble!

Family shot. A sweet man that was sitting on the beach near us saw that we were taking pictures and offered to get the three of us together. So nice!!

Please notice the look of determination on her face. She was obsessed with getting a handful of sand from the bucket and walking to the water's edge to throw it back in.

Handing sand to da da.

Not only is this a picture of her new hilarious face that she makes, but it shows the creative way that we are having to feed her since we couldn't fit the booster seat in the car. She loves eating this way because she can take a bite and then run all over and come back for a bite when she is ready. I doubt that we will be able to get her to sit in a highchair ever again. It is very messy, though, but it's not our house, right?

The next three pictures are in the little town right outside of our door. We love it here and have taken a nice walk each evening.

Haley finally figured out how to use the remote and point it at the TV. Thank goodness because da da was watching basketball and momma wanted to watch anything but basketball.

On our way! Beach bound.

Yesterday, we left our house and traveled down to Sandestin. Haley has been to the beach twice before with me, but we have never done a beach trip with daddy. Scott and I are so excited to be able to do this and we can't wait to see how Haley will like everything this time around.

Getting ready to leave. She has no idea what fun we are about to have.

She's ready to get in the car and go bye-bye. "Buh bye" is her absolute favorite thing to say right now. She says it constantly when anyone leaves her site.

She is wondering how she is going to fit in there with all of our stuff. We are staying for 5 days, so we have tons of stuff in my not-so-big Accord.

We were packed a little tight. We had to leave a few things behind including her booster seat. We are going to have to be creative when we feed her.

It's like she is saying, "You expect me to ride like this?"

Checking out our condo.

Our condo.

This is our deck view. It's hard to see, but that's a view of the pool. We are staying on the bay side, so we don't have an ocean view. However, there is a little town just steps from our room that has all kinds of shopping, restaurants, and a big playground for kids. It's a fantastic place to stay for a family!

Here she is making friends at the baby pool. She is absolutely a social butterfly. She makes friends anywhere and everywhere we go.

Her favorite pool game is in-and-out. It's very tiring for me.

She started doing this just moments before this picture and kept doing it over and over. I think it's a new sign that she's tired.

We went down to walk around the town and found this fountain. She thought it was hilarious to put her feet in it.

We are going to beat the heat this summer

I have a feeling that Haley and I will be living in her kiddie pool this summer. Today, we used it for the first time and we didn't even notice how hot it really got. It was so nice, that once I put Haley down for her nap, I went and got back in it for a bit. She loved it too and I'm so glad.

She was dancing in this one.

She loves to drink the water for some reason.

It's like she was saying "ahhh" after taking a drink.

More drinking.

I told her not to drink it after the first time, so she looked guilty when I caught her doing it again.

I love this pool!!

Mother's Day

Well, I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with my sweet girl on Mother's Day because of work/sleeping, but she did make me this AMAZING present. I can't tell you how priceless this gift is to me. It brought me to tears.



While I slept, Haley went to the Birmingham Zoo with her Gigi and her daddy. They rode the train and the carousel. The weather was perfect and they had a great time.

Then her Gigi took her to the Botanical Gardens and got some pictures with her in her fancy dresses.

"Talking" on her phone.

She had a great day!

The Memphis Zoo

This past week, Haley and I traveled up to Memphis to visit her Mimi, Pop and Uncle Blake. We had a terrific time, as usual. Haley is always so entertaining and loves the attention that she gets from the whole family. On Wednesday, we braved the heat and went to the Memphis Zoo. It is quite different from the Birmingham Zoo. We were there for a few hours, and only scratched the surface of all there is to do there. We loved every minute of it, though. We saw monkeys, gorillas, polar bears, wolves, panda bears, elephants and several other things. We can't wait to go back to see all that we missed.

Showing Pop the monkeys.

This monkey gave us a close-up look.

Pop, Mimi and Haley looking at some monkeys.

Watching a monkey.

Great Aunt Sandra, Mimi, me, Haley and Pop outside of the Teton Trek that housed the polar bears, seals, wolves and elk.

All of us with Haley's Great Aunt Madeline.

Haley's first time seeing elephants. She loves to try and sound like the elephants by putting her lips together and blowing (kind of like a raspberry noise).

Pop was trying to imitate an elephant.