Siesta Key Vacation Pictures

I’m sorry it is taking me so long to post pictures. I just don’t know where the time goes!!

Below are the pictures from the trip to Florida we took in May with Scott’s family. The trip was a Christmas present from Scott’s parents. We went down for a wedding of one of their best friend’s son, and some of their other friends were down as well. We all stayed at a place called Midnight Cove on Siesta Key, which is right next to Sarasota. We had a really great time and actually got to rest a little bit, which was a much needed change of pace. We mainly spent our days at the beach, pool, napping and of course EATING!! I think the pictures should tell the story, but the girls loved the beach and the pool. They just couldn’t get enough. And if you think a one-year-old would be scared of the ocean…think again. NOT our little Seville! Since she has tubes in her ears and can’t get her head entirely wet we spent the whole week holding her back and keeping her head above water. If it weren’t for us I have no doubt in my mind that she would already know how to swim. She has NO FEAR!! Just check out the pics of her literally crawling as fast as she can into the ocean! And on the top of the list of Hadley’s favorite things were the lizards (which you can see some pics of too!) Funny story…one day her and Scott caught one and she wanted to show it to Grandma Sue Sue and her friends, so Scott carried it into the condo of one of Susie’s friends and everyone was admiring the little lizard that they later named Olivia. About that time Hadley reached up to pet Olivia and it jumped right out of Scott’s hands and scurried under the dishwasher never to be seen again. We felt so bad that they had to sleep in the condo with a lizard for the rest of the week, but figured it probably wasn’t the first lizard that snuck its way in! Anyway, if you are looking to do a relaxed beach vacation in the US, Siesta Key should definitely be on your list!!

BTW…sorry there are so many pics, but I just don’t have time to narrow them down!

T-Ball

First, I forgot to upload Hadley's b-day party invite to share. I thought you might all want to take a look. She had a High School Musical themed party, so I made the invite look like a ticket. For any of you that don't know, the first song in HSM2 says, "What time is it? Summer time!" So I just did a spin off of that. I thought it turned out pretty cute! What do you think?

Now...on to t-ball, which funny enough is already a thing of the past. The pictures below are all from her first game, but the top one if by far my favorite! It is the truest representation of "how" four-year-old girls "play" t-ball! Isn't that cute!! Well, to make a long story short, Hadley never asked us to play t-ball. Everyone on the street was signing up their kids to play on the same team, so of course I just jumped on the bandwagon and Scott agreed. After watching scenes like the one below and having her tell us repeatedly that she "just wants to dance and do gymnastics!" we called the coach and said we were done!! If she ever chooses/asks to do something I think it is important for her to stick it out, but since this wasn't her choice in the slightest we didn't have a problem letting her call it quits!! At least we have some way cute pics to show for the $$ we spent. Owell...ya live and ya learn! Now Seville on the other hand will probably BEG us to play t-ball. If only I could get them to just hold our money for a few years!

Hadley's 4th Birthday!

Believe it or not, I now have EVERY picture from the past TWO MONTHS off of my camera and uploaded to Picasa. YEAH!! Let me just warn you that there are a TON of pictures. If I gave them all to you at once you would 1) not have the time to look at them, and 2) be totally bored…so, I will give you a little dose everyday until we are all caught up. That way you have something to look forward to! HA!! I figure at the rate I am going we might as well just start with the present and go backwards, so below you will find pictures from Hadley’s 4th birthday this week!

Tuesday, June 3rd, was her actual birthday. First thing that morning we let her open most of her presents from Scott and me. Her main gift was a pink refrigerator to go with the rest of her set from Pottery Barn Kids that she got for Christmas. We also “upgraded” her to some wooden food, got her some new Pip Squeak Markers and a black ballet skirt. After opening gifts it was off to school for her fun day at Ms. B’s. Ms. B makes it very special for the kids on their birthday. Pretty much the whole day is a party and they get to pick out what they want to eat, open gifts with all of their friends, have dessert, etc. Hadley had a blast! That afternoon I picked her and Alyson up from school a little early and then we came back to the house to open a few more gifts from us (more accessories for her kitchen!) Ya know what is funny…Seville has had just as much fun playing with these “big girl gifts” as Hadley. My mom always comments on how Seville has no age appropriate toys like Hadley did at her age, but Seville doesn’t want them. She spent literally an hour this morning stirring nothing in Hadley’s new stainless steel pots and pans. She just loves to cook (like her sister), which is funny because neither of them get it from Scott or me!

That evening we took Hadley out to eat at Stix (a hibachi grill) with all of her grandparents and the Imboden’s. It was a really great time. The girls loved to watch them cook and they even sang to Hadley with drums and all (she was most impressed with that!) You have got to check out the pictures of all of us catching shrimp…they are too funny. We got some great shots of the shrimp actually in mid air! After dinner we came back to the house to open gifts from the grandparents and Imboden’s. Hadley is truly blessed and loved and got so much great stuff!!



The celebration continued on Saturday with her friend party at the Matt Ross Community Center indoor water park. It was such a blast and I cannot say enough good things about the facility. I only wish we were lucky enough to have one close to us!! We had about 35 people at the party including people from Ms. Gail’s, Ms. B’s, the cul-de-sac, cousins, long-time friends, family, etc. Thank you to everyone for coming! It was kind of crazy because they recommend doing the party portion first (cake/presents) and then go swimming (which is kind of opposite of what we normally do), and all of the kids could see the pool so they could really care less about anything but getting in that pool ASAP! Needless to say we rushed through it all and I even forgot to give the kids juice boxes with their cake AND their party favors! I felt really bad, but hopefully no one noticed!! It all just FLEW by and everyone was so tired when it was over!

Back by popular demand…HA!!!

Hi everyone!! I’m back!! Did you miss me? I’m sorry it has been so long since I last posted, but life has just been crazy and when something has to give I guess it needs to be the blogging. I figure there is no sense stressing myself out more over something that is suppose to be fun!!

Anyway, just to give you a little glimpse as to why I have not been blogging here is just a quick recap of May 9th-17th…it was a doozy of a week!!

May 9th: Work all day, spend all night preparing for the garage sale the next day…we wanted to get rid of a lot of our baby stuff!!

May 10th: Get up at the crack of dawn and haul everything over to the Imboden’s for the garage sale. It was FREEZING, but we did manage to get rid of a lot of our baby stuff and make a little money!! That night was actually our last chance to run any errands before our trip (which was still a week away), so we spent the evening doing that!

May 11th: Mother’s Day! Scott and the kids woke me up early to give me my card and a gift certificate for a massage (when things finally calm down a bit!) Then we ran around the rest of the day visiting and spending time with all of our wonderful mom’s!! We didn’t get back until 7:30 and still hadn’t eaten or given the kids baths! UGH!!

May 12th: Work! Parent’s As Teachers meeting for Seville! Scott was out of town traveling for business, so nothing really got done that night because I didn’t have a lot of extra hands!

May 13th: Work, t-ball practice and start packing…because there would be very little time between then and when we left to go to Florida!

May 14th: Work and last dance practice for Hadley in the studio before her first recital! Kristi and I took the girls out to eat afterwards because it might be their last dance class together…Hadley really likes dance more, but Alyson likes gymnastics more…which is funny because we actually thought it would be the opposite since Kristi danced and I did gymnastics!

May 15th: Work, take Hadley’s pre-school class on a field trip to see Funky Mamma at Wonderscope, and volunteer to watch/help Hadley’s dance class of ten 3 and 4 year-olds at the recital rehearsal from 5:15 p.m.-9:00 p.m. WOW…that wore me out!! Spent a few moments when I got home trying to pack because I was starting to freak out about it. Oh yeah, and Scott had to squeeze in mowing the lawn that night or we would have been living in a jungle by the time we got home!

May 16th: Work and Hadley’s first dance recital! She was of course in full costume and full make-up, so we wanted to squeeze in pictures, etc.!! We got home about 9:30 and then stayed up to finish packing. We also had to make sure the dog was all set-up for us to be gone, etc. Basically, what I have decided is that you need a vacation from getting ready to leave on vacation! And then on some vacations you need a vacation from your vacation. Regardless, vacations always seem worth it while you are there!

May 17th: Got up at 4:00 a.m. to leave on vacation with: two adults, two kids, two car seats, one stroller, 4 checked bags, one carry-on a piece for me, Scott and Hadley, my diaper bag/purse and the camera bag!!! WOW!!! Talk about fun going through security!!

So anyway, it is weeks like that that keep me from blogging, and unfortunately they seem to keep getting more and more common. Take into account squeezing in stuff like laundry, taxing kids around, keeping the house clean, etc. and there is little time for anything but catching a few zzzzs now and then! I am sure most of you already feel this way, but now I have officially joined the ranks of busy mom everywhere! Just when you think life can’t get any busier it does!! Like now Hadley is doing t-ball three times a week…two games and one practice…seems a bit much to me for a preschooler, but owell…we live and we learn!

I will try to do some catching up and posting of pics in the next week or so, but for now I will leave you with a little glimpse of our vacation. We arranged for a family photo session on the beach. After getting rained out on Monday night we took the pictures on the Wednesday night of our trip, and between the kids not smiling (I was jumping around like a crazy woman getting Seville to smile), the wind, water, sand, humidity, clouds, no real sunset, my hair blowing everywhere and looking nothing like it did when I actually styled it, etc., I didn’t think the pictures would be good at all, but surprisingly enough I am really happy with them. #214 is my favorite family shot! There are so many cute ones of the girls I will just let you pick your favorites. Let me know what you think!

www.pbase.com/jacquelynmarie
Click on "The Skinner Families"
password: kenna

BTW…our little Hadley is turning 4 tomorrow!! Can you believe it!! More on that later when I have time to post pics. Also stay tuned for pics from the dance recital, Seville walking (yes, finally!) a hot air balloon landing on our street, vacation pics, and much, much more!!