How Does Your Garden Grow?

About a month ago, Noah watched an episode of Sesame Street where the "word on the street," was GARDEN.  Noah is a huge fan of the "word on the street."  He gets so excited to learn a new words and add to his vocabulary.  So, don't be surprised if he asks you, "what's the word on the street?" 

Have I mentioned that my parents have the best back yard ever?!?  Grammy also has lots of gardens, so I figured our recent visit was the perfect opportunity to grow some flowers.  I picked these up from a local nursery.  I was going for rainbow colors, but Noah really wanted to include some pink. 

And off we go.  Step one.  Get some dirt.  Sand toys make an awesome fill in for gardening tools in a pinch. 

Noah was such an awesome helper.  He carried the bucket of dirt and his shovel all the way from the shed to the playhouse. 

I cleared out all the old dirt and leaves, and Noah poured in all the fresh dirt.  In all honesty, it was both his and my first time planting flowers.  I think we had some awesome teamwork going.

Ready to "grow some flowers."  I did the planting, but of course, there is no photo evidence.  I have to admit... somewhat fun.  Maybe I should attempt this in our own garden. 

Admiring our handiwork.

A Walk on the Beach

Before the rain, the whole crew headed to the beach for a walk. Noah and Pa Pa hand in hand.

Emma's first trip to the beach.

 

Shoes were kicked off immediately.

And a rather large stick was procured.

And, off we go.

Marking the path to find our way home.

The end of the island.

The Big Island

As a child, we spent many a summer vacation visiting Grand Isle.  We stayed at a camp right on the bay with a long dock.  We'd swim and ski.  Take boat rides and fish.  The adults would cook and drink beer. We'd play cards and watch movies on the Beta Max and a couple years later the trusty VCR.  At night, we'd have talent shows, which I'm pretty sure I always won.  I think my last trip to Grand Isle was for senior trip in high school.  Well, that was quite a while ago, and as many great memories that I have from all those trips, it took several invites from my sister before I finally accepted and took the kids down for a weekend.  Alright Mo... I should have accepted sooner.  It was really fun, and Noah had a blast.  Being February and with a really bad storm coming through there was no swimming or fishing, but there was lots of chilling and eating and of course, a talent show.  What a great weekend!

All the cousins were there.  From the oldest to the youngest.

Even Daddy made a cameo

Group hug from Noah.

Storms rolling in.

Enjoying a lot of marshmallows on the porch with Zack.

Ready for our beach walk.

Noah's favorite spot.  He didn't venture very far, but loved running and jumping around the porch.

Grammy and Pa Pa with all the grand kids.

Love outtakes.

Emma Goes Camping

Emma was so happy to spend a few days not in the car.  Or was that Momma. Whatever the case, Emma was carseat free our entire visit to Mississippi.  And, it's amazing what happens when she has time to play.  We are going to go ahead and put a check in the crawling box at the absurdly young age of five and a half months.  Where do you want to go at five and a half months, Little Miss?

Zack or boy number two (as Noah refers to him) was happy to hang out with Emma during her floor time sessions.

I love this picture!

There was also no shortage of people wanting to hold this sweet baby girl.

Swinging on the porch with Grammy.

Chatting with PaPa.

Hiking with Aunt Mo.

Zachary sporting the Baby Bjorn.

M-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-I-Humpback-Humpback-I

No sooner had I hit "publish post" on my post about Noah's bout with car sickness, I started to feel a little queasy.  And, at 11:00 PM, over 12 hours since this stomach bug/car sickness blipped on my little boys radar for all of two seconds, I got knocked on my butt.  I was sick all night and could barely get out of bed on Wednesday.  Thank you to my fabulous husband who stayed home from work and left me alone all day Wednesday to try to recoup.  By Thursday, I was feeling a ton better, and by Friday, I felt the pressure was happy to keep my plans to travel to Mississippi to hang in the woods with my sister and her boys. 

The drive was about two hours longer than my normal trips to Louisiana, but I was planning to meet up with the my parents and sister about an hour and half from the campsite.  Get this.  Five miles before my exit to meet the family, I get stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.  It took me forty-five minutes to get to my exit.  Emma was crying the whole time.  Her crying woke up Noah who was covering his ears in the backseat.  We finally make it to our exit, and I hear this small voice from the back seat, "Momma, I'm sick."  And, he was.  Again.  For the record, graham cracker vomit is way easier to clean up than strawberry vomit.  Both totally gross and not fun, but if I had a choice.  Just saying. 

Thankfully, reinforcements were about a mile away and helped me clean up and get Emma fed.  I may or may not have had a slight breakdown at this point, but seriously, I don't like sick, and there was way too much of it going around this past week.  We made it to Mississppi, and the day dawned with one super excited little boy ready to do some stick gathering exploring.

The land of a million sticks.

Treasures found.

The boys took turns chasing Noah around the property.  Talk about some cardio.

Thanks Aunt Mo for convincing me to come.  Noah had a blast "camping."

Quote of the weekend: "Momma, you want to build a tree house?"

He wasn't kidding.

Great Wolf Lodge

Noah had a fall break from school, so Daddy took vacation, and we headed out of town. North. To the GREAT WOLF LODGE. OWHHHH!

That's a big yawn, Noah.  What's a family vacation without a bit of late night travel?  Here we are arriving at the Great Wolf Lodge sometime around midnight.  Kudos to Daddy for the driving.

Kudos to Emma for following in her brother's footsteps and being a rock star traveler. 

We stayed in a Kid Cabin. Noah had his own bunk bed area. He loved it and slept great. Hmmm... Maybe we should sell our house and move to a hotel.

The water park was very fun. And, although he had to be coerced every day to get into his swimsuit. Noah had a blast once he was in the water.

Daddy and I took turns taking Noah down to the water park.  Noah loved the wave pool, the lazy river, and most of all the toddler area. 

Daddy even got a chance to ride a few of the "taller than 48" rides.

His limit usual maxed out at around an hour and a half. Then he would say to me, "I'm soaking wet. You want to get dressed."

Noah did have an injury day one. While going down one of the bigger kiddie slides solo. He got a huge blister on his hand. My guess is that he put his hand down on the slide to slow down. It looked like it really hurt and combined with how tired he was, there was a bit of drama over the wound later  in the day.

After a nap, he rebounded with a trip to build a bear and the Sea Life aquarium. We didn't want to miss out on using our annual pass.

Noah's favorite part of the lodge was the game room. And, his favorite game in the game room was the Spongebob game. It was actually not much of a game at all, but more like a token stealer stingy ticket giver kind of machine. It ate plenty of our tokens, but luckily, it spit out enough tickets to keep Noah in full supply of lollipops over the weekend.

I think Emma enjoyed our trip too. She started belly laughing this weekend.  And, Daddy was so happy to be there to see it.  She also spent lots of time in the carrier helping Momma chase big brother, and she got lots of extra snuggle time with Momma trying to add a few pounds.

She's a huge fan of the outward facing position in the carrier and loves to watch everything going on around her.

Home

It's not very often our whole family makes the trip to Louisiana together. This trip had a rocky start.  A massive rainstorm in Thursday rush hour traffic delayed us getting out of Houston and a hazmat incident on I-10 added another two hours of delay to our already longer than usual drive. We ended up stopping for the night and started our Friday morning with a fresh perspective and ready for the weekend. And, what a fun weekend it turned out to be. It reminded us how much we miss our families. And, although we've made our home in Texas, Louisiana is still home too. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

Emma came home with a definite case of arm-itis.

There is never a shortage of arms wanting to hold her.

Noah completely crashed one afternoon after spending the day at Grandma and Grandpas's house. The couch in Grammy's sun room seemed a most cozy spot.

Uncle D showing off his baby whispering skills while watching LSU football on Saturday.

 

Daddy took Noah swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Um... no he can't touch or swim, and Daddy was the only person in the pool.

And, then more swimming with the girls at Grammy's house. Floaties required this time.

There is always someone willing to go outside and play.  Momma surely appreciates all the extra hands willing to give Noah a push on the swing. 

There is always lots of fun and laughing.  Here is Brooke showing off her 80's punk look.

Noah dug this wig out of one of the girl's rooms.  Silly Noah.

And, we got to visit with some cousins from out of town.

Awwhh...sha.