Leah's Birthday

I think Leah ended up having a great birthday! We didn't have an actual party, but I took her Over the Hedge cake down to the pool and she got to share it with friends and swim for 3 hours....it seemed like a party to her!


This is her opening her presents that morning. Can you tell she has Pink Eye in both eyes? (I didn't know at the time)

When the man was building her dog, she wouldn't even talk to him....acted real goofy.....then I had my camera out, and he goes...smile for the camera....and she did! I guess it takes being scared for someone for her to cooperate!
She named her dog.... Da Da All of our build a bear animals have the goofiest names. She bought him a shrek donkey costume.
My mom came to visit on Saturday and babysit while we worked, and then Sunday after church, we went to the mall and mom took Leah to Build a Bear as her present. Then, we had Dipping Dots afterwards....Noah is making a gross face!!

Leah is 5 today!!!!

Well, these pictures seem to not be in chronological order.....but here she is....my first born daughter! She was born June 5, 2002. She came out with a head full of black hair....(the total opposite of Noah's blond no hair). She was such a good baby from the very beginning. She slept so good the first night, my mom and I kept waking up to check on her in the hospital....then, she slept between Clay and me all night long the first night home....very different from our first night home with Noah. I can remember us both waking up looking at each other saying, "is she o.k." b/c she slept so well. The Lord knew that I needed a good baby. Noah was only 10 months old when she was born.

She inherited Clay's beautiful brown eyes, as did Rachel too, and I was so happy for that!! Leah is so caring to her brother and sister...she definately is the middle child! She has quite the flair for drama, but is also our number one rule follower. She is smart, and loves to learn. I love her so much and am so proud of her! I was really sad today that she is growing up so fast! We had a great day, and I will have to post pictures of our day on here later.

Happy Birthday Leah Nicole!

More swimming pics...

These pictures are a continuation of the the ones I posted of Noah a while back. Again, I am having a hard time narrowing them down, b/c they all crack me up!

I was trying to get one of all 3 of them jumping at the same time....Leah said in this picture they were pulling her in with them. She is always the reluctant one!

My little froggies!

Leah really wants to be able to dive...I can't teach her b/c I never could dive! Right now, she is doing belly busters. She always says it doesn't hurt, and she thinks she is doing it right.

More from the beach......

Yes, I know this is an excessive amount of pictures, but I just have a hard time narrowing them down. I have been struggling lately with enjoying photography...now that it is a job, it is just work to me, and I hate that feeling. But when I am taking pictures of my kids playing, swimming....I enjoy it again. I have an obscene amount of photos of my kids, but that is just me. I got an order in the mail Saturday for 1,000 pictures, and that is just photos from this year! I have been horrible about printing pics since going digital, so that has been my goal for this year to get that all caught up. I ordered the pics from www.photoworks.com. This is where I get all my photos I take for myself. If you order 1,000 at a time, they are only 9 cents each. It took me forever to get my order together....and then they were offering free shipping the weekend I ordered them, so that saved me $25. Now I gotta get to scrapbooking. This should keep me busy for awhile. So, I am caught up with photos for this year, now I just need to get 2004-2006 caught up. There are over 4,000 pics from last year alone to sort out! That is why I gotta get caught up now and stay that way!

So, I guess this post really isn't much about the beach anymore, just sill rambling about pictures.

Oh, and today I have declared Lazy Monday.....I am not doing anything important at all today!! Leah is sick, and tomorrow is her birthday.....and we are going to watch movies all day and play. I never let myself just sit back and enjoy my kids b/c I am too uptight worrying about what all I need to do, and I hate that!

Noah's new favorite thing to do is play golf.

It is amazing that these umbrella's even stayed in place. We had them blocking the sand that was literally blowing in our eyes b/c the wind was so bad....cool waves, NOT fun getting sand in our eyes and mouth!

Notice how her hair is blowing?? I think she was literally about to blow away!

So, I get bored so easily, and when we are waiting on food at a restaurant, guess what I do.....get out the camera!! It actually is a good way to get pics of the kids, b/c they can't run away!! Then, Noah always helps me out to get pics of Clay and me together. As always, Rachel is being herself!