Myrtle Beach!

We drove down to Wilmington, North Carolina, where Andrew's parents live, and stayed with them for a couple of days then we all headed down to Myrtle Beach. Andrew's sister Jessica was also visiting so it was fun for her to meet Penelope and get to see Eleanor for the first time in over a year.

The drive was about 11 hours and the girls did great.

On our trip we ate way too much fast food and Eleanor became very well-acquainted with playplaces and Ronald McDonald!

We had such a fun time in Myrtle Beach! Eleanor and Penelope LOVED the beach and LOVED going to the pool everyday. They both want to look at pictures and movies from our trip everyday. It was so fun to watch them have such a fun time. Probably one of my favorite things about being a mom is watching my kids get excited about things!

Penelope's favorite part about the beach was the sand. She loved digging in it and then climbing in and out of any hole that she made. Eleanor loved running in and out of the waves. She also loved looking for shells, but she got super frustrated when sand would get on her hands so she'd run over and rinse them off in the waves.

We did a lot of swimming...

And of course lots of lounging by the pool...

And why, might you ask, does Penelope look so content in these last two pictures? Because she was having her new favorite food of cheese and breadstick dipper things. You know, the little plastic package you open up and dip the mini breadsticks in the fake cheese (definitely not Gerber approved). It was one of Andrew's requested snack items for our road trip, but turns out Penelope is a big fan, too!

Eleanor also discovered a new snack: jumbo sized pixie stick!
It was a little kid craft by the pool. Luckily, she was more interested in it being a magic wand than consuming all of the sugar inside of it.

We didn't do much besides the beach and pool and that's ok with me.
However, we did manage to squeeze in a visit to Chuck E. Cheese!

I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but we had such a fun time! :)

Summer Lovin'

Here's how we've spent our summer so far:

Lots of trips to the zoo. Eleanor is actually smiling for a picture!! Can you believe it??


Lots of popcorn and Icees at Target... (with our friend Katherine)


(Eleanor reenacting her brain freeze)

"Reading" the children's hymbook...

Lots of organizing... (Done by Eleanor, not me. She is quite particular about where things go and how you're "supposed" to do things)

Lots of Dance Central on our new Kinect that we got for Andrew's birthday...

We celebrated Andrew's birthday at a baseball game. His work has their summer picnic at the ball game every year. We even stuck it out during the pouring rain, it was quite the adventure.

Instead of a traditional birthday cake, Andrew opted for "The Screamer" (a pound of brownies, 30 scoops of ice cream, topped with whip cream and sprinkles!!) Don't worry, I didn't let Andrew eat it all on his own, although I think he probably could have. We had some help from our friends that were with us!

Penelope wasn't really sure about the fireworks after the game...

We got to celebrate the 4th of July with my mom, 2 brothers Jacob and Freddie, and my sister Amy. They drove up from New Orleans. It was so fun to have them here!!! Eleanor thinks uncle "do-do" is so funny. Unfortunately this is the only picture I got of our company:(

Freddie also spent one of the days cutting our grass and weeding and edging.
I don't think our yard has ever looked so nice.

Of course we had ourselves a nice little bar-b-q...

Penelope decided 4th of July would also be a good day to start walking. She took quite a few steps and can now walk pretty good all on her own! She loved playing with Granny Nanny and my was also pretty attached to my sister Amy and would just cuddle up on her shoulder. She is such a sweet baby!

It's always so hard to say goodbye to family, so my mom had the great idea for us to drive with them on the next leg of their journey to St. Louis to see my sister Jessica. So Eleanor, Penelope, and I loaded up with my mom and 3 siblings for a 9 hour drive to St. Louis. The girls did surprisingly well on the drive, except for a puking episode courtesy of Penelope. My sister Emily was also visiting with her little girl so we were able to see all my siblings except Laura who was stuck in Provo working (way to be responsible, Laura! we missed you a lot!!) It was so fun to just lounge around and be with family and watch all the little girlie cousins play together. There is only one boy (and one on the way) and 6 little girls. I really wish they could play together more often.

I mainly took videos, but here are some pictures of all the cute kiddos playing...

Grace and Eleanor

We had a little water balloon fun for Ethan's birthday

Lots of dressing up...

Sophie, Grace, Pearce, and Ethan

Eleanor and Sophie doing puzzles

Can't forget about cute little Jane

I think this post is long winded enough so for the play by play
of what we did you can check out Emily's blog :)

When we got home Eleanor kept asking when we were going to Grace's house. She had such a fun time, and now I'm sure our house seems pretty boring. Oh I forgot to mention, on our last day at my sister's house, Eleanor swallowed a quarter!!! Scariest moment of my life. She was choking on it and then was able to swallow it! Who knew you can swallow a quarter??

Also since being back home, Eleanor has dressed up like a princess almost every day...

Andrew also surprised me with an early anniversary present and ordered some crawfish! We had a nice little crawfish boil in our backyard. It was so delicious and definitely will become a new tradition for sure! I keep calling it the first annual Whitman crawfish boil :)

Eleanor was a good little helper and helped Andrew peel all the onions



Finished product = YUM!!


Eleanor kept calling them bugs and opted to just get in her swimsuit and go for a swim!