Ocean Isle Beack 2011

We recently got back from our annual trip to my parent's beach house on Ocean Isle Beach, NC and as usual it was amazing. This year it was just our family and my parents so it was unusually quiet and relaxing. Not complaining, just saying. We stayed for two weeks and had so much fun enjoying the beach and having nothing to worry about.

Here some pictures from the trip. Seriously, there are tons, but I tried to just pick my favorites.

Owen, 6 years old

Jack, 3 years old (almost 4)

Emmet, 8 months old

Cute boys

The whole family on the deck.

Owen really started swimming this trip. By the end of the trip, he was swimming underwater, diving, jumping and flipping in to the water.

Jack LOVED swimming in the pool.

The closest your getting to a picture of me in my suit at the beach!

Emmett's "scrunchy face"

Swimming in the pool. Emmett loved the water as well.

Owen catching waves in the ocean.

Last year Jack was a little unsure of the ocean, but this year he loved it and we really had to keep an eye on him or he would just keep going further and further out.

Emmett looks pretty clean here. He actually spent most of the time eating handfuls of sand and had to be hosed off repeatedly.

Thanks Mom and Dad for another great year at the beach. And next year we are going to make sure you guys get in some of the pictures!

Circus

Last night we took the boys to the circus! It was a fun, small circus that set up a tent on the local fairgrounds. It was a lot of fun since we sat really close - on the front row that was maybe 20 feet from the center of the ring. The boys loved the entire thing. They even got us to let them ride an elephant. Jack screamed when Robby put him on the elephant but was fine once it got going. Six bucks a kid was probably a little pricey but hey, when are you ever gonna get to ride an elephant again?! (Plus we had some coupons that came in our ticket package.) They could've chosen to ride on a camel too but we decided one large animal ride was probably enough for the night.

Mayce, Payton and Fallyn (and two other kids) on the elephant.

Owen and Jack (and some girl) on the elephant.

Fallyn, Payton, Dave, Erin and Mayce (They left Drake at home with a sitter.)

Robby was of course taking the picture, but I swear he went with us.

The kids (minus Payton) watching the circus. (Emmett slept through about half of it.)

This was the expression Jack had on his face the entire time.

Here's what Owen looked like the entire time.

This was Owen's favorite part - when the contortionist folded himself in a box.

Jack liked watching the elephants. Although his favorite part was when the clown's pants fell down. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), we didn't get a picture of that.

The jugglers using glow-in-the dark rings and pins.

We're so glad we went. It was one of those last minute things that we just happened to see an ad for. The kids had a blast and it was a relatively inexpensive outing compared to taking them to the Barnum and Bailey Circus. And I think we enjoyed it more since we got to sit so close. (Much better than paying $35/ticket to sit in the nosebleeds of the arena and not be able to see anything.)

No Training Wheels!

Last Saturday, I had Robby take one of Jack's training wheels off since it wasn't staying on very well. He started to fix it then decided to just see if Jack could ride without the training wheels. After a little convincing, Jack hopped on and without any help just started riding. By that afternoon, he rode all the way to the park. His Skuut definitely helped since he already had the balance part down.



Way to go Jack! He's so excited to go on bike rides and feel like a big kid.

April Fool's Doughnuts

My mom sent the boys "doughnut seeds" for April Fool's Day. It was actually a packet of cheerios. My boys totally believed it though. We planted them in a bowl of water and when they woke up the next morning the bowl was filled with powdered doughnuts. They were amazed. Owen eventually caught on that it was a joke but I have a feeling Jack still thinks doughnuts come from seeds.


Seriously, I'm starting to realize I have no pictures of Jack these days. I swear I love him just as much as my other children. He just doesn't seem to stick around long enough for me to get pictures. (I know, I'm gearing up for all the "middle child" complaints.)

Baby Food!

I've been avoiding it but finally decided it's time to start baby food. Here's some funny pics from Emmett's first try. He actually loved it. I gave him sweet potatoes and I couldn't feed it to him fast enough.

I have no idea why he has on a Kings headband. This is what happens when you have two older brothers.

So when Owen was a baby I left Robby and his dad to babysit and I came home to this:

Yup, that's a T-bone.

Apparently, my children are born loving red meat because this was Emmett on Sunday:

That's a hunk of tri-tip. He loved it. When Robby finally took it away, Emmett had a fit. And I mean crying and screaming. He was ticked!

Cousin Pictures

Robby's brother, Jake, got married a couple of weeks ago so we had the whole family together for the first time in a couple of years. So we decided to get pictures taken of all nine Walker cousins. It was a little tricky with an 18 month old, a six month old and two 4 month olds. Here's the best shots from the photo shoot.

The whole gang.

Boy cousins

The babies. Drake (6 months), Emmett (4 months) and Isaac (4 months). Yup, Emmett is the runt of the bunch.

My boys

Handsome boys again. Owen is at the stage where he can't quite figure out how to smile naturally!

More Owen Bragging

Sorry, one more post of bragging about Owen. That's what blogs are for though, right? I love the papers he brings home from school lately. I love seeing how much he is learning and how creative he is. We also just got his second trimester report card and once again he had perfect scores on everything. We are so proud of him!

Here's some more of his school papers.

I love how he misspelled his last name in this one!

This was his 100th Day of School project. We cut out 100 pictures of him from birth to now.

This is a bad picture but is shows his incredible handwriting. His teacher told us it is almost unheard of for a boy to have such good handwriting.