Birthdays and the Beach

Hello all. Sorry for the late post. Some of the pictures for this post were located on a computer that has gone to the great beyond in the last few weeks, so we had to try to resuscitate them! It worked. Hence, the late and very long post.

The month of August is birthday time, with mine, Mark's and Aunt Lynne's rounding out the festivities. Dan is so excited about birthdays now that he asks every morning when he wakes up if it is his!

For Mark's birthday, Grammy and Grumpy came into town. We had a very good time and made a birthday cake for Daddy. After I got the cake out of the oven, I put it on a cooling rack to cool and then put it on the cutting board so that I could cut and ice it. I left the kitchen for a minute to feed Sophia and talk to Grammy. All was too quiet. I should have known something was amiss. I knew for sure though when Dan came into the living room with chocolate smeared all over his mouth like a goatee and moustache. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen. I have no idea how he managed in five minutes to eat 1/5 of the cake -- it appears he just laid his face on it and started munching -- or how he managed to get so much of it on the floor. After trying to keep Daddy and Grumpy from laughing and encouraging Dan, I laughed (out of earshot of course) myself. However, the final result for the birthday cake was not a laughing matter! The cake was ripped apart and crumbled when the icing was put on. Oh well, it was good anyway!

Grumpy and Grammy got lots of Little Bear and Fi time.

Daniel is trying underwear, but he doesn't quite get it yet...

Sophia learned to wave bye-bye. Although, she doesn't quite wave at the person saying bye-bye yet, but she'll get there.

For the Labor Day weekend we decided to take the kids to the beach. It was their first time to see the ocean. We thought Virginia Beach would be packed and the traffic atrocious, but it wasn't at all. The drive only took 2 hours and their was close parking and lots of beach to sit on. We ended up taking them to Sandbridge Beach just south of the commercialized VA Beach area. Sophia was a beach bunny, but the water was just a little too cold for her. Dan however loved to be in the waves and play in the sand.

Here is Dan seeing touching the ocean for the first time.

Uncle Mike came to visit this weekend. Here he is with the Fi and Daddy. Sophia had no anxious issues about Uncle Mike -- he has the baby touch!

Eric came to see us this weekend. He just started the fifth grade and says his new teacher is the second best he has ever had and that he really likes Social Studies.

Here are Eric and Sophia playing on the piano together.

And Sophia and Daddy watching the boys play with racecars. Sophia LOVES to watch anything that Dan and Eric are doing.

Dan got a chef's outfit from Nana for Christmas. Because Tropical Storm Hannah kept us inside all day, he got to put on all of this dress up outfits and keep us entertained all day! Finally, because we got no good pictures of Sophia in her baptism dress on the day of her baptism she tried it on one more time before it goes to hang in the closet and wait for a grandchild (oy vey!) Here she is...

She isn't really into the hat.

And as a final note, Congratulations to Cousin Ben and his wife Gwen (and Grandma Lynne of course!) who are waiting for their own little one to arrive this winter.

Till next time...