Our Caribbean Vacation - Part One...

Yes, you read right... part one. There's just too much to share and too many pictures to cram all into one post, so you get the joy and excitement of seeing our cruise over multiple posts! ;) First off I want to say that I wish I would have taken more pictures, but we were having way too much fun (or way too tired) during some parts of our trip to bust out the camera all the time... I guess you'll have to use your imagination to fill in the blanks and create what the cruise ship looked like, because we stupidly did not take one picture while we were on board of the inside of the ship. Dumb... I know! So here's our very first day. We had a red-eye flight out of Long Beach to Ft. Lauderdale (we basically went from Hollywood to Hollywood well that was the name of the airport anyways). Then we all took a bus from the airport to Miami Beach and had a humongous breakfast at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel. It was very strange to be eating that much food that early in the morning... well it was around 6am, but it was 3am our time. After breakfast we wandered onto the beach and watched the sunrise, it was breath taking and of course cameras do it absolutely no justice. Ben fell asleep on the beach and then we headed back to the hotel. We had around 5 hours to kill before we could board our ship and almost everyone was fast asleep during that time. It was a really funny site to behold, the hotel is super nice and extremely fancy (you have your own personal towel boy when you're by the pool) and to see it littered with more than a hundred of us completely passed out on their deck chairs was pretty hilarious. All of us wearing jeans and sweaters, with our socks on and big bags beside us all around the pool. It was quite entertaining to watch the hotel guests come out ready to play and see all of us sprawled about and drooling. After what seemed like forever (because I couldn't sleep) we got back on the buses and went to the pier. Once on board the ship we walked around for awhile, to get acquainted with the place, ate some lunch and then just hung out for the rest of the night. Ben was absolutely thrilled with the safety briefing, being stuck outside in the sun with a million other people, but he eventually got over being grumpy. It was a really long day of waiting around. We of course had dinner later and then crashed. I think that's all we did on board the ship was eat and sleep! ;)

Ben in awe of the sunrise

He could have stayed there forever I think

Sean, one of the animators that Ben works with, found a jellyfish that was still alive

Beautiful sunrise - stinky camera!

The two of us being cheesy on the beach

Chris and Ruth completely passed out on the deck chairs in the sunshine!

On the ship ready to set sail... we still haven't left the pier yet!

Trip to the Farm...

Underwood Family Farms is finally open again after being closed for the winter, so the weekend right before our cruise we packed up the family in the car and spent the whole day picking all sorts of fresh fruit and veggies, looking at animals, enjoying the beautiful sunny day while wandering around the farm.

Abby was funny... she wanted to eat the carrots instead of feed them to the animals!

This is how Abbers rode for most of the day. She was thrilled to see all the different animals and got super excited when we visited the miniature donkey.

Lizzie picking me some awesome avocados. I want a bush like that in my backyard... whenever I finally have a backyard! ;)

Ben showing Lizzie how to pick mandarin oranges right off the tree

Ben was in heaven... he went a little crazy with the mandarins!

The vegetable garden

Digging for carrots

And picking lots and lots of strawberries!

L - I - Z - Z - I - E...

For about a month now Lizzie's been really interested in learning how to spell and what letters make up certain names / words, so we jumped on the opportunity (I should say Heidi did) to have her start practicing. Auntie Heidi bought a whiteboard and a book from her work, so she can go at it. She done amazingly well... to the point where she knows how to spell her name, my name and Ben's name. She still does some of the letters backwards, like her "z"s and "s"s, but I guess that's normal when you're first starting out. As you can see from the pictures below she's super proud of herself and so are we... I didn't think it was something we did until kindergarten. I guess my little one's a genius! :) Hahaha don't we all think that about our own kids!

Abby's First Haircut...

On Valentine's Day we took Abby to get her very first haircut. She did really well and seemed genuinely excited, but was incredibly distracted by her old sister running around, chatting with everyone there, like the crazy child she is... the poor lady at the salon had to take her picture five times before Abby was actually looking in her direction. :) We brought her little giraffe blanket just in case of a meltdown, but never really needed it, or maybe it was because we brought it she didn't have one, who knows! Abby picked out her own seat, wore the little smock and sat there all by herself with no complaints. I was very impressed, I though for sure I'd have to hold her, like I had to with Lizzie, but boy did she prove me wrong. It's crazy how different Abby's hair is from Lizzie's, it still sticks straight up if you let it, especially in the back now that it's shorter and no more baby mullet, yay!

Abby holding on tight to her blankie!

The picture they took for her card/certificate. It makes me laugh cause you can totally see Lizzie running around in the background!

My Big Girl....

My little Abbers is growing up so fast. She starting using a spoon not too long ago, after constantly stealing Lizzie's when she wasn't looking, so we finally broke down and let her have her own. It's incredibly messy, especially with yogurt but how else is she going to learn right?! Besides she has the goofiest laugh when she uses it. Here in the pictures she's digging into some oatmeal and not doing too shabby. Still not walking yet though... I'll be sure to let you all know when she does. She could probably totally do it, but we all think she's more than a little dependent on her walker toy. She swings that thing around like crazy too, so it's pretty obvious it's not being used to support her.

Making Valentines...

Lizzie and I made valentines this morning while Abby took her nap. We've been trying to do something together lately, just her and I, every morning instead of just watching cartoons or playing on her own. Something that Abby can't necessarily do with us, so Abby's nap time has become our art/crafty time. We've done something everyday for all of last week up until now and it's been a lot of fun... wish I would have started it sooner actually. But back to the valentines, our mom's group is having a party tomorrow and Lizzie wanted to do something with lollipops, so we made little butterflies. Lizzie did everything but the original cutting out from paper and assembling the two pieces together. She helped me glue on the eyes and decorate each bug. They turned out so cute and they're so stinking simple!

Weekend Art Class...

This last Saturday we had a massive painting session in our dining room. Lizzie was itching to paint really, really bad and Heidi had just brought home a huge collection of brushes from her work, so Ben set her all up... he even busted out his own easel, paints and canvas. I can't believe all the stuff he has hiding in his closet and drawers. We seriously have a whole art store up there in his office. It was fun to watch the two of them painting side by side (sorry I didn't take any of Ben, it was Saturday morning and he was still in his boxers)! I can't remember the last time Ben painted just for fun, it was before Lizzie was here, at least I know that for sure. Lizzie was so funny with her brushes, she would take one and put some paint on it, make one single stroke, wash it out and then grab another brush. And repeated it until she used every single brush. Thanks Heidi for the cool new brushes, you made someone very happy.

The ever growing pile of brushes!