Paparazzi

Sometimes while my girls are doing their own thing I stalk them like the paparazzi. I lurk behind the windows of  our house when they are outside with my camera around my neck ready to snap a shot. You never know what you will see (or when you will need to open a door, or window, and remind them not to be jumping off of the playhouse roof.).

Some of the things I have uncovered with my paparazzi behavior:

An explorer headed out for an adventure, with her backpack on and walking stick in hand.

Some daredevil behavior like climbing trees,

and hanging from branches.

Supervising “the Explorer” as she now attempts to climb the tree.

Sometimes even in the house, as I stalk around the corner, I find them doing some photo-worthy things. Recently,  I found them under the desk in the Living Room playing their Leap Pad and Mobi-Go. Not the greatest photo, but the moment was caught, no yelling, no fighting, just two sisters, sitting together and having fun. Two sisters appearing more like two friends.  Sometimes being a paparazzi and getting the shot is tricky when you don’t want to be caught by your subjects.

Florida

Once again we had another great trip to Florida. I think in the last 6 years this was the best weather we have had for the entire week. Every day was sunny and upper 70’s/lower 80’s. It was great!

The girls were loving their time on the beach and in the pool! We had our traditional big cupcakes, trip to Miromar Outlet Mall, walks to get ice cream, seeing the crazy fish Brad would catch and all of the other things we love to do down there.

So now prepare for photo overload!

Running on the beach! Whoooooo!!

Always fun to burry each other in the sand.

One day when we went to the beach all the seagulls were flocked together.

Then for whatever reason the birds started to fly.

Mine and Kaylee’s footprints. Getting harder and harder to tell whose is whose.

The girls also spent LOTS of time in the pool. We swam in it twice a day. Generally it was breakfast, beach, pool, lunch and pool. By the end of the week Kaylee was swimming length wise from one end and back again with no assistance from us or floaties. Ainsley was swimming width wise of the pool with no assistance. They did great!

CANNONBALL!!!

More beach time. One of my favorite things to is sit on the beach and just snap pictures of my family doing their own thing.

Here they reminded me of a ducks all in a row.

Daddy and his girls!

Once they got swimming in the pool down they were ready to tackle swimming in the ocean. Which made this Mama a little more nervous.

Hey Girl Hey!

One night before we went out to eat we went to the beach to take some sunset photos.

Of course we had to do a silly photo too.

More tradition…

After we completed the traditional pic of the girls holding hands in front of the ocean I said I had gotten the photo. The girls then did the below ones. So I’m not sure if they misunderstood me or were just having a nice sisterly moment, either way I loved the photos!

Me and my girls!

I said “Show me sassy!” This is what they gave me…

Kaylee wanted to take a photo of Brad and I. Turned out pretty good.

This year was really hard for me to see our trip end. It’s never fun to have to come back to reality, but this year more than others I was really pushing to just stay. Of course deep down I know that even if we lived there eventually stressors here would be stressors there. Life has stressors and once you live somewhere it’s no longer vacation. But a girl can dream, right?

Moments

 

Vacation was wonderful as our time in Florida always is, and I will soon post many of our Florida photos and details, but this post is about the moments and realizations I come to every year when we take our first walk on the beach.

We journey to Florida every January. My parents have a timeshare and we are lucky enough to be invited along. My girls love it and I love the time they get to spend making memories with their Mee-Maw and Paw-Paw.

Each year as we take our first walk on the beach I realize that an entire year has passed. I think of the year before and how old my children were, what they were doing, what they liked, disliked, etc. This year as we walked and I was reflecting on years past Ainsley was walking next to me, each of us holding a side of a bucket’s handle and Ainsley was picking up every shell in sight in that bucket while making up songs about those shells. Kaylee was in front of us running along, in and out of the waves, and every once in awhile picking up some random item and bringing it back to ask me what it was and giving her theory on what it was.

As usual through my reflections leads me to my predictions and thoughts as to what it will be like next year, their ages, what they will be doing, what they will like and what they won’t. I think that far to soon enough they won’t want to walk with me, it just won’t be a cool thing to do. Ainsley’s silly-songs she likes to make-up won’t be sung, and Kaylee will be more concerned with how she looks walking on the beach then the random things she finds.

Each day we take our beach walks I savor them, I let them sink in, really sink in to my mind and to my heart. All the normal hustle-bustle of our normal life is gone. No school, no work, no tumbling or dance class to get to. No house to worry about cleaning, lunches to be made or homework to get done. The sun warms my skin and those girls warm my hearts. Their thoughts, that are constantly verbalized without any filter, their observations, which are also constantly verbalized without any filter (which can be dangerous on a beach), even their disagreements. These are simple conversations but so significant. These are my moments, my very treasured moments.