Just another day in paradise

Sunday was a nice, slow morning. A&F crowded into Christians bed with him. Addie didn't get the "pretend to be asleep" memo here.

But then she was all, "pretend to be asleep? Reading you loud and clear!"

We read some books and piled on eachother some more.

We went to the McCombs old ward. It's always fun to visit a new ward and see how they do things. Delaney has had a bit of a time with nursery lately, so I had a talk with her before church about how she shouldn't behave. She said "I can't go to nur-sa-rey because I'm lazy." Finally, she agreed she'd go, in exchange for 5 m&m's. We all laughed at her mad bargaining skills. Love that girl! And she did great! She went right in and started playing, no problems at all. Of course, she's one of the oldest nur-sa-rey kids known to man, with her January birthday, but whatever. When we got home we took rests and laid low since it was Sunday and all.

Chris took the girls down to the beach around 5. This girl and her poses!

The big girls have been so brave and love being thrown in the water. Beach babies!

Delaney finally woke up at 6. I was nervous about how weird she'd been acting by not wanting to be at the beach, so I said "do you want to take some m&m's to the beach with me?" And she promptly responded with a very polite, but firm "no, thank you." 

We talked and I tried to get to the bottom of why she didn't want to go, but she couldn't come up with anything. I finally had to give a timeout. I didn't want to be mad at her, since it seems obvious that something was wrong. The only thing I could think was that Daniel had thrown sand at her (after she had thrown sand at him, mind you) and it had gotten in her eyes, which she did not appreciate. But she said that wasn't it. 

Anyhow, 5 timeouts later and she finally agreed to go with me. I assured her that no one would throw sand at her and that we could just look for shells and build sand castles, which is exactly what we did, and she was fine. She did tell several people "I don't like having sand in my eyes, so please don't throw sand at me." She happily searched for shark teeth and shells and helped me build some drip castles. Thank goodness she got over not wanting to go to the beach! I don't know what I'd do if one of mine didn't love the beach! 

She's been doing this adorable thing where she puts both arms up, palms facing up and goes "ahhhhhhhh!" in kind of a singing, hallelujah'ish voice. And she does it when she's happy. I asked her why and she told me because that's what the boy and girl in temple run 2 do when they win (or something). I love it! Rejoicing:

One day she was in the loft "resting," and she'd been looking for a book. All of a sudden, (probs 45 minutes after she should have been resting) Chris and I hear the cute little "ahhhhhhh!" and Chris says to me, "I bet she found her book." I asked her what she was doing and sure enough, she'd found her book and was celebrating. I just think she is so hilarious. 

Anyhow, sandcastle and sand stew mania.

Laura made a drip castle city, complete with a lighthouse. Frankie made a drip castle train, and I worked on a few other, more minor structures. 

These girls play so well together. It's sometimes hard to believe Maggie is 5 years older than Addie. She is so sweet with her!

Our goal was sunset on the beach. Yup, summer bucketlist.

Trying to get her to pose for a pic is super hit or miss.

But bribing with m&m's is always a direct hit.

Happy place.

Loving the sunset and the poses.

Trying to squeeze in 4 big heads is not easy.

It was getting chilly, but that doesn't stop us.

We went up to the walkway several times to check the progress of our sunset. I call this my Wayne's World look.

I finally realized I should probs take my visor off if I didn't want to look completely ridiculous in every picture. 

Bucket list loving girl!

And her bucket list loving mama.

We use towels at the beach sparingly, so sometimes we gotta share.

We headed home after sunset for a dinner of grilled chicken and veggies. Then it was back to the beach for stargazing. Bucketlist! We also got to stomp around and see the glowing plankton. It was like fireflies in the sand. SO cool!

We brought our chairs that lay completely flat, and it was so amazingly awe inspiring to see the sky all lit up. It was pitch black, so you can imagine how bright the flash was.

Chris had a stargazing app, you hold it up to the sky and it shows you the constellations, so cool!

Matt and I were shopping (at old navy of all places) one day, several months ago, and came across some astronaut ice cream. We thought that would be a fun stargazing treat, so we brought that to the beach and everyone got to taste it. 

It was a really cool night. Loved the sunset and super loved the stargazing. What an amazing gift and blessing the beach, and all of its beauty, is to us. I am so thankful for the opportunities I have had to enjoy such amazing blessings.