Pool or Ocean?

This is our first day of vacation in GS's and we started it off by taking Hadley down to the kiddie pool.  She loves swimming, but did not like the pool at all.  It was too cold for her and she definitely let daddy know!

Because Hadley was not enjoying the pool, we decided to take her to the beach instead.  This was Hadley's first time to the beach and the ocean.  She seemed to like the ocean much better than the pool.  In fact she liked it a little too much...or should we say she liked the sand.  We thought the icky taste would deter her from constantly reaching for her mouth, but nope...she ate the sand with no complaints!  Yuck!

We ended up having to put Hadley on her beach towel to prevent her from eating any more sand.  If you look at her face in the picture to the right above, you can see her puckered up face!

Below is one of my favorite pictures of her at the beach!

Now, if you look closely, you can see the sand on her hand while her thumb is placed nicely in her mouth (obviously with sand on it too). 

I did some playing of my own while at the beach.  I used Hadley's new sand toys to fancy up my sand art!

As we were getting ready to head in for the day, Hadley gave a thumb's up to the ocean...and also posed for a few pictures with her parents.  You'd think this vacation was all about her, wouldn't you?  It was.

After our day at the beach, we headed back to the condo to get ready for dinner. 

We ate at "The Original Oyster House" and it was great!

This was Hadley before we left for dinner.  I like this picture because it shows off her eyes.  Too bad it also shows off her drooling!

What a great first day we had of vacation.  It was so nice getting to spend the entire day with my husband and daughter.  They are my world and this was a day in paradise! 

Hello Gulf Shores, Alabama!

We arrived in Gulf Shores around 4:00 p.m. today and got checked into our condo for the week.  We are staying at the Plantation Palms, about 20 minutes outside of town.  It looks really nice and does not appear to be very full, so we are hoping that means a nice and quiet vacation! 

These are some pictures from our deck...

This is a picture outside the entrance of our condo...we are literally surrounded by water!

Here's our living room and bedroom for the week...

Hadley made herself right at home, playing with daddy and her new toys from Easter...

Happy Birthday, Jaci!

Hartselle, Alabama

We are staying with the Munson's in Hartselle until Sunday. Austin is having a guy's weekend at Ben's lake house and attending the Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motor Sports Park. Hadley and I are having a girls weekend with Ben's wife Kim, and daughter Heidi. Heidi is only 1 month younger than Hadley so it should be a fun time!  Kim titled these pictures, "Heidi's first slumber party!"

The girls really enjoyed eating together in their bumbos! 

And here they are enjoying some time on the couch after an evening of dinner and shopping. 

It is so nice getting to spend some time with Kim and chatting about being a new mom.  I love having someone to talk to that is in the same stage of life that I am right now.  This was a much needed weekend and I have enjoyed every minute of it so far!  Thanks Kim and Heidi for having us!  

Sweet Home (for the next 8 days) Alabama!

We left last night for our first family vacation in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  We packed up the car and headed to Zeb's house in Indy to stay the night and then woke up early this morning to start our drive to Hartselle, Alabama.  We stopped in Louisville to drop off Zeb's car at the Marcum's house. We got there about 8:30 a.m., and woke up Beth and Embry (we had Beth's permission ahead of time!). They were catching some extra zzz's after a girl's night without Brandon. Hadley and Embry got to play together for a little bit. Hadley loved Embry's toys! Embry was a little shy at first, but in her defense, we did just wake her up! She came around quickly though and was super cute with her "peek-a-boo" faces, high fives and fist pounds! She's such a cute little girl!

   

Happy Easter!

This was Hadley's first Easter, and we celebrated with an Easter egg hunt and dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Reames house in Michigan today. 

Hadley's been getting lots of Easter wishes all week long though and here are a few of her cards with her bunny that Grandma Joyce got her.  It sings a cute little song "A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck, and a barrel and a heap and I'm talkin' in my sleep about you, about you...A doodle oodle ooh doo doo...Happy Easter!"  Hadley loves it!  (I secretly do too!)  

We woke up this morning and Hadley got her Easter basket from Mommy and Daddy.  This year her basket was a tote full of sand toys for our beach!  It won't be long until we get to play with them.

Here are some pictures of Hadley with Mommy and Daddy after we got all fixed up in the morning!

Hadley got to do her first Easter egg hunt today.  Grandma Kim helped her find her eggs.  I think they both had a great time! 

Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of Great Grandma Reames today, but you can kind of see her hiding in the background of this one! 

Aunt Shelby looked like she was having a good time hunting for her Easter eggs as well!  Here she is showing off her eggs and in full stride!

Here's Aunt Shelby counting her eggs to make sure she found them all. 

Here are a few precious pictures of my sweet baby girl! 

Hadley enjoyed hanging out with Grandpa Mark today too.  She also felt the grass on her foot for the first time when Grandpa took her sock off.  She seemed pretty fascinated!

Great Grandpa Reames and Hadley chatting it up!

Hadley got two more Easter baskets today.  What a lucky little girl she is!  The one from Grandpa Mark and Grandma Kim matches her bedroom perfectly!  And, great minds think alike because Great Grandpa and Grandma Reames got her the same sand toy tote (but it was filled with lots of extras) that we got her.  Now we will have plenty of sand toys for when Hadley's cousins come over to play this summer. 

 

And finally...Hadley showing off her Easter jammies and...

having lots of fun playing with all of her new toys from Easter!