Birthday Girl - 5 years old!!!

Believe it or not, Bridget is 5 years old!! I know I can't believe it. I remember so vividly when she was born - this tiny little baby. Now she's so tall, so sweet, so smart, so imaginative, so everything. I simply adore her, and so does everyone she meets. Happy Birthday!!

Dillon had to get in on the action - Bridget decided a pink hairbow would be nice. LOL

Silliness

Dillon wanted to wear Bridget's elbow and knee pads - silly guy!

Go Daddy Go - pushups with the kids on his back. (you can see I was getting clothes ready to sell at the clothing exchange!)

Duck Pond (Sept. 5th)

I keep the ends of bread so we can go feed the ducks. The kids love it. The ducks seemed pretty hungry on this day. One even took bread straight from Brian's hand. I love the action shot of Dillon throwing bread to the ducks. Note how long his hair is getting! Doesn't Bridget have the best smile!

A walk in the creek

Last Thursday we met Emily at Miller Park for some fun on the playground, and in the nearby creek. Dillon and Megan played catch. The kids rode bikes, swung, and played on the fun playground. Then, we walked down to the creek. It was really low, so we walked in the creek. This was quite the hit...a bit messy, but hey it was hot and the creek was cool. :)

Running with Michelle

Last weekend we went to our friend's Dave and Michelle's house to swim and hang out. Michelle has been running many mornings with neighborhood Moms. Taylor really wanted to run with her, so Taylor, Michelle and Bridget went for a run. It was really cute - they stretched and everything. I'm not a runner - so I took pictures.

Izzy

While the kids and I were gone a kitten adopted Brian. She showed up the week he got home, and hasn't left. Ok - I told him he should feed her and take care of her...so that's probably why she hasn't left. Bridget named her Isabella knowing that we might not keep her. So far she's been staying outside and really sticking to the front porch. We have yet to take her to the vet, but she's probably only a few months old. She's very sweet and I love her coloring.
We seem to be down to one other cat - our original - Panda. Brian only saw Deacon a few times over the summer and we haven't seen him since we got back. I'm sad about that, we had really good cats....it just got too hard having them all inside...and some of them liked their freedom outside too much.
Anyway, here are a couple pictures of Izzy. She's probably here to stay - I just can't help it!

LBI Summer 2009

After 8 weeks of beaching, swimming in the ocean, bike riding, feeding the seagulls, and eating ice cream (everyday) we are back in NC. I was terrible about posting pictures while we were gone, but eventually decided I would make collages when we got back. Brian said, you love those collages don't you. Well, yeah, sometimes. They are the easiest thing to do when I have a lot of pictures I want to show you - and here I do. Now that we are back I'm going to be more diligent about posting pictures, so there won't be so many collages. It's just so darn hard to choose only a few pictures to post. I can't help it, I love taking pictures of my gorgeous (I can say it, they are) children. LOL
We had a fun time in NJ this summer. It was great for the kids to be so free to run around the yard sorting stones, or on the beach looking for shells and making new friends. Bridget is quite the social butterfly....I think we befriended all the weeklong renters, and all the permanent summer residents. I learned the names of people on the street that I'd always said HI to but didn't really know. Bike rides were quite a highlight - Dillon loved being in the seat behind me pointing out all the dogs, waving to all the airplanes and saying Hi to pretty much everyone that went by. I enjoyed seeing him put smiles on everyone's face as we rode by. Bridget felt like a queen in her chariot in the pull along. Next year we hope to get a third wheel with bike seat to make a tandum bike for Bridget to use.
We had fun visiting my Aunt Nancy and cousins (Laura, David, Karen, Andrew and Laura's 2 little ones - Jesse and Henry) who were here from CA in June, and visiting with my Aunt Sally a few times throughout the summer. Sarah had some friends visit and they were very patient and fun with the kids as well - I appreciated that.
We are happy to be home and ready to get preschool going again - Bridget starts Aug. 31st. And now we are going start working to get our house ready to sell - hopefully in the spring. We are busting at the seams here and are ready after almost 9 years for something new. It took me a week to actually decide to unpack my suitcase!
We missed our friends, and Brian's family - so we'll make up for lost time this fall.

Here are 3 collages of our summer adventures (remember you can click on them to make them bigger to see the pictures better):

June 2009
Here you'll see some cloudy days, some fun with cousins, and some funny faces.

July 2009
We were at the shore for the whole month of July! Bridget and I went to see Peter Pan at the Surflight theater. We went to see the bird man at Fantasy Island. We went to the maritime museum where Bridget and Dillon pretended to be ship captains. Mom's friend, Alan, came a few times with his son Patrick and we enjoyed their company.

August 2009
I seem to have the most pictures in this collage. We went on a Giant Clam hunt around the island - you'll see a few pictures of them. We saw the Coast Guard helicopter doing a practice drill in the bay. We, of course, went to the beach! The highlight was Brian's arrival for our last week in NJ. While he was there he and Bridget went to see Sleeping Beauty at the Surflight. We climbed Barnegat Lighthouse. We had fun with Daddy!