Happy 4th Birthday To My Little Monkey!

My little ray of sunshine turned 4 today. FOUR. 

Four going on fifteen. 

I got stickered this morning. I wore them all day in honor of her birthday. I got a lot of weird looks...
I think at first glance it looked like I had a sleeve of tattoos.
Deep down I thought they were cool. 

We had a lovely Easter party at Abby's house,
and she made the most amazing  cupcakes to celebrate Audrey's birthday. 

I told her she should start a business doing this.
She has such style... these were classy cupcakes!!

New birthday sunglasses! Her last two pair didn't last more than a day. Let's hope these last.. they are super cute and she LOVES them. 

Happy birthday girl!

All in all we had a wonderful day. I think (I hope) she really enjoyed her 4th birthday. There is so much I want to do for her, so many things I want to take her to see, so much I want to buy for her, but with the way our finances are, there wasn't a lot we could do this year. We did, however, have a fun day of mommy/daughter shopping with what money we could spend. She picked out her own gifts, and we even got to buy a few pairs of new sandals for the upcoming warm weather. Check these out (terrible picture I know. SORRY! I'm sure you'll see more pics of her in them soon.)

Then we met daddy at Rita's for a yummy frozen treat. All in all, a good day. :) Love my girl so much.

So, if anyone actually reads this or has checked lately, you'll know I'm back to blog slacking again. I can't help it. I have been so busy and out of the house so much that when I am home, all I want to do is sit around, play my computer games, or clean up my house which has somehow turned into a tornado zone while we have been out. Blogging is TIME CONSUMING. At least for me. I want to blog about stuff that people might actually enjoy reading, so I try to put some decent time in. But anyway... something else that has been eating up my time (in a good way) is writing. I am FINALLY back to writing. I am deliriously happy bout it too. Hopefully someday soon I will be finished with my rough draft and can really get to editing, and then one day, I'll get to send it to an agent or publisher. Dreams. I can dream, people. Grand, beautiful dreams. Insanely wonderful, out of this world dreams.. okay you get it.

Hopefully I'll blog again soon. Until then - PEACE!! Love ya'll!!

Good Day Sunshine!

Mr. sun decided to bring the warm weather again yesterday, which was SO lovely. We got outside toward the end of the day, and this time I took a few pictures. 

She made a "train track" of chalk. 

"You're not drawing mommy... here's the chalk! DON'T YOU WANT TO USE THE CHALK MOMMY!?"

Of course I did. I just like taking pictures more. Eventually I made alphabet art.

The sky looked cool. 

We had a little spy peeking at us on and off. 

He was very chirpy and curious. Methinks his nest is in that bush.

Hope ya'll enjoyed the sunshine!! Now go put a coat on... the cold is back!

Snow Days!

It's COLD, Mommy!!

She LOVES it though. 

 

"Stir Crazy" personified. These long winters drive us crazy. COME ON SPRING! We want to play outside!

Sometimes we contemplate shipping ourselves to somewhere with a warmer climate. 

Road Trip!

Ready for a ginormous post about my vacation? Wheeeeee!

I did take this one of Kims on my cell. Hehehehe~

The day after Christmas, we embarked on a 10 day road trip, starting with spending a night at Kim's place in Atlanta. I LOVE the area she lives in. I didn't get any pictures though, stupid me. 

We had breakfast with Kim's roommate Naomi and her family, which was great. They have 14 kids altogether and they are an amazing family. Seriously, I would probably be a basket case with that many kids around, but they seemed to have a great system and a lot of love for each other. No doubt it took a lot of hard work and some tough times to get to where they are now, just like any other family. Fun getting to know them!!

Making the world's biggest cup of hot chocolate.
 It was delicious though, I must say. 

Next we drove (at least 13 hours in the car.. I lost count) to my grandma's (affectionately known as Grams) in Ft. Myers, FL. The weather was chilly for the Floridians, but we enjoyed even the cool weather. It was like summer for those of us who had news of snow back home. We took lots of walks...

Kims with her wig-looking hair and Mumzy :D 

I couldn't resist taking this one. I need to buy her some bigger clothes, teehee. With it still being winter in Ohio, I figured she could suffer through a few days in the warmer Florida weather wearing last year's warm weather clothes!

Hanging out at Grams'!

Reflective!

Grams' housing division has a beautiful pool area, dubbed the "big girl pool" by Audrey. Any pool bigger than our kiddie pool in the backyard is a "big girl pool". She wanted to swim in said big girl pool every hour of every day we were with Grams. Unfortunately it only worked out to go once, but she enjoyed every last second of it.

Big girl pool! big girl pool! big girl pool!!!

SO excited.

Beautiful Mumzy!

We had a lovely day of shopping (and pictures of course.)

Excited about a huge fountain in the middle of the lake!

Fun with photos!

Audrey is very into posing right now. :)

And she loves her Auntie Kim!

My beauty!

During one of the days in Ft. Myers, we went to Sanibel Island... it was absolutely beautiful. I'd been there before years ago, and I've loved it each time.

From my cell phone - on the way to Sanibel

LOVE my sister!!!!

Silly! <3

A few shots from Lenny's camera (which I am in love with) - the happily engaged couple :)

The crew.

Awwww. Great picture!

Back to pics from my camera (*cry*). Audrey posing again :)

We LOVE the beach. How I wish we lived closer.

We hit the shops on the island also. So fun!

Love this shot!

Singing and dancing.. we do a lot of this.

Much love for these two!

From my cell - love the clouds!

Leaving the island

I love the sunsets in Florida! And this one isn't even good in comparison to most!

Grams taught us all to play Hand and Foot Rummy when we were kids. When we get together with her, we always play. One of the best card games ever. It takes a long time to play but it is great fun. 

This time we taught Lenny how to play. You're part of the family now Lenny - sorry!!! :p

Kims and I visited the work out room in Grams' condo community. While we used the treadmill and bicycle, Audrey pumped iron.

After visiting with Grams and Aunt Vickie for a few days, we drove three or four hours north to Titusville to visit Sandy and Beth Robertson, long time family friends.

While we were there, my parents gave a great talk at Sandy and Beth's church about their ministry and life in Mongolia.

Part of Sandy and Beth's backyard. They LITERALLY have an island in the middle of a lake directly in their backyard. It was amazing. I could explore places like this for hours and hours.

My fellow explorer. :)

Playing at the park at Chain of Lakes.

Chain of Lakes is a dotting of little lakes and inlets and rivers that all connect and there is a wonderful path that surrounds them all. An amazing place to walk, run, bike, you name it. 

At the top of Kings Tower

We love our walks! 

From my cell - eating italian with friends!

From my cell - playing on the playground in the Robertson's yard

From my cell - New shoes! Getting to be such a big girl!

Sunset over Chain of Lakes.

Helping with dinner!

Auntie Kims reading Audrey a bedtime story :)

Amidst all of this, we missed Daddy a lot. We talked to him every day on the phone and sometimes we were able to borrow a computer to video Skype with, which was nice. He even read Audrey a bed time story over the webcam once. Priceless!!

After spending a few very nice days with the Robertsons, we said goodbye to them and also to Kim and Lenny as they began their trek back to California. My parents, Audrey and I packed into the rental car and took off for Raleigh, NC, our last destination. My dad's brother Jim and his wife Ginny live there. On the way, we stopped in Savannah, GA for lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. But it was a neat place to eat.

From my cell - it takes decent pictures sometimes! Or maybe it is just this photogenic pair! :D

It occurred to me too late in the trip to take a picture of Audrey's Sammy the Sock Monkey everywhere we went. So I will post this one cool pic of him in Savannah.

We had a coffee at a sweet little cafe on the riverfront. Audrey pretended to sleep and could not stop giggling. 

So wonderfully silly!

My Uncle Jim and Aunt Ginny have a beautiful house and an amazingly gigantic dog. She's a 200 pound English Mastiff named Mocha. SWEETEST thing you'll ever meet. Also somewhat intimidating if you are not used to massively oversized dogs. I adored her.

A bad pic, but added to show her gigantic paws.

My dad took some good shots of Mocha to show her size comparison: 

With my Uncle Jim and Audrey.

Such a well behaved dog. Her manners were impeccable. :p Audrey warmed up to her after a day or so of getting used to Mocha's sheer size. 

With my cousin Jody at her office. We had lunch there with her - it was a blast!

Playing the piano at Uncle Jim and Aunt Ginny's.
Audrey kept asking me to play the Toy Story theme...
it was great. "You've Got a Friend In Me!" 

 While in Raleigh, we had the opportunity to see an excellent Rembrandt collection at the NC Museum of Art. It was well worth it. And we had fun. :)

 I didn't get to take my pictures, and couldn't use my camera in the exhibit itself. Ah well. My Dad got some great pics though - check out his blog!

My Aunt Ginny... she gets me. :)

Thanks for reading the world's longest photo journal. You might wanna stretch your legs or something so atrophy doesn't set in. Also, forgive me for the disjointed style of this post. It was so long that it had to be put together over a period of 3 days. -.-