Murphy Vacation, Pt1

Pat and Marty Murphy took the extended family to Sanibel Island, Florida. We're on day 3 of 8. The first was travel, the second was shelling and relaxing. The third day, 11 of us went on a guided boat tour of the ICW. Below are some pictures in reverse chronological order.

Children's Museum

One of the great perks on being a stay at home mom is that you can enjoy all the fun places that are available for kids without the chaos of the weekend rush. Although, I have to admit, watching 3 kids in any location can be a very daunting task.

Here are some fun pictures from a recent trip to the children's museum.

Working in the bakery
Ella's going to drive the Sendiks truck.
Playing in the sand. Considering that Ella managed to get sand in her hair and all over her clothes, I might start to dread the upcoming sandbox season.
Ella the banker.
Lydia working on cars.
Grace checking under the hood.
Grace the vet.
Lydia the busdriver.
And another Grace the vet before heading home for naps. I think Grace's favorite part about going to the museum is that we get to go to the CITY!

Here are the pictures that I promised a while ago...

Ella is on a mission to more water to play in.
Lydia loved going down the water slide by herself.
Ella just wants to be in the water.
Hanging out poolside.

Birthday Twins

Lydia and her friend Lauren share a birthday. In a card ride a couple days before their birthday, I was explaining to Grace and Lydia that both Lauren and Lydia were born on the same day a few short years ago. Of course this made perfect sense to the girls. They were TWINS!!

Grace: "Lydia, you have a twin! I never knew you had a twin! Do you think Dad knows that we have another kid in our family."
Mom: "Lydia and Lauren have the same birthday, but they are NOT twins."

Knowing exactly where this conversation was going, I just hoped this twin business would blow over quickly. They proceeded to tell EVERYONE that they saw that they had this long lost twin sister that lives with another family. Not too worry too much though, apparently would see the girl soon...

Sigh...

Here are the girls celebrating over cupcakes! Yummy!


Then some playing in the construction room.
Give a few girls some random clothes and a stage and they are all in heaven.
Ella gets to work building and constructing.
Grace works on plumbing.

We can't wait to see you catch up with Lauren, Jen and Gavin again soon.

Birthday with Friends

I so dislike falling behind on the blog, because then I either skip a month or two or throw haphazardly put together a few blog posts to catch up. So I figured I better get all the February pictures off the camera before March was over!

I love, love, love our dSLR camera, but I do tend to take forever to download the pictures from the P&S camera. So know that the next couple days will be filled with blog posts catching me up (at least a little bit).

Yes, I know that Lydia's birthday was a long time ago! Nearly 3 weeks, but I have had the worse cold ever. Not just the regular cold that I can muster through with a day or two of lots of TV for the kids and me lounging on the couch. But, a dreadful, never ending cold. I have gotten accustomed to a daily routine of sinus wash, Afrin, Sudafed, Benadryl, Nyquil and the prescription drugs that I hope start working soon...

Enough about that, here are more pictures from Lydia's birthday.

Lydia and her friends donned aprons for their mini cooking and baking party. (Better than a bib)!
Happy Birthday to you!
Yum! Cupcakes!

And the pile of kids around the gifts!