Happy Father's Day 2011!

Nick and his 3 little loves

Somehow, I let my blogging fall to the wayside and forgot to acknowledge the special fathers that I know and love!

First, a Happy Father's Day to my precious, sweet, hot husband, who is an absolutely awesome, loving, sensitive, thoughtful, kind, christian dad to our 3 precious kids. I'm so thankful that our kids have you for a daddy! The lessons that you teach them, through consistency, gentleness, kindness and love, are shaping them into becoming fine little people! They have no idea how lucky they are to have a daddy who wants to play with them and spend time with them above everything else. I love you Nick Milligan!

Second, Happy Father's Day to my precious dad! I am so thankful that I was blessed to have a loving, supportive, encouraging, consistent, christian father! Dad, you were darn-near close to a perfect father whom I've always adored, and I'll adore you forever. I Love you!

Last, Happy Father's Day to my precious father in law! I'm so thankful for the many things you have taught your precious son about being a fabulous father and husband. You are such a loving, sweet, kind, caring father and I'm so blessed to have you as my father in law! I love you!

What a difference a year makes!

2010
look at those sweet cheeks!

2011

such a big boy!

When Trent approached the pull chain shower this year, it made me remember how different he looked doing the same thing last year. I can't believe how much he has changed in just one year! My cute little baby has turned into a cute little boy! Slow down, Trenty...stop growing up so fast!

The Beach- 2011

my precious family
Blessed beyond measure!

Nick, Rach and Brad...check out the CLEAR water!


Papa and Trenty

mr. big stuff!

Daddy's little girl

Glamour girl!

Papa and Brad

riding the waves

throwing diving sticks

jump Spidey!

the handsome boys

daddy and his precious babies

our beautiful daughter

Rachel Jane

our handsome boy

me and my darlings

the kids

(Trent was NOT at all interested in taking pictures this year)
the sun was so bright!

" Trent, please stand still, or at least look this way!!"

our handsome big boy

the beautiful ocean view

the 2 pools at our condo

beautiful! (Really only one day had this seaweed)

Trent in his sandbox

Gege and Papa with their grandkids

Papa and Trent: sand buddies

ready to do some serious digging!

Rach and Bradley in one of their brief times at the beach

mr. handsome

R & B

our little fish- ready to swim for hours and hours (IN the pool)

On the beach

We are so thrilled and thankful that we got to go to the beach this year with Gege and Papa! It's definitely one of my favorite places to go and we had such a great time!!

The drive down was great for me and Nick because the kids rode with Gege and Papa, so we were able to just talk or listen to music without attending to our little one's needs.

(Thanks G & P!)

After an 8 hour drive (with multiple potty stops and a lunch stop) we arrived at the beautiful Coral Reef Condominiums in Panama City Beach, FL. We really love that condo...everything is so nice with 2 pools, a workout room (which didn't get used this time, but still...) and lots of beautiful, white, sandy beach.

Our room was nice, it had 2 bedrooms, a huge kitchen and a nice den area. The kids were so excited when we got there and had fun looking out over the balcony. It's always so exciting to feel the ocean breeze and smell that salty air for the first time! Everyone slept relatively well; Nick took the pull out sofa (alone for the first 2 nights, but the last 2 were Rachel once and Bradley once); I shared a bed with "tornado Trenty" and Rachel and Bradley shared a bed. Rachel and Brad had a little trouble settling down the first night (even though it was WAY past bedtime) and kept giggling and talking. Trent was so tired, but he was not used to sleeping with me, so it took him a few minutes to get used to me and not having a crib enclosing him. I called him "Tornado Trenty" because he literally rolled from one edge of the bed to the other. He was fast too...I was so worried that he was going to roll off the bed, so the 2nd night, I pushed his side up against the wall so I didn't have to worry about him hitting the floor. He did, however, hit the wall several times each night. It was always loud and would wake me up, but he didn't seem to notice.

Trent LOVED the beach this year! He thought the sand was literally a huge sandbox. He would run and fall down (on purpose) and get up and do it again. He would even put his head down in it like an ostrich and rub his head through the sand. It was funny to watch! There wasn't one day where Trent didn't get at least 2 baths to get off all the sand off. Rachel and Bradley enjoyed playing in the sand, but preferred playing at the pool. The beach was very pretty and clear of seaweed except for one day. Gege and Papa took the kids to buy souvenirs one day and they all got some really awesome stuff (yea, right!). :) We all went to play putt putt one morning at the Pirate's Cove Golf course. Putt Putt was lots of fun! Bradley was most serious about it. He would get very aggravated when Trent would touch or move his ball. Trent loved it for about half the holes, then he abandoned his putter and would just run around with his ball.

We ate some really good food while we were there, including Boondock's, which is a great little seafood place. But my favorite was all the leftover ribs, pork, chicken and beans that Joe and Deborah brought from the 4th. That was DEE-LISH!!

I also managed to pick the windiest day to take family pictures outside. (I think I did the same thing last year.) It was very hard to keep us girl's hair out of our faces in time to take a picture. Trent wasn't very cooperative this year either, so that made it a little more difficult to get any pictures of him...by himself or with his siblings. Oh well, maybe next year.

We had an AWESOME time while we were there and sure did enjoy the break from our usual routine! There's not many prettier places than the beach and it was nice getting to relax, read, get some sun, swim and enjoy family time. Thank you Joe and Deborah for such a wonderful time! Love y'all!

Potty Time

Trent thinks Brad's business is stinky!

Trent really likes to copy Bradley all the time. This has been helpful in his interest with the potty since he wants to go when Bradley does. I loved capturing them on the potty together, with their books, doing their business. I'm sure they won't always want to share their potty time, but for now, it's pretty cute!

Gwinnett Braves vs. Buffalo Bisons

Chopper- (or Chomper as my kids call him) the mascot

A few weeks ago, Papa gave us tickets to the Gwinnett Braves game. Nick and I took Rachel and Bradley and had a blast! Our seats were directly behind the Braves dugout. I thought the game was exciting, the players were really good and it was more fun than an MLB game. Rachel was very content to sit there and watch the game, enjoying her ballpark nachos. Bradley was not as interested and could only think about going to get a souvenir from the gift shop. We stayed about 6 innings and then went on home. It was lots of fun and I can't wait to go again!

Georgia Park Adventures 1 & 2

the kids on a hike at Watson Mill Bridge State Park

We have started a new family activity: to visit and explore as many Georgia parks as we can. We started (accidentally) on Memorial Day. Our first adventure led us to Hard Labor Creek Park just to do something different (so did everyone else in Ga). (This park is only about 30 minutes from our house.) So, after skipping the beach due to excessive people, we had a picnic, went on a really fun hike and played on the playground. This hike was so much fun because they had trail maps at the head of the trail with markers and explanations for what each marker was designated for. Rachel had a blast leading us on the trail and also reading what each marker was. There were 20 markers along the 1 mile hike and they ranged from a specific type of tree to a special rock. We all hung in there for the hike and Trent only had to be held a couple of times. Bradley loved the hike too and enjoyed looking for markers along the way. (I forgot my camera, so no pictures from this excursion.)
**Kid's favorite part: the hike
* Parent's favorite part: the hike






On Sunday, June 12th, after a loooooooooooong week of VBS, we decided to have a family day and explore our second park. This time, we went to Watson Mill Bridge Park. (This park is only about 1 hour from our house.) This park has the longest covered bridge in the state of Georgia (229 feet across the South Fork River) and has shoals that lots of people get in to cool off from the heat. So, this time we played on the playground, had a picnic, went on a short hike (where we saw an old water mill/reservoir system) and then really enjoyed cooling off in the shoals! There was a short waterfall that ran the length of the bridge and then lots of wading pools, sliding rocks and shallow areas to explore. The water felt so good and we all enjoyed cooling off in it. There were quite a few people there but not so many that we couldn't enjoy ourselves. We had a blast at this park and the kids expecially enjoyed getting wet! Again, I didn't bring my camera, but Nick did take one picture of the kids on our hike.
**Kid's favorite part: playing in the shoals
*Parent's favorite part: the family time




We are now planning our 3rd park adventure...date and destination TBA!

VBS 2011

This year we went to the Big Apple for our VBS adventure. It was so much fun! I taught 3rd grade, which is easier than pre-k, so I enjoyed it much more. I had 12 very sweet kids and only one of them borderlined on extremely annoying. I had 2 teenage boy helpers who were very nice and tried very hard to be helpful. They were both Boy Scouts who were working on various stages of their Life and Eagle (or something like that). So, I enjoyed talking to them about all the adventures I remembered dad and Tommy taking for all those scouting years. This was Rachel's favorite year of VBS because her best friend/cousin JuJu came this year. The girls were absolutely precious doing all their stuff together. I saw them quite often in the halls holding hands or playing together in Rec or sitting next to each other in snack. They sang their hearts out during Worship Rally each morning and really loved learning all the sweet songs. Their favorite was: "Hey yeah yeah, hey yeah yeah, hey yeah yeah, Love you Jesus" which is really fast and peppy and continues on a long line of examples that they love, but not as much as Jesus. Ex: I love you more than my soccer team, I love you more than ice cream; I love you more than a baseball bat, I love you more than my dog or cat, I love you more than a really fast car, I love you more than any rock star; but that's not enough. I wanna love you more. It goes on like that for several verses and the girls loved it. The precious part was watching their enthusiasm as they really got into the hand motions and movements to the songs. Bradley also had a great time this week. He really enjoyed the first 3 1/2 days and then had had enough. He was sad on Thursday and by Friday didn't want to join his class. He ended up spending the last day in the nursery helping Gege with Trent and the other toddlers and babies. I am so thankful that Gege worked the nursery, because I don't think Trenty would have stayed without her. He had a fun week too and Deborah said he got more comfortable each day but never enjoyed going to the craft room each day. She said he really enjoyed music class, though. We all had a great, fun-filled week but I am glad it's over. I will NOT miss getting up at 6:30 every day. This week is a relaxed, unscheduled, leisurely week, and we're going to enjoy every minute.