Life’s a Beach

Our life is this summer at least.  We are blessed to be able to stay here at the beach for a month.  Family is coming and going, including daddy, but the kids and I are here to stay!  We are a little over a week in and we have 14 people in the house so the kids are getting a little worn down now, but still enjoying fun times with their cousins. 

Uncle Wes, my dad’s brother, his wife Sara and my cousin Creighton came in yesterday and will be here a week with us, so great to see them each year.

Cooking with “Mama”

Cookies and pizza while Daddy and Granddad were back home working. What a fun afternoon.

Ocean Isle Beach

I don’t post stuff about vacations on Facebook because I don’t want people to know I’m out of town, but I have this blog private for the most part, I think only about 8 people read it and I’m gone a while so I’m going to post about our summer day to day since we are at the beach for a while.  We have been coming to OIB since I was born, we rented many years and built when I was about 16, we moved into a non-rental house when Kevin and I were married, and just a couple weeks after Delaney was born we moved into this current house on the Intercoastal with a pool.  The kids and I love to be down here in the summer and Kevin comes to visit Thursday night through Sunday night. 

We have a golf cart the kids love to travel around the island on and a boat the Granddad takes us out on every now and then.  The lifejackets are quite uncomfortable at a young age so we don’t venture out long.  The “beach museum” is lots of fun, we have already gone with “mama”.  It has a great playground beside it, we usually hit it up in the mornings after a walk or a bike ride before it gets too hot.  (I don’t understand why they can’t make slides in a material that won’t get hot in the sun!)  We are only a few days in to our summer, but we already have made memories…

Ice Cream Making

One of our things on our summer fun list!  We made Butterfinger Ice Cream at the beach!  We made vanilla with Nanny and Grandpa this weekend, two checks for this!

 

 

 

 

Mama and Granddad helped with the process.

We had to wait on it to churn, so we fed the birds and played in the new BIG pile of sand.

Then we got to enjoy the Ice Cream and jump into the pool to cool off.

A trip to visit Gertie and family

We visited Gertie, Kevin’s grandmother, today.  Cousins and family were there.  The kids had a great time and even napped in the same room for the first time ever.  Took Delaney an hour to go down, but she slept an hour once she did!

We sure missed Pops today.  Was sad being there without him.  Charley and Cole are cousins from TX, it was fun for the kids to all play together.  They got along great!  We wish they were closer so we could play together more often. Cole and Delaney are only 4 months apart, and Charley is so great with Blake even though he’s a couple years older.

A day at the zoo with Cousin Kaitlyn

Play date

 

Bailey and Carter came over to play today, a spur of the moment play date.  It was great!  The four of them get along so well and enjoy playing the same things.  There is nothing kids don’t enjoy about getting wet in the summer!!!  Bailey and Delaney dumped the bubbles in the small tub and made a bubble bath.  So creative!  Chasing each other with the water hose I believe was Blake and Carter’s favorite thing!

Splish Splash. Blake is 3 1/2!!

Since Blake’s birthday is so close to Christmas and it’s cold outside we decided to have a party on his 1/2 birthday, it was a perfect day to “splish splash” in the back yard with friends.

School friends, old neighbors, church friends and family gathered to celebrate with Blake.  I can’t believe he’s already 3 1/2.  Here is the letter I wrote about him to send to the adoption agency that his birth mom, Lisa, has the right to read if she wants to.  I don’t know if she gets them or not, I don’t get any response.  I do know in my heart that she loves him, she prays for him, and she thinks about him all the time. 

Blake Allen Davis

Blake is 3 ½ now and we celebrated with a birthday party in the back yard, our new backyard! He had 12 of his close friends over and their moms, dads, and sisters. They played on the slip n’ slide, in the blow up pool, with water shooters, baseball, soccer, chalk, etc. He had cupcakes that he proudly picked up from the store with orange sprinkles, still his favorite color. He opened some presents and was excited about the new summer toys to try with his friends. All this couldn’t happen the week before Christmas with busy schedules and cold weather, so this was a great time for a “Splish Splash” party.

We moved back in February into a new house. My parents wanted to down-size, so we were able to move into their house, not only does it have lots more room for toys and entertaining, but it’s full of family memories. Blake has a sailboat room including oars on the wall, and a ship’s wheel. He loves his new book shelf built in under his window. His sister’s room is right next door and they share a bathroom in between them, they love being beside each other. He has two playrooms and a big back screened in porch where he loves to have lunch and play basketball. We are now just a short walk from his cousins and grandparents.

Family is still so important to us and he understands that now, he enjoys every moment with them. He spent the night with his other grandparents this weekend and cried when we came to pick him up because he was having so much fun.

He has been attending some camps with his sister so far this summer. They love being in the same class for once. They went to art camp, chef camp, and tomorrow they’ll attend sports camp for the week. On Friday we leave for the beach after going to the Columbia Zoo. We will spend 5 weeks there, come home for 2 more summer camps, Lego camp and Science camp, then return to the beach for a few more weeks before preschool starts back after Labor Day. He will attend for 5 days this fall and will be in class with 4 friends that he adores that he’s been in class with the past 2 years. He is an active little boy and always wanting to go and do things. He is still shy around people he doesn’t know though, a trait that I love about him. Delaney is very outgoing and will pull him out of his shell and little sometimes, he will hold her back though in the same way, they are so meant for each other.

Delaney and Blake have a very special sibling bond. They hate to be away from each other and are lost without the other. When one wakes up early form their nap they can’t wait to go wake the other one up. Blake is very protective of Delaney. He makes sure she’s included in things at school and church and makes sure no one hurts her in any way. I love how compassionate he is towards her and others around him.

He is beginning to figure out how things work and why things happen. If he doesn’t understand he wants to learn and is full of questions. He soaks up so much. We recently went to his great-grandfather’s funeral and he talks about how Poppie is up in heaven now and he’ll get to see him again one day when he’s very old and goes to heaven too. He did a great job in the hotel we stayed in while we were there for several das for the funeral. He also got to have his first time on the golf course with his daddy. He teed off the 1^st hole and then I took him back. He loves golf and actually has a pretty good little swing. He likes to let go of balloons we get at the grocery store and send them to heaven so God can give them to the kids that are sick and sad. He recently kissed the balloon and sent it up to heaven to Poppie.

He enjoys movies and TV. A little too much, we limit it to about 30 min a day at most. He likes to watch golf and other sports with his daddy. They are such good buddies. He likes to be on the porch, but not outside quite as much because he sweats and gets hot really quickly. He’s not much for sweating. He is starting to eat some fruits and vegetables again and tries new food sometimes. He is a kid though, pizza, quesadillas, and chicken nuggets are his favorite. We go eat Mexican food about once a week, he loves quesadillas. We also go to IHop every Sat morning where he gets pancakes and sausage, another favorite food. He still sucks on his food instead of chewing sometimes.

We fall in love with him more and more every day, I cannot believe its possible to love someone so much!!