Our favorite 'Dinner time' photos ...

As everyone knows, cruise ships are known for their food. Well this ship was not quite as amazing as other ships we've been on, but we also had planned to try to cut back on our food intake and not go too crazy, even though we were on vacation ... so anyway, we didn't mind. But for me, half the fun of dinner on the cruise is getting dressed up! At home I'm usually in shorts and t-shirts with flip flops ... so it was fun to dress up a little for dinner time on board.

Here are some of our favorite dinner time pictures ...

The girls dressed alike - ready for dinner ...
Hope at the formal dining room on the first night - she looked so grown up! boohoo!
All of us on deck before dinner one night ...
Daddy and his girls ...
Mama and her girls ...
Sometimes it's hard to get a real genuine smile out of Joy ... so this night at the dinner table her sister was making her laugh and I just started snapping pictures and got some really cute, natural ones!
My fave dinner of the whole cruise was the night we ate at the Mexican restaurant on board - yummy!
The girls dressed alike again ...
Hubby and I ... yep, we both got a lot of sun that day!
All dressed up, eating at a fancy restaurant, and slurping up her spagetti!
Slurp!
Joy and I at dinner ... now there's a great smile from her!

Our favorite 'On the ship' photos ...

Here we go! I've got several hundred photos from our cruise to Bermuda ... so I tried to pick and choose just our faves to show on the blog. I'm going to break them into several posts to make things easier. So here are the first batch which are our favorite shots from on the cruise ship ...


Checking out the pool on the first day on board - the pools on board were all Salt water!
yummy, my first frozen drink!
Muster station drill ... thankfully it didn't take too long!
Hope enjoying the kids waterslides ...
this is how we spent a lot of time ... lounging on the pool deck!
The girls loved having ice cream {almost} whenever they wanted it!
Playing on the sports court ...
Trying to beat Daddy at basketball ...
The pool deck on one of the really hot days - it was definitely the place to be!
Breakfast in our room - we did this a couple mornings just to make getting ready faster and easier ...
Joy and Daddy in the hot tub at night, dancing to the live music they had playing ...
The pool area all lit up at night ...
Joy in one of the hot tubs ...
Hope jumping into the pool - she made some friends on board and was playing with them in the pool ...

Next up ... our favorite dinner time photos ...

Facebook and Computer Time

Just wanted to share {real quick!} this link ... stumbled upon this blog today and found the words to be very convicting. They really spoke to my heart as this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately anyway ... so here you go - I'd highly encourage you to take a quick minute and click over here to read this article. Thanks!

Bloggy Vacation

To my faithful handful of readers ... I wanted to let you know that I will be taking a small bloggy vacation in order that my family and I can take this ...
to here ....
to enjoy our vacation that we've been planning and anticipating for months!

Upon my return I promise to shower you with endless photos {that I've actually taken, as apposed to finding on google} and blog after blog of our adventures!

Have a lovely week friends!

Memorial Day Weekend

I know I'm a little behind in posting this, but we had an absolutely lovely Memorial Day weekend a couple weeks ago. The weather was beautiful and we just had a really low-key weekend. On Sunday after church our friends and their baby girl came over to BBQ. It stayed gorgeous out until around 5pm, then the skies opened up and we had a huge thunder and lightening storm. But we enjoyed most of the afternoon outside before that.

On Monday we went to a local parade with the same friends and their baby. Then we came home and did nothing but relax. The girls played in the pool while Bob and I just hung around. Bob cooked us some amazing fresh fish for dinner that he had caught early that morning with his friend.

All in all it was just lovely ... here are some pictures to enjoy.

Joy floating in the pool...
Hope jumping in ...
My friend Sam and her sweet baby girl ...
Sam and I ... {yup, I was still a little sunburnt from 3 days before}
Getting ready for the parade ...
Waiting, is it coming yet?

Purse Making

The girls have been asking me to teach them to sew lately. Most of the time I don't have the time or patience to really sit and teach them - but I know it's something I will definitely do in the future, especially since they show so much interest in it.

Today we did just a little bit, we made some purses for ourselves. They each chose their own fabric and buttons. The girls' purse took about 45 min to make and costs less than $3 for materials. My purse was made from extra fabric that I'm using in my kitchen. I added the flowers and button from stuff I already had. So I guess in a way it was free!

The best part of all ... when I finished making Hope's purse she commented - "It's the perfect size! I can even carry a book in it!" {*sigh* what every Mom hopes to hear! Not that she wanted to carry money or sunglasses or chapstick or any other girly thing ... but that she wants to use it to carry her book! love it!}

I figured mine is the perfect size to sling over my shoulder with a book, magazine, sunglasses and sunblock when we're sitting poolside on our trip ... plus, it turned out pretty cute!

Fish!

This is my wonderful hubby ...
he loves to fish ...
on Monday he got to go fishing with his friend ...
and he caught a bunch of these babies!!!



He was so super excited ...
and brought a whole bunch of fish home ...
we cooked them up for dinner ...
and everyone {including the girls} gobbled it up!!!

A fun Giveaway and a great new blog find ...

You have to check out this great blog I just found out about. She makes Vinyl Wall Art that is super adorable! I want it in every room of my house!!!

Her blog is called Lewa's Designs and is owned and operated by an elementary school teacher, Brittany Hughes, who is home with her baby right now.

If you click here you can jump right to her site and check out all she has to offer ...

There is also a little green box over on the sidebar that you can use to link to her site. I love the dandelion blowing in the wind! They even have ones you can adhere to your car! OK, I am so getting those!

If you want to read how you can win some of Lewa's designs check out Kimba's post over at A Soft Place to Land ... you won't be sorry!!!!

The day the Tooth Fairy went broke ....

Seriously, these girls are loosing teeth at an alarming rate! The poor tooth fairy is gonna go broke around this house!

This little one lost her bottom tooth last Monday .... and her top tooth today! It was pretty loose already and then we made a deal with her - if she let Daddy pull the tooth out then her big sis, Mama and Daddy would all jump in the pool fully clothed. She thought that was pretty funny so she agreed and giggled with delight as we all had to jump in!

Bubbles!

Yesterday the girls had their bubbles out so as they blew bubbles I got my camera and started snapping photos. I love how they turned out ... I think I may even frame some of these!