the beach is the place to play in the sand

the beach is the place to enjoy GOD's created world

there are many, many more of my favorites HERE.

the beach is the place to kick off your shoes

we were blessed to be able to join some sweet friends this past week for some much needed time away at the beach.  i took a few photos (a few hundred, that is), and while about half of them failed to make the final cut, there's still a boatload of them to share.  so over the next week or so, i'm going to bee-bop between here and my photography blog as i post some of our favorite shots.

this might take a while.

jack got a sound room for his birthday

this is me at about 10:00 on the morning of september 26, 2006...

and this is me shortly after 11:27 on that same day...

peaceful, joyful, thankful, and in love.  the lord blessed us richly when jackson edward lewis joined our family four years ago today.

a few members of our family came over for cake and pizza yesterday to celebrate the little guy's birthday.  as you might have read in about 57 other posts, jack would give his big toes to be a real guitarist or drummer.  actually, he would probably give all 10 toes if he could do both at the same time.  well much to his delight, nanny and pop came in toting a red guitar cake that made him feel like he was one step closer to the stage.

but the complete and total freak-out came when he opened their gift.  now before you go all "i-can't-believe-they-did-that" on me, my mom asked permission to buy this...

please tell me you can see his excitement in that first photo.  the boy squealed like a little pig when he saw that he had just been given a drum set.

"elated" just doesn't do it justice.  add to that that grandpam and papaw gave him a ukulele, and it almost sent him over the top.

we didn't want all the fun to be had the day before his real birthday, so our little family saved our gift for today.  we started by hiding grandpam and papaw's other present to him in the mailbox for him to search out and find...

then once he had his snazzy new helmet and pads, we told him that he didn't have to ride the hand-me-down pink bike he'd been using for a while.  SURPRISE!

for all you birmingham folks, you know that it's rained most of the day today.  doesn't matter a bit to our crew...

i have to take a step back to the drum set now and tell you that yes, my mom did ask permission to give jack the loudest toy known to man.  and yes, i did tell her it was perfectly fine.  HOWEVER, at the time of our conversation, the soundproof basement was being used as the playroom.  when josh started working from home, though, we rearranged and made it his office.  are you picking up on the dilemma here?

don't worry about it too much.  i think we figured out a nice solution -- our closest makes a splendid sound room.

that makes me giggle, but something from earlier this afternoon made me belly-laugh.  i won't show the picture, but i will tell you that it involved a relocation of the drum set and jack sitting on the potty.  bahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

we love you, jack lewis.  so very, very much.

wordless wednesday (hiking day)

birthday bash

yesterday was my mom's birthday so we joined bethany's crew at our parents' house for a, um, noisy celebration.  that's just what you get when you put six kids under the age of six at nanny and pop's house for the day.

mom cooked a delicious meal for all of us (yes, the poor thing cooked her own birthday lunch!) and then we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, laughing, and playing with the little people.  oh, and i got to take bethany and bailey out for a few much-needed photos of them together.

and in case you didn't catch her serious gorgeousness in those first photos, let me show you a couple more of my little sister...

no, i'm not jealous -- just proud.  (ok, and maybe a little jealous.)  ;-)

but it's easy to see where she gets it.  everybody says that she looks just like our beautiful mom!

now i know that we weren't celebrating my birthday, but i still would have liked to have wished just one thing: i really wish the kids could have had just a little fun while we were there.

(what you can't see is my dad acting like a fool just off camera to get the kids to laugh for the picture.  love it!)  ;-)

by george, i think she's got it!

it's been over a year since that balmy day in july that abby first put her training wheels aside to independently ride her bike (and we put our spiritual training wheels aside to fully trust the LORD).  during that time, she's done a little riding here and there, but she's never quite been able to get the hang of riding all alone.

until now, that is.

while i was at a homeschool meeting this week, josh took the kids to run a couple of errands -- one of which was to put air in abby's bike tires.  when they got home, they hit the backyard to finish this thing. after an hour or so of practice that night combined with a whole morning's worth of practice the next day, she finally did it.  like really did it. 

and in case you were wondering, the tongue has a tremendous impact on balance.  you've gotta get it just right.

lewis lanes

bowling is serious business around here.  it's funny, though, because i don't think a one of our kids has ever stepped foot inside a real bowling alley.  but we've got a swanky set of plastic pins and a small plastic bowling ball, so what more could a three-year-old ask for?  (the answer to that is probably real bowling -- but for now, our version can join the ranks of the poor man's water park as sufficient entertainment.)  hey, he's happy -- and he manages to take his plastic bowling very seriously.

jack used to bowl in the living room, but his aim isn't the greatest so the ball kept ending up nowhere near the pins.  finally, i grabbed up the various pieces of multi-colored plastic and moved him into the foyer hallway so he could have a "lane". 

that did just the trick, and he was knocking pins down left and right after that.

i'm so thankful that i thought to relocate the game, because it gave me the opportunity to see jack's reaction when he actually hit something.  priceless.

that boy just makes me smile.