Brianna’s Visit to Navarre Beach, FL 2.6.10

The weather wasn’t going to be perfect to go to the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico but we needed to take Brianna to a beach to have fun and to fun some seashells…The weather for Saturday, 2.6.10, was windy and cool, about 50* for the high…We put on warm clothes, grabbed a couple of quart zipped baggies, a black permanent marker, a change of clothes, cameras, some snacks, and the soundtrack to The Princess & The Frog and off we headed down Route 87 towards Navarre Beach, Santa Rosa, Florida…

Brianna started heading towards the water…but as you can see, the waters today were very rough…We made sure to tell her to watch out for the water while looking for seashells…She did get to see someone out in the water on their surfboard…On her first outing, she came across a few seashells up along the back edge of where the sand began…

Brianna found her first seashell of the day…She was so excited…

While Brianna and I were looking at the top of the sand line, Poppy called her to come see what he found…Off and running to the spot where Poppy said and Oh my!  lots of seashells…Which ones to pick out and keep?  We tried to tell her to pick out ones that were pretty much in whole pieces but to also look for some unique ones…

As you can see, Bri is looking very intently on what seashell she wants for her collection…We did find a couple of spiral seashells for her jar of shells…In the picture to the right, you will see one spiral shell and some of the ones that Bri found on her own…She liked the brown/white shells a lot…Bri thought they were very pretty…There are 2 more different spiral shells that I spotted for her collection…

Pretend the sand is snow…What are you gonna make???  None other than a sandball…Brianna can show you how…You put your fingers in the sand and grabbed a handful…Then you ball it up and make it in to a sandball…Then you try to toss it at Mommom…LOL

Brianna found a couple of seagull feathers…One big feather and one small feather…What she didn’t crasp was that the seagull didn’t want their feather back…She tried her darndest to give a seagull back their feather by chasing them around the beach…After her running after them, she finally gave up and tossed the big seagull feather away but she kept the small seagull feather…

Once we were done collecting seashells and chasing seagulls, it was time to go and get some lunch…But Brianna wanted to do one more thing before leaving…She wanted to lay down in the sand…To me it looks like she is trying to swim in the sand…In the next picture, she acted like she was going to eat the sand…Yuk!! 

and as a last effort, she posed with her head up…She had a blast…and for the most part there really wasn’t a whole lot of sand to clean off of her before getting in to the truck…This picture says it all…She is having fun!

After leaving Navarre Beach, we headed east towards Okaloosa Island where The Crab Trap was located…We arrived at the parking lot and outside of the building were those portable blow up kids jumpers and slide…We told her we would do it after we ate…We went in to eat and had a good time…Brianna was handed a pail & shovel and inside of it was a coloring/activity paper to do while our food was being cooked…Brianna and I played a game of tic tac toe and then Poppy and her played tic tac toe…I don’t know who was winning but I don’t think Poppy was being a circle…LOL… 

 I think Poppy was making triangles instead of circles…but I think Brianna thought she won…She hasn’t crasped the concept that you have to get 3 in a row..but we had fun…While waiting for our food, fried clams basket and chicken tenders basket, Brianna wanted to show off her necklace that she got to wear…She even had on makeup – eye shadow, blush and lipstick…She looked beautiful…

After eating our lunch/dinner for the day, we headed out to the parking lot…Today there was a Mardi Gras parade and for free, proprietors set up bouncers and slides and jumpers for the kids who came to the restaurants in that building…We got to the slide just in time…The other play things were being packed up…Brianna got her chance to do the slide…At first she wasn’t quite sure of herself to climb the wall of stairs but after a few times, she got it and off she was going…

After the first slide, she was lucky to start heading up the “stairs” to the top all by herself without being knocked around…Brianna came down the slide on her butt, on her belly and on her side…She had such a blast…It was such a treat to see her have so much fun…At one point, she decided to climb up the steps by holding on to the black materialed handrail that is provided…That took a longer time to get up to the top of the slide…

 Can you tell how much fun she is having??? This was her second trip down the slide…The next trip down the slide was one of amazement…Her side slide…

Then Brianna tried the feet first slide after her side slide…Then after this slide, we had to go cause the men came to pack it up…She was disappointed but we told that the men must have to take the slide back to the store…So we headed to Walmart to finish out our day…Along with a trip to McDonald’s for an ice cream…

Birth Announcements of the Girls

It has always been fun to make birthday cards, anniversary cards and other projects using a program I have called Microsoft Picture It…This program came in handy when all the grandbabies were born…I know that hospitals can make birth announcements for the new parents but I have found out that they are simple and to the point…With Picture It, I can add all kinds of backgrounds, colors, font types and colors and clipart that adds to the detail of the birth announcement project…I have been fortunate to be able to put together all 4 of the girls announcements…So below are how all the girls’ announcements turned out…

As you can see with each grandbaby, I learned new techniques and how to do more things…but the best part is that the parents of all the girls were happy with the ending results…

Kayla, Brianna & Elizabeth are Brandi’s 3 little girls and Laurianna is Misti’s little girl…Brandi is our eldest daughter and Misti is our younger daughter…

Christmas Photos of All Girls 2009

When one has kids, you always look forward to having Christmas pictures taken either with Santa or family or with other siblings or family members…Mine has grown up and the picture taking is no more…but the most fortunate part of my life are my grandbabies when the holidays come around…So when pictures are posted to where we can see them, I am very excited cause now I can look at that picture and capture it for my own use…We were lucky this Christmas that the grandbabies other grandparents took the girls and their other 2 grandkids to Walmart to get their picture taken for the Holidays…For that I am grateful…For one, the youngest daughter, Misti, and her family, hubby, Chad and daughter, Laurianna, flew from Sicily to West Virginia for Thanksgiving and a few days in December and for two, Richard and I had to go to Orlando, Florida to work and can not be around for most of the holidays…With the picture capturing, Richard was able to make a few extra separate Christmas photos for our desk, or for the other family members or friends…Richard also made the extra  photos with the different Christmas backgrounds for the other grandparents to enjoy…

Our eldest granddaughter, Kayla…She was 5 1/2 years old…

 Our second eldest granddaughter, Brianna…She was 4 1/2 years old…

Our third eldest granddaughter, Elizabeth…She was 2 3/4 years old…and finally,

Our fourth eldest granddaughter, Laurianna…She was 11 months old…

Thanks to Bruce and Peg for taking all of their grandkids to have their picture taken…Without this picture being posted on Facebook by Sarah then we would not have seen such a great picture of all the kids…The other 2 grandkids are on Peg’s side of the family, her daughter’s children…They are MJ and Kylie…What a great group of kids…

Gulf Pines, Milton FL Fun

It’s special moments like this that make taking pictures fun..Brianna and Poppy (Richard) are playing.. Bri was suppose to be relaxing, watching tv, but then she wanted Poppy to lay down with her..I’m not sure who started the tickling..

Playground fun..Brianna and I headed to the playground that the KOA Gulf Pines has in their campground..It is a very nice playset..The area is covered by mulch and sand..There are a couple of animals that are on those springs that goes in to the ground..Brianna ran for the slide..Needless to say, the one thing we didn’t think about was the possibility of water being at the end of the slide, on the slide itself..Brianna found out on the long spiral slide that at the bottom of the slide was water..

Brianna wanted to take off her pants right there at the playground but I told her that her pants would dry and that she can’t take them off…She waited a bit but realized that they would be alright…She continued on to riding a pretty yellow pony…It looked like she was riding in to the sunset…

When pony time was over, Bri found a quacky duck to ride…What fun she had bouncing around on the duck…After riding the duck for a while, it was time to go back to the playground set…Brianna wanted to find out if she could run up the little straight slide and found out that the slide was very slippery…She had a blast just trying to go up the slide…

Bri would try to climb up the slide and wound up sliding back down the slide…

On the other side of the stairs is a spiral continuous ring..Unfortunately, I could not get the pictures of her bringing her arms and feet over to the rungs of the spiral ring and she would walk around the spiral rungs down to the ground…My little shadow would also climb gray steps that you can not see on the other side of the blue tunnel… 

After our playground escapade,  we decided to go for a small walk around the campground…We took a few roads to head towards the rv and on our excursion, Brianna found a small garden wall to walk around…Do you think she might do good in gymnastics??  She does like to walk around the wooden beams…

Getting on our way down the road, Brianna came upon some poles that she liked to swing around…and can this girl sing…While swinging around the poles, she was singing some song that I never heard of before but she was just going to town, singing as loud as she could…If only I could have recorded her…

Can you name that tune????

More walking beams…

 Ourside our rv is nothing but sand, dirt, leaves and mini acorns…Brianna wanted to go out and dig…I saw no problems with that and she even got a plastic spoon for digging…I wonder what she was making to “pretend” to have a bite…*L*

In the evening around 6:30pm, Brianna gets relax time and she picks out the movie that she wants to watch in the bedroom…However this time she wanted me to take a few pictures of her posing…She is a bit of a ham but had fun posing…

The one thing that Brianna wants to do while we are here at Gulf Pines KOA is play miniature golf…So far the weather hasn’t quite been cooperative but hopefully this weekend, if no rain is in the plans, we are hoping to go play miniature golf…The KOA looks like they have a really nice golf course…But Brianna don’t like to hit the ball in the hole several times, she likes to put the ball up close to the hole and hitting all the balls in to the hole…It is fun to watch and I hope that I will have some pictures to post by the weekend…More pictures will come as our visits to this campground and Sunset King come about…(Jan. 26 – Feb. 9, 2010)

Laurianna at 11/12 Months Old

There isn’t much to tell ya about our youngest granddaughter, Laurianna, who lives in Sicily…We had missed seeing her, our youngest daughter, Misti & her hubby, Chad around Thanksgiving, 2009…We had left to go to Florida and we couldn’t go back to West Virginia to see them…but thanks to Misti who posts pictures for us to see and then I can put in my blog and print for home use…There are several little stories that can go with the pictures that I have seen…

Laurianna is now sitting in a high chair and for one of her meals, Misti gave her some spaghettios…Now for most older moms, we know what that will do…There should be no carpet under the high chair nor any furniture cause spaghettios will land any where and every where…Down on the tray, down her belly and I know, down in her diaper…I had seen the pictures and made a comment to Misti to make sure she had the bath water ready…According to Misti, the tub was ready and she put Anna in the tub, diaper and all…

Along came Christmas 2009 and Laurianna was taken to see Santa Claus but I do not know what they call Santa in Sicily…The look on Anna’s face is priceless… She is looking at this man dressed in a red & white suit with a long white beard wondering who he is…It is priceless like I said…Her daddy was holding her at home and she had on this very cute little red & white Christmas outfit…Oh so cute…You can tell how proud her daddy is of her… One of the best pictures is one of Laurianna reading a book, upside down…She looks so intense in reading and one would love to know what she was thinking while she was reading her book…Another great photo is one where Anna is inside of a box…I love when little ones like to climb in to things and have fun…but the way she sits makes my knees hurt…Nothing like little ones who are so flexible…

The Ravens are in the Playoffs and they were playing the New England Patriots on 1.10.10…Brandi, the eldest daughter, had given Misti one of the Ravens outfits that was bought for Brianna and then handed down to Lizzi…Now it was time to hand it down to Anna…The size was 18 months and Misti said it was big on her but she had the Ravens spirit…So awesome…

On January 20, Laurianna turns 1 year old…The time sure did fly by…I remember when she was born…The theme for her was Good Luck Care Bear cause she was a good luck baby for Misti to be pregnant…Laurianna’s party is on 1.17.10 and Misti decided to make a practice cake as a trial run…It turned out very well except she said that one of her kitties kind of ate some of the icing but to me it looked fantastic…I can’t wait to see the real cake on this Sunday…Whoo hooo!! 

Happy 1st Birthday to our wonderful and beautiful granddaughter, Laurianna…Misti had also asked me/Richard to make a birthday invitation for her 1st Birthday…I got to do that and felt like part of the party even though we are miles away…Everything little thing counts…Thanks Misti & Chad…Please give Laurianna a huge birthday hug and kiss and tell her we love her…We love you guys too..Hugs and Kisses to you both too…

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 came very fast this year…but the best part is that our Christmas is usually going all year long…What do we buy each other?  Pretty much whatever we really want when we see it…and if we can fit it in our rv…Before Christmas, a few things were already bought for our birthdays so it made it a bit more difficult to find something else…Richard saw a Mickey Mouse statue with all the Disney characters written on Mickey’s body…With our discounts, he bought it for himself… While out at Downtown Disney, I saw a Christmas Tinkerbell ornament that I really wanted and Richard wasn’t around so I bought it…but we still try to find one thing that we can give one another…I was really going to be surprised to see what Richard got me and I was sure he was going to be surprised what I got him…

Waking up on Christmas morning is awesome…I can’t wait to see what Richard got me…Our Disney bag wrapped gift are hidden in 2 spots…Well, maybe not hidden but are put away…On my portable table is a really romantic computer generated Christmas card…I read that card and then went to get out Richard’s gift bag…The bag that Richard handed me was very soft…Was it a very soft Tinkerbell tee?  MMMMM!!  Nope, it was the Cinderella’s Iced Castle blanket that I have been wanting since last year that is a special promotion at Disney Parks when you spend over $40…Most of the time we do not spend more than $20, cause of our discounts so the blanket was out of our reach…but we had friends in and during one of their shopping sprees at one of the Disney parks, Richard must have gotten them to purchase the blanket…What a surprise…It is soooo soft…and gorgeous…but what Richard didn’t realize too, is that he “was giving me” the Tinkerbell Christmas ornament that I had purchased earlier…So I unwrapped it and showed him…He loved what he got me…hahaha! The wings light up… I handed him his present and he liked his Pirates of the Caribbean towel and a 2009 engraved Mickey Mouse ears Christmas ornament…which can be hung all year long…What a wonderful Christmas…

 

This year I didn’t put up many Christmas decorations cause we have been very sick this month of December…but we did have our little Mickey Mouse decorated optic tree on our living room table…Our stockings were hanging on the slideouts…A few little Christmas ornaments were put around to give a look of Christmas in our little home…Our plans on Christmas was to go to our friend’s house for dinner and share in the day…We arrived at Bob and Donna’s home around 1:30pm… After we pulled in to the drive, Donna’s daughter, Jenna, son-n-law, Chris, and 2 grandkids, Kaleb and Kamryn, arrived…We all walked in to the house and I put their present under the decorated Palm tree…We hugged and said Merry Christmas…Today was going to be a good day except for us being sick…Donna was making a wonderful dinner and the table was set…The ham smelled very good along with the baked bread…Richard and I took a Dutch Apple pie with Cool Whip for dessert…Dinner was ready and we all sat at the table…It all looked so good..Ham, twice baked potatoes, corn, green beans, rolls/bread and I can’t remember what else…The ham was so good…Dinner was over and everything was cleaned up…Now it’s time for everyone to open up their presents…After the presents were all done, it was time to celebrate Kamryn’s b’day…The b’day cake was brought out, we all sang to Kamryn and more desserts and snacks were brought out…It was a fun time…but as time went on, I was starting not to feel well…Around 6pm, we started to head home…

The best part of my Christmas Day were the phone calls that we received from our kids…The phone calls are always the best presents for me…It makes my day…In the morning, I talked to our son, Josh, our almost daughter-n-law, Sandy…We had received a call from Brandi and her girls but I hadn’t listened to the message yet…but later in the afternoon, I listened to the message and it was so wonderful..Brandi and the girls were singing Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, to us on the phone and it brought tears to my eyes…It was so adorable and cute…Another call I got was from our youngest, Misti…That really made my day…It is always great to hear from the youngest cause she lives in Sicily and it’s tough to hear from her cause I know it cost for long distance calls…but to be called on a holiday is always special and great…Thanks to all my kids for calling on such an important holiday…That is the greatest present of all for me…I love you all very much…Hugs and kisses…

So our Christmas ended in me being really sick when we got home…What a rough night it was…but overall, it was a Fantastic Christmas…

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas like I did and to all my friends and family  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!