Family Beach Photo Shoot- Part One

     I thought I'd break up the mini photo shoot we did at the beach on our last evening. Didn't want to overload you with too much cuteness at once- ha ha! So I'll start with the solo shots we took. I would have captured more, but we were a bit short on sunlight. There is always next time, right?

      If you read the blog from the website, you have already seen a few of the photos from this I used to create the new Apedaile 6 banner at the top of the screen. The girls were happy to hear I did that as the fall photos from last year were "so outdated".

 The beautiful nurse in training-Sarah.

 Our tall beauty-Lindsay.

 Our own Rapunzel Princess-Courtney.

 I love when I capture Courtney in a laugh- she makes me want to laugh seeing her. Not in a bad way mind you, her expression just shows such enjoyment that you want to be a part of it.

 Our handsome John Thomas.

 In attempts to get our on the go boy to be patient during the photos, we managed to see some of his antics.

One arm flying moves

Super strength

All of this cuteness brought to you by proud parents John (GQ) and Victoria

Cutting it Up

     Part of JT's "lessons" are going to be other little skills that are school/life related to help practice and perfect. First on the list- some scissor skill work. I'll admit, I haven't been big on turning over the scissors to JT so far in his life. My Mommy over protector just wants to stay away from sharp objects. It's time to get over that (in part) and work on cutting with supervision.

Ready to start his work! New scissors and keeping it simple with straight lines.

Excited to get going.

First things first, writing his name at the top of his paper.

How do these things work? JT's tongue was in overdrive for this task.

JT did really well!

His first line. Not too bad!

Me being the person who loves to capture new experiences, recorded JT for a bit.

His hands did tire after doing several lines, but he kept at it.

After many "Watch your fingers", JT started to perfect his holding paper hand position. Phew! 

Lesson Time- letter A

     In effort to put a bit more focused attention toward early learning, I started little "lesson time" for JT and his friends. So far it's been a success and the kids will exclaim, "Lesson Time!!!" and run to the table ready to learn.

Since we have a bit of an age gap between JT and his friends that are 2 we have a variety of things to do. Here are a few things that we worked on last week. Strong focus on letter recognition for our younger friends early writing, classification and the like for JT.

JT working on his A color by size paper. He did well, but in such a rush to get it done. We need to work on letting JT know we aren't in a race to see who finishes first-LOL!

It was so cute that JT wanted to help show Mason and Ella how to complete their tracing coloring page for the letter A. It is something JT has worked on before, so he serves as an expert for them.

How cute are these 3?!?

Happy Little Students!

McGuire's Irish Pub

    Part of the fun of being on vacation is trying out some new food and local places. One of the suggestions our friends gave us was McGuire's. All that we had heard is this place has a wide variety of burgers, an 18 cent bean soup, and dollar bills stuck on the walls from patrons. Sounded interesting, so we gave it a shot.

When we pulled in, we could tell this was a pretty popular place by the lack of parking spaces and lots of people outside despite eating at an early hour.

It had a humorous and relaxed atmosphere starting from the entrance.

$1 bills hanging on the wall was an understatement! There was money everywhere!!!

On the walls....

Hanging from the ceiling. On the menu it estimated that there was at least $1 million in the restaurant. Crazy!!!

Sarah loved the moose head in the waiting area.

JT and "my girls" as he often calls his sisters.

Menu

A glance at the burger portion of the menu. We all selected a different burger to try. Nobody chose (or was allowed) to order the $100 Grand Burger.

While we waited, a balloon artists came by and made the family some balloon hats and bracelets.

I loved Courtney's little turtle bracelet. 

Family shot of our table.

While we waited for our burgers we shared this yummy bread covered in melted butter. John and I also had the .18 cent bean soup which was delicious.

Sarah's swiss burger and huge steak fries.

Courtney had to cut her burger in half to manage it.

Lindsay chose to dive in!

Check out John's burger! I forget the name, but it was something spicy with all the jalapenos on it. I placed his drink glass next to it so we could appreciate the height.

It was so large, he couldn't get his mouth over everything for a proper bite!

Signs like this prove you need to read ALL the words before proceeding!. I was taking JT to the restroom  and was flabbergasted when I walked in the "ladies" room to see a man exiting. For about 2 seconds I didn't understand why he was giving me a crazy look! Always happy to give my family a good laugh at my expense.

This is where I needed to go instead...

JT also met a new friend while leaving.

JT got a souvenir coin on the way out. Also while we were eating someone had a birthday and a full on bagpipe mini crew came out to play an Irish song! It was such a fun and filling dinner!

We all left with stuffed bellies and headed back to the beach for some family photos at sunset. Perhaps not the best idea, but it was our last night there and I really wanted some beach photos. That will be coming to a blog post soon!