it's been so long since I last saw you, beach.

When my Ma and siblings came down to visit, one of their requests was to visit the beach.

It takes a little longer than an hour to get there but it depends with all this awful Houston traffic.

When the husband and I lived in Florida, we were about one hour away from Cocoa Beach. We miss it.

I had heard horror stories of Galveston. But what I saw when we arrived, was beautiful-ness. 

The sand, clean. The weather, perfect. The sun, shining. The water, cold but tolerable. It was game on!

We made a little trek and onto the beach we plopped. 

Our place was set up, then we knocked off our flip-flops and...

...into the water we went!!!

I would like to introduce you to my little fish. His name is Jonah. We call him JoJo. 

He wears whale swim shorts. He loves the water. 

...and sand. 

I started off with a sand castle of course, I am not a fan of the salty water or sand, but I shrugged it off and decided to get dirty and sticky with salty humidity. Once every 5 years is not that terrible =D

This was the first time to visit a beach for my boys. They have experienced 'fake' waves at Great Wolf Lodge and sand in playgrounds, but never the two together. I was extremely curious to what their reaction would be, and to my delight and theirs, they loved it!
Andrew asked me a couple of times to clean his feet because they were 'dirty'  but I quickly told him at the beach, everything gets dirty so you just have to put up with it, son.

And Moomie sunbathed and played in the sand. She loved it as much as the boys did. 

The boys wanted so badly to stomp on my castle. I told them they would get to, at the end of the day. Once or twice, I caught them out of the corner of my eye, roundin' about the castle, knocking off a little sand here and there. The urge to destroy it was hilarious! 

My beautiful beach  baby sister, gosh I love her. 

and her beautiful pink toes.

At lunch time, we had Lunchables, cheetos, chicken pitas, and watermelon! Yum! 

And soon we got air raided with poop from the locals. I was the only one hit--twice.

And James, this hunk of a redhead, had such a blast. He was Fish #1. Spending most of his time in the ocean while we others played on the shore. He almost got tailed by a jumping fish and kept creeping up on these crabs! And since he started baseball this year, we had a fun game of catch. He's got quite an arm!

A beautiful rainbow.

I loved the beach! With family, it made it so much more fun! Thank you beach for not disappointing me!!!
Have a happy Friday, guys!

birthday/mother's day

Weekend full of celebrations. 

My sis and I have a birthday 2 days apart and they somewhat coincide with Mother's day too.

Apparently the second week of May is uber-popular with birthdays...everyone I know seems to know someone with a May 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 birhtday.

So it goes like this: We have cake and my sister, Caren and I and my mother all exchange gifts.

This year, my sis requested a colorful cake. A cake we Pin-a-holics have all seen on Pinterest. 

 A RAINBOW CAKE!!!

 It was SO pretty and sweet! 

And afterwards, we exchanged gifts and hugs!

My mother is always very specific about what she asks for any occasion. This year she requested kitchen utensils, as the ones she had were falling apart. So we gave her those and some TOMs too. 

I had made my sister one of those DIY earring holders, but she's always been saying I needed to make her a necklace holder. No need because when I walked into Claire's the other day, I saw this and found it just perfect for her. You see she likes purple? 

Jonah was eating Spongebob.

After the presents opening, we headed outside even though everyone was begging for a nap.

We set up horseshoes, had some equipment for badminton, and brand new dodgeballs. 

Mother's Day 2012

Busted lip, but still gorgeous as ever.

And of course they had to give Mommy some kisses....

...'cause they love me.