Mexico - Fishing & Playa del Carmen

Out fishing....

A deck hand and a barracuda

It's like we were on a cruise...our housekeeper left towel animals!

Me and Richard before leaving for Playa

On the beach of Playa...watched some locals playing soccer while enjoying (as well as being totally grossed out by) some local fruits!

Marissa (my cousin) & Me

Richard & Me at dinner

Alex & Marissa

A bunch of guys (and one girl) playing music downtown Playa...quite entertaining!

Fire Girl!!! :)

Mexico - swimming with dolphins

I've wanted to swim with dolphins for a long, long time. But one thing after another, I just never have. So, RIGHT in the area we were staying, there was a place called "Discovery Dolphin". As we walked around the shops every day, we were able to watch others swim with dolphins. It was right there, so when we ate dinner, we saw the dolphins. Our condos were actually so close to the manetees that we could see them from our pool! It was great. So, I signed up for swimming with the dolphins, it was amazing to be in the water with them!

Here's how my group spent our 30 minutes with two dolphins:

First, a kiss from the dolphin

Then, my turn to kiss the dolphin back

Holding/hugging the dolphin
(there was another one that was a smile, but I don't like that pic..lol)

Then one of the best, the "dorsal tow" (when you grab on the dorsal fins of two dolphins and get pulled through the water)

Me getting pulled by the 2 dolphins

Lots of touching their skin, splashing, dancing and singing with them...

And last, but not least, the "foot push" (when two dolphins find your feet and push you up and out of the water as you coast through.)

And here are the dolphins performing at the end

(I actually recorded this after someone else's swim...so, it's not actually mine)

The Easter Bunny Pictures

Nana and Aunt Denise took the kids to visit the Easter Bunny while Richard and I were in Mexico. Nana said she felt just awful that Kaisley was crying her eyes out...but mean mama warned ahead of time, "she'll cry, just quick, take the picture!" So, they got the pictures...here they are!

Easter at School

March 23rd (my 30th Birthday)

Brookston's class did an Easter Party and the parents were invited. It started with lunch in their classroom, but ended with an Easter Egg hunt on the playground.

Of course he loved hunting the eggs!

Kaisley also enjoyed herself.

March 26th

The kids had their Easter performance. They were practicing all year for their songs and arrived in their Sunday best. While Brookston barely participated in the songs and hand motions, he sure did look incredibly cute!

My handsome boy walking in

Don't you love the excitement of all of he kids! Hahaha!

Of course, AFTER the program, he did all of the hand motions for us!

Our family

Mexico!!!

Richard and I just got back from a great week in Mexico! We were there from Saturday to Saturday, along with my cousin and her husband. Wonderful Nana flew in a few days prior so that she could be here with the kids! Even my Aunt (the one who was letting us stay in her condo in Mexico), came to help Nana with the kids for a few days!

We were so lucky to have this wonderful place to go and the support from family to allow us a week long get away, without the kids. It was a GORGEOUS week, but we sure did miss the kids like crazy, so it was nice to come home and wake up this morning to 2 bright shining and excited faces. It helped that it was Easter morning and there was Easter baskets and a jelly bean hunt!

I have lots to catch up with on blogging, so I'll be back soon!

Sesame Street Live

Brookston and mommy went to see "1-2-3 Imagine" by Sesame Street Live this morning! We were given 2 tickets by a very generous friend with extras. It was so much fun to see Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Abby, Grover, Bert, Oscar, and "honk honk"...those were Brookston's favorites! But there were a quite a few more characters there!

We were sitting in the front row, to the side, where we were litterally between the 2 sets of stairs that the characters went between, or used to get on stage, the entire production! There was about 15 feet between these stairs, so besides the fact that it scared Brookston a number of times at the beginning (poor thing, he was on my lap and you could feel him tense and shake each time), but as time went on, he was looking for them to say hi! Bert especially! He seemed to be on our side a lot! We got to see them up close more times than I could even try to count...you could feel the wind as they ran by...that's how close we were. They even came to shake Brookston's hand, give high fives, and wave many many times.

Brookston seemed to enjoy himself. It was a mixture between getting into the music and dancing and being in total awe of the whole thing! I'd say it was a successful!

The purple one was "honk, honk" according to Brookston...anyone know his name??

***UPDATE: Apparently there are 4 of them, in different colors, and called, "The Honkers". Phew, case solved...maybe Brookston already knew that!

And Brookston watching "honk honk" was probably the most entertaining part for me! Almost EVERY time Brookston heard him honk his nose, Brookston would bop himself in the nose! hehehehe!!

Time to dance the hula (I think that's what they were doing!?!)

We were sitting just feet away from those stairs...so we saw EVERYONE this close!

Girl's PJ Party

Julie, our incredible hostess.

She threw the BEST girl's night, PJ party! I don't think I've laughed this hard, possibly EVER. And it's been years since I've stayed up until 5am!

Don't you just love her footed onesie?? :)

There were pranks...this is Katherine opening the fake can of chips!

There were games...this one included us having to sit on each other's laps!

There was painting, instructed by one of our great artist friends

Yes, I've become slightly obsessed with painting these days!

(sorry about the smudge on my face from my camera lense)

Here is mine.

Then there were facials and manicures...of course "Sherman" went first.

Heather and Me with our masks.

Facials and paintings!!! Don't you love how different they all are!

Chubby bunny!!!

Have you ever played, or at the very least watched, "Chubby Bunny"? OMG, seriously, hilarious!!!!! It starts off with everyone putting one marshmallow in their mouth, then going around and saying the phrase, "chubby bunny". You cannot chew or swallow any marshmallows. And you go around adding in one more marshmallow, one more, one more, until others just cannot doing it anymore! HILARIOUS!!!!

Almost at the end of "Chubby Bunny"!!!!

Heather and Kim, please don't kill me! :) I just couldn't resist!

Then, my favorite, the shower caps, shaving cream....and cheese puffs!

Our partner had to throw the cheese puffs, as we caught them in the shaving cream.

Tada....the final result...a BIG HUGE MESS!!!!!

Brandi sang, sang, sang...

As we cleaned (what else does a group of mom's do??)

There was dancing...

And board games...

And well, the first to fall asleep...I can't show you those pictures!!! :)

But I'll tell you this, that was a VERY entertaining hour!

Thanks Julie for an absolutely awesome night! I had SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

I'm still here!

Sorry, I've been slacking...according to a recent phone call with my mom! ;)

I was thinking I hadn't blogged because not much has happened, but no, no indeed, that's not the case. How quickly I forget (oh if I didn't have pictures to document our life)! It's not that we haven't done much...it's that I haven't stuck my memory card into my computer to upload picutures and then...OH YEAH...we did that, and that, and that!

So....

There were birthday parties, lots of them in the last 2 weeks!!! 5 I believe! :) And we're not done yet!

Here are some pictures of a snow party! The weather was a beautiful almost 70 degrees and I thought beautiful weather was going to ruin a party (lol...sounds odd right?), but it did not at all..it was more than perfect. Some were in short sleeves, some were in long sleeves, but playing comfortably in the snow -- which of course they brought in by machine for the party! The kids had so much fun in the Lousiana "snow"!

Then, Brookston discovered the bikes...

Looks like we know what he's getting for his 3rd birthday!

Sorry Kaisley, you're still too young for your own!

Then there was the party that we hosted for some of Richard's people from work. Of course being a not so impressive cook, this was a bit stressful for me...but I think it went off pretty well!

It was a number of days of stress (to which I thank my friends for helping me out with some issues, from what to cook to a friend offering to make dessert for us :) :) Thanks to all of my friends for dealing with me that week). I guess it sounds funny to some of you for me to stress so much over a dinner, but well, when you're not a confident cook, cooking for anyone other than your family (who has to eat what you put on the table), it's stressful!

So, as a result from the dinner party....Kaisley now thinks she's a big girl...

Honestly, I was pretty impressed! ;)

He reads! (sort of!)

Kaisley got a new book for her birthday and Brookston loves it! He can "read" it, since it's just recognizing the color and article of clothing in each picture.

This was about his 4th time reading it and he was very distracted because Kaisley was quickly approaching him (which he did not want...and you'll see evidence of that towards the end!)

Hahaha!

Painting again!

For my mom's birthday, she was in town for Kaisley's birthday, so I took her to "Corks N Canvas", just like the "Painting with a Twist" I did a couple weeks ago with friends.

I was not nearly as impressed with my work, BUT the artists did say this was one of their hardest paintings! WHAT? I wish I would have known that! Hahaha!

Regardless, it was FUN!

(New post below too!)