Lanie at 4 Months...

Just a quick new pic of Lanie Elizabeth... This was taken at cousin Traci's wedding a few weeks ago. How cute is she!!?? She's four months old now and changing everyday. At her doctors appt yesterday she weighed in at 17lb (which is still smaller than Turner or Clay at this age). She's rolling over and starting to babble and eat baby food. This week she learned the fun game of sitting in her high chair and dropping the same toy over and over again to see how fast a big brother would retrieve it... I think she already has them trained. Clay got frustrated after about the tenth time "Man, how many times is she gonna do this?" and I had to laugh thinking this was justice for all the times we played that game with the boys when they were babies. The age gap between the kids has turned out to be wonderful so far, the boys are a huge help with Lanie and she finds them very entertaining. Believe it or not, life moves at a more relaxing pace with 3 kids this age than it did when we had a toddler and a baby to keep up with. Everybody is starting to gear up for school to start and all the activities that fall brings... only three more weeks of summer. Time flies...

Turner doing his first dive!

After spending the summer at the pool and watching kids dive in the water, Turner has finally taken the challenge to learn how to dive himself. And after only a few days of trying, I think he's finally got it! He's very proud and I am too! Now he is on to bigger things...like running and diving!

And we are home!

We survived the fierce watergun fight aboard the Pirate Cruise (which is a must if you have kids and visit Panama City), 2 weeks in the camper, seeing deer and dolphin, some amazing sunsets, 3 days of consistent rain and quite a migration of jellyfish, one severe pinch by a store-bought hermit crab...and now we are home! Vacation was GREAT but it is nice to be home. We left a day early (Friday) in hopes of beating the Saturday mass exodus from the Gulf of and it paid off. There was virtually no traffic on any of the roads that we traveled on. That may not sound like a big deal, but Turner and I were in my truck pulling our big camper while Meghan, Clay and Lanie were following in her car. Well, Lanie decided to test her lungs and make sure her tear ducts were working for about 95% of the ride home and pulling a camper carries its own stresses. So if that would have taken place during that awful Saturday traffic, I am afraid someone might have gotten hurt! But we made it home and actually got the camper unloaded before dark! That's quite a feat considering it took me about 3 days to get it loaded. Now, after doing 7 loads of laundry and getting everything put in its place, I think we are ready to enjoy what's left of the summer before school supplies and undesirable early bedtimes become the focus around our house. So now it is off to the pool to enjoy some swimming where we don't have to shower just to get the sand off!

Beach Pic...

We tried to get a few good shots of everybody on the beach... out of about 250 photos we ended up with 5 or 6 good ones! It's hard to get all three kids to cooperate at the same time! Here's one of the better ones... we did get several 'action shots' with Lanie in mid spit up which I'll spare you ;) When I figure out how to do one of the slide shows I'll add a few more.

Clay skimmin!

Finally a day of sunshine!

Brotherly love!

After 3 days of dreary rain, gray skies, a treasure hunt that culminated in the finding of a new raft (the one in the picture) and movies in the camper, the sun has finally shown itself and we have gotten to spend the afternoon on the beach (well, the boys and I have...while Meghan and Lanie are out enjoying shopping with no real time constraints). But not before we paddled a few miles in the kayak this morning. I ferried the kids around the bay and they had fun looking for fish and crabs while I got a little exercise. We have a few more days of our vacation left and I hope the weather stays nice for us. It has been a great time so far and we have enjoyed time together as a family and with friends. The Rigsbys are camped next to us now...and the Harts were there last week. I must say that having a career which allows me the time to spend a couple of weeks on vacation with my family is truly a blessing. I wouldn't know what to if I had to live for 2 weeks of vacation per year. I guess we need to enjoy it while we can. More pics to come...