The guys got up early on Monday morning of our vacation to travel to the Kennedy Space Center to watch shuttle Discovery take off into space. It sounded like everyone had the same idea and traffic made it impossible to get there on time for the take-off. They were 40 miles away, pulled over and were still able to get a pretty good view. 
Our vacation pretty much consisted of split time between the pool and the beach each day. The kids favorite was the pool.
Bein' silly.
Enjoying the beautiful Florida sunset with my honey. :) 
My favorite place to be was the beach...although it was a little more tricky keeping track of all four kiddos there.
So fun to have this little pumpkin along for her first family vacation with us. She was such a gem. She took naps in the stroller wherever we went...the pool or the beach. 
A friend of mine let me borrow this little tent which worked perfectly to keep the sun off baby. Thanks Vicki!
Swim time with the cousins.
~Ice cream run~
Our vacation pretty much consisted of split time between the pool and the beach each day. The kids favorite was the pool.Bein' silly.Enjoying the beautiful Florida sunset with my honey. :) My favorite place to be was the beach...although it was a little more tricky keeping track of all four kiddos there.So fun to have this little pumpkin along for her first family vacation with us. She was such a gem. She took naps in the stroller wherever we went...the pool or the beach. A friend of mine let me borrow this little tent which worked perfectly to keep the sun off baby. Thanks Vicki!Swim time with the cousins.
~Ice cream run~Me and my sis...only time in our lives that we will both be using strollers at the same time. We've always wanted to have babies at the same time and finally do. So fun.
Our condo had a beautiful park like setting in our backyard with lots of grass for running around, throwing footballs and that is also where we had the Easter egg hunt. We would always send the kids out to this park bench to eat their popsicles. 
More beach pictures. :)
The whole group
We ran into so many familiar faces from back home while on the beach. So fun to walk up and find our cousins, Don & Heather and their sweet family enjoying their vacation.
cousins- isabella, william & jack
Great Aunt Mary Katherine stopped by for a visit.
Grandma time
Last night on the beach
Our condo had a beautiful park like setting in our backyard with lots of grass for running around, throwing footballs and that is also where we had the Easter egg hunt. We would always send the kids out to this park bench to eat their popsicles. More beach pictures. :)The whole groupWe ran into so many familiar faces from back home while on the beach. So fun to walk up and find our cousins, Don & Heather and their sweet family enjoying their vacation.cousins- isabella, william & jackGreat Aunt Mary Katherine stopped by for a visit.Grandma timeLast night on the beach
My parents also travelled with us...what a blessing to have them and the extra help with the kids. My sister and her family were there as well...the WHOLE family was together. It's a wonderful feeling when everyone is away from work and all the distractions of daily life...and you can just focus on each other. I love vacations...the freedom from schedules and appointments, the bonding times, the joy of watching grandparents love their grandchildren and cousins play...what a blessing!
A highlight of our vacation this year was meeting Kaiya's birthmom and her family at Downtown Disney. I'm thankful Kaiya had this opportunity and that I was there right by her side to witness this very special meeting. We have a high respect for Kristin and hold her very close to our hearts. 
Another fun thing about travelling with family is the fun tricks you can play on each other. Somebody plastered our truck with sticky notes! Hmmmm wonder who that could have been?
After tucking the children into their beds, we watched the movie "August Rush" (I recommend) with a few interruptions from my son who was having problems adjusting to sleeping on the floor in our bedroom. Poor guy got himself into trouble a few times, I think feeling left out because the two little girls played together more. The girls had fun, before bed, playing in the pack n' play and squealing...he wanted to join in on the fun, but was too big. 
Saturday morning we headed to the soccer game ready to wear our proud parent badges and excited to have Uncle Lyndon & Aunt Krista along to watch our perfect little soccer player. Well, Caedmon is still learning the whole concept of the game and still confuses it somewhat with playing football...his all time favorite sport. It seemed at this game more than any of the other ones, he had problems with too much contact with the other players. Not sure if he was just so excited to have his Uncle & Aunt watching him that he just couldn't control his excitement or if all our parenting techniques just went down the drain that day. 
There are 4s, 5s & 6s on the team and he is one of the youngest but also the biggest so his maturity level doesn't quite match his size yet and it is hard for us and probably the soccer coach as well to keep our expectations at a four-year-old level...this is something we've struggled with for most of his life and something that I pray about regularly...to not exasperate him, to have patience with him but at the same time knowing the correct balance of discipline for his age. One of the many parenting challenges that we all go through. I know that with the Holy Spirit guiding me, the Lord will be our helper. 
The night certainly wasn't over yet for us...we picked up Immanuel and had a birthday party back at our house for him. He turned 10 last Saturday. We all watched another movie together and had birthday cake & popcorn. It really worked out perfectly for Caedmon this time because he adores Immanuel and finally had another boy to play with...he was extremely excited...so excited that he blurted out what we got Immanuel for a birthday present. 
Immanuel spent the night and went with us to church the next morning. It was gorgeous that afternoon and the boys had fun playing a good ole' game of backyard baseball. 
This was Caedmon's first time actually playing a game and it was so cute after hitting the ball he would take off running with the bat, run past first base and keep on running straight as fast as he could. I love this picture...it really captured the moment of how much fun he was having. 