Atlantic beach-a picture story with captions

Otherwise titled...Sand, sand, and more sand! Lol. Last week we enjoyed a family trip to the beach with the Walker crew. Here's a few pictures to capture the memories. A huge thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Tim for making it possible, we had a great time!

In spite of the hot summer sun, these boys LOVE the beach. 

Caution-babies at play! Asher and Faith rockin the sun wear. For Asher's first time to the beach, and in the middle of a North Carolina July at that, he did great! 

Grandma in her glory.

Group photo outside of aquarium-Evan falling backwards off the turtles head. I've caught him. :-) 

Me and 1/2 of my boys, I'm one lucky lady. 

Happy 9th anniversary to us, we've grown almost a decade old together! Many thanks for Grandma for watching the boys so we could enjoy dinner out.

You can almost picture him breathing in the water here-my boys have ocean love in their genes I'm sure of it.

Bennett the merman-he was not impressed. Fins aside, this one is always the sandman. 

Asher taking in the wet shells and sand, Evan photoboming. 

A friendly dessert style "Chopped" competition. I graciously took home second place with my Samoa girl scout cookie bars.

Family picture on the beach with all the kids and grandkids. Till next time!

First day reflections

July 11th marked the first day of our second year homeschooling. Our feet are wet and we're excited dive into a new year together. In addition to our new first grader, we added pre-K with Bennett bear and a class pet-baby Asher! Haha, just kidding! Though, spoiler alert, I do see a live animal or two in our classroom this year. ;-)

With one year under my belt, I'm learning to embrace the sometimes messy reality that is staying at home and homeschooling with three little boys. This year July finds us in a new city, with a new school room set up and a newly mobile baby to boot. If I was to choose a theme for the year ahead, the word "flexibility" wins the golden ticket. With that in mind, our first day was a great one!

For starters, I cut myself some slack in the breakfast department. You see, expectations are a killer and the first day of school is heavy with them. I myself have spent an embarrassing amount of time pinteresting the perfect "first day of school" printables for those all important first day photos. Back to bacon, I knew the morning would be jam packed and I was in no hurry to add dirty dishes to it. Instead, I served myself a spoonful of grace and set us up for success with breakfast bars and bananas. No smiling pancakes on good plates till Saturday haha! No worries, we are making new traditions here-like ice cream for dinner! How's that for a sweet incentive?!

Here's Bennett learning about the happy letter "C." C is happy because he's a cookie and someone took a-CRUNCH- bite out of him!

As I said earlier, the morning was a great one. Asher took a rare but true long nap and the excitement over new books made for a very productive school time. After our work was finished and cleared from the table, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at the gym and pool before heading to Coldstone for our cotton candy cones. When you school year round during the southern summertime, the pool makes for the best recess!

Fast forward...

It's been two weeks since our first day, but we've really only logged a week in the books since we spent the greater part of last week at the beach with family. Almost everyday I find myself ironing out small wrinkles here and there as we find a new groove together, but I'm pretty sure that's par for the course. We are loving this new place of ours and have found an abundant amount of amazing educational resources in our area. Moreover I am so excited to dive into our local church and community homeschool groups. As we are settling into a new church home I have already been so encouraged by new friends and homeschool mamas, and am looking forward to the year ahead. Cheers to a new school year, to getting it done and having fun!

It's the first day of school!

 Sweet Lord Jesus, bless this mess!!!

Fourth fun

We had a great time celebrating the fourth of July in downtown Raleigh this year. Fayetteville street was lined with oodles of fair food, smokey barbecue, live music and all kinds of red white and blue hulabaloo. 

After walking around in the crowd we stopped for some patriotic fun in front of the Capital building. The boys signed a copy of the Declaration of Independence with a real feather pen(turns out it's a bit harder than one would think and a lot messier!) and Bennett got to "pie a redcoat."

Next we beat the heat with a trip through the NC museum of history. The story of our state and country is a rich but heavy one, and I look forward to taking our boys back when they're older and can bear the weight of it on stronger, more mature shoulders. Until then, Evan is very proud to know that the the state vegetable of North Carolina is the sweet potato(really, he won a pencil to prove it!).

The highlight of our Raleigh afternoon was of course, the wet and wild water zone. This activity was made even cooler by A)endless bottles of dawn soap and B)the fact that we were not prepared with bathing suits and so the boys got to get wet in their regular shorts, a childhood right of passage if you ask me.

SO much fun!

Later that night we made our traditional ice cream flag cake and had a hodge podge of an on the fly dinner that included of Mexican leftovers, Chinese food and local deli meats. Chris and I agreed that this was indeed a very American dinner, melting pot style. :-) No fireworks this year due to babies and bedtime, but we look forward to them in the future-perhaps even next year. Nonetheless, we are so proud and thankful every day for the blood bought freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

Happy Independence Day!!!

Flashback Friday

Our Bennett bear in his patriotic wear, 2 years old.

This generation is all about documenting, and I'm happy to play my part. Thanks for the memories #TimeHop!