When fishing at our house

Make sure you have dad to help you.
   
Clothing is optional

     
Dad shows you the importance of casting into the water
            
   
Maybe one day they’ll catch a fish, or maybe not.

I needed this

Warning!!!  GRAPHIC POST!!!
Being Miller’s mother is a challenge.  He can make me tear my hair out one minute and have me loving on him the next.
As you know he has been in underwear for a couple of months.  Each and every time he has pooped for those months I have been cleaning it out of the underwear.  Yep, every single time!! 
Yes, I am bitter about it.
Ok he has been in the potty twice.  But still!
However, today he told me he needed to potty and look what he did.

Thank you Jesus!
I know I still have a lot more dirty underwear to clean up, but a little sign of progress!
Here is a funny poop story.  My friend, who shall remain nameless, was here with her child who is also being potty trained.  Her child had a #2 accident and I told her I’d go throw it in the washer on a quick wash.  So I do it, but on the way to the washer, I stop by the toilet and flip the undies inside out so the poop plops in.Then I just pop them in the washer.  I do this every day.  Sometimes  3 times.  So when the undies are clean I give them to her.  She goes home thinking I am awesome.  She has 3 kids and had been washing them out some other way.  A few days later, her child has another accident and she puts the undies in the washer.  Yeah she didn’t stop by the toilet to do the poop plop.  She opens her washer after the cycle is finished and there is poop all over her washer.  OOps!  She now knows!  Plop the poop.

P.S. My camera got sand in it and broke.  I don’t like carrying my nice camera around here because of the sand, so my pictures may be few and far between!  Or maybe not…

At long last

Eight and a half months ago, we moved to the island and since then the boys have been surrounded by water.  We get in the water a good bit, but they had not yet been ON the water.  Our wonderful friends Beth and Meg invited us out on their boat and we couldn’t have had any more fun!  

On the way out of the canal we spotted some eagle rays (pun intended).  This time I had my camera out.

A grin from ear to ear.

Holding on for dear life.

Our capable captain Beth.

Do you think we liked it much?

 

Still holding on for dear life!

Getting so close to the huge ships was  all it took for Miller to get excited!  Although he was excited, but he was absolutely speechless.  Now he can’t stop talking about it all!

Having a ball!

Miller couldn’t take the rocking and noise of the engines.  He had to take a siesta.

 

Jackson didn’t miss a second of it!

Our unflappable first mate, Meg.

  

Miller woke up and was back to his normal self.

Look at that water, the same color as his turquoise vest.

 

Look who went snorkeling for the first time!  Jackson loved it.

The fish were AMAZING and so close!

 

Miller just HAD to try it out (while we were stopped).

 

 

Thanks so much Beth and Meg.  We loved every minute of it!

It’s Hurricane Season

This year is forecasted to be a very active hurrican season.  If you’re interested in finding out the names of those hurricanes (or tropical storms), then look over here.  The folks at NOAA are a wealth of hurricane information.  Did you know that they re-use the same list of names every 6 years?  So in 2017 they will have the same list.  Now you know!

 

We have been edumacated about preparations and what to expect if a storm heads this way.  It seems that the US government likes to be proactive in protecting it’s human assets families.  Hopefully these preparations are just an exercise.

 

In other news Miller is still being potty trained.  Did you think I was never going to blog again?  Me too.  He has had me working extra hard these days and though I have sat down to blog many times, I never get anywhere because I am brain dead.  Some of his newest ricks include getting out the stepstool, opening the deadbolt and going outside, sleeping in a toddler bed and swimming a tiny bit independently and waking up at 5 a.m...  Gee Michele, I don’t know why I don’t blog more often?

Jackson is getting close to finishing Pre-K.  He seems to enjoy it, although he claims to not remember a single thing he has done, all year.  He’s so grown up and even learned to do a flip off the side of the pool.  I loose my stomach every time his head rotates around near the concrete edge.  So far, so good.  He isn’t particularly excited to start Kindergarten in the fall.  As a former Kindergarten teacher, I think I’m going to have to really pump up the excitement of this heartbreaking tremendous milestone.

 

We are looking forward to the summer and getting back to the beautiful beaches!

What we’ve been up to

Have you missed us?  I haven’t been blogging much recently because I feel like we haven’t been doing that much.

Actually we stay really busy.  Doing this.  About 4 or 5 times a week.  It is jellyfish egg season so we have been doing a little less beach and a lot more pool. 

Miller can now swim (to the side).  He isn’t happy about going in the water now.  It makes me a little sad, but he HAD to learn to swim and now he can.  He’s the type of child that everything has to be his idea.  Learning to swim was not his idea, so he’s protesting the only way he can.  He gets in and out over and over and scales the side of the pool.

    

   

God help me we are still working on the potty training with this one.