Christmas Photo Shoot

The weather was so nice after Thanksgiving that we decided to take advantage and head to the beach for some photos for our Christmas card.

Liam took this photo of me and Casey, he's becoming quite the photographer . . .

Our "Sand"Man . . .

A beach baby, even in December . . .

Gobble!! Gobble!!

We love hosting Thanksgiving at our house. This is our 2nd year, and hope to the continue this tradition for years to come. Our little turkey was excited too. . .

After chaos in the kitchen trying to get everything hot and ready all at once. . .

. . . But then we all sat down for a wonderful meal, thanks to everyone's help!

And a shot of the siblings. Two big sisters and their "little" brother

October Beach Day!

We had awesome weather this weekend, and tried to be outside as much as possible.

After Mommy's day long swim meet on Sunday we went to dinner outside at Water Street and ate on the river. . . Liam was very happy!

When we got home, Daddy made a fire outside and we snuggled on the love seat . . .

We enjoyed our Monday off of school and hit the beach with Aunt Jaclyn.

Liam relaxed in the middle of the sandbar where he had a "picnic" lunch. . .

We were so happy to be able to enjoy the ocean in October

The water was super clear and surprisingly warm. . . we saw huge fish and found lots of sea glass

We love the beach! Liam didn't want to leave - it was a perfect day!

Fall Fun

Casey and I went to a wedding in North Jersey on Friday night, so Liam got to spend some extra time with his grandparents . . .

Grandma Scallon took him to pick out pumpkins and he came back with a whole truck load!

He then went to dinner with Nana & Pop Pop and was dancing on stage with the band.

We've been going on bike rides, and Liam has been doing great on his own bike.

He's a little too brave for Mommy's liking - taking the turns super fast and flying right over bumps in the sidewalk at full speed . . .

Fire Prevention Month

Today Nana took Liam to a program at the Library where he got to meet a fireman and see the firetruck. Apparently he's not a fan of the sirens.

Busy Days

As the school year had gotten underway, we've had some changes to our schedules.

Mommy is now working full time at school again, which means Liam gets to spend more time with Nana, his new babysitter Andrea, and with Grandma Scallon! We are so lucky to have our parents so close to help us out so much :)

We've also got to go to a Pirate Day festival at the mall where they gave the kids pirate gear and had some fun games and a treasure map coloring for them . . .

Liam has been doing great at school, and he even goes right into his classroom now without crying. His teachers noticed too, and he got picked to take Clifford home for the weekend. We had to take Clifford everywhere and then write about our adventures in the class journal.

We took him to Rainforest Cafe
Liam still loves being naked, but at least we can get him to cover up in a cozy blanket on occassion. Casey thinks he looks like a little Anakin Skywalker here . . .

Not enjoying the weather change this week. . . .gloomy

SORRY for the lack of updates . . .

I've been a blog slacker . . . sorry for the lack of pictures and updates.

To sum up August, this is basically what we did:

I promise to be better at keeping up to date on here, if you have about 5 hours to kill feel free to browse through the photos from this entire summer:

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Pirates and Boats . . . ARRRGH!

Saturday we spent the morning downtown with Nana & Pop Pop at the Wooden Boat Show/Ice Cream Festival. . . We went last year too, and Liam remembered the Pirates that were there.

Luckily, they were there again this year. Here we are with Captain Black . . .

. . . and this may be our new alternative to time-out . . .

They had a boat building tent where you could build your own little wood boat with a sail . . .

Then Pop Pop and Liam set sail . . .

. . . and spent some more of the afternoon at Aunt Jac's crabbing and kayaking . . .

Nothing like fresh air - will time please slow down so summer doesn't fade away so fast

Soak it up. . .

Liam and I had a great summer day today . . . makes me wish we had this lifestyle everyday of the year. After the gym we stopped by the town pool where Aunt Jac teaches lessons. Before the pool opened to the public Liam went for a swim . . .

. . . and a ride down the slide . . .
then we spent the day in our pool and he actually took a nap - we went to swim practice and then we surprised Casey at the Seaside Park Lifeguard Tournament. . .

Best seat in the house to watch Daddy in the run relay . . .

. . . and since he took a nap, and could see the boardwalk rides from the tournament, I told him he could pick one ride to go on. . . after much thought he chose the cars . . . and then the best part of the whole day was our long walk down the Seaside Park boardwalk to the car eating our soft pretzles and holding hands . . . I wish everyday could be this good

Lifeguard in Training

In case you haven't met us . . . we love the beach! :)

We go often, as evidenced by Liam's savage tan - and I swear he wears sunscreen everyday!

The more we go, the more Liam thinks he works or owns the beach.

When your Dad is one of the officers there, you get some perks:

there's always someone you know nearby who can take family photos for you :) . . .

You get to play with the lifeguard gear . . .

. . . There's always a lifeguard around who wants to take you in the waves so Mommy doesn't have to get wet . . .

. . . you can start prepping about 6 years early for Junior Guards

. . . and your tan makes you super studly which gets the girls attention :)

My little lifeguard - the tradition continues

Summer is going too fast . . .

We've been so busy lately, I've taken lots of photos, but haven't had time to update the blog. Can't believe it's the middle of July already . . . will time please slow down???

We've been enjoying our pool and Liam loves doing Super Hero jumps off the diving board - I think this one is Green Lantern (who knows?) . . .

We spent 4th of July night at Aunt Jaclyn's house on the river. . . best view of the fireworks ever and the place I've spent almost every 4th of July of my entire life . . . love passing that on to Liam.

He was so excited for the fireworks and was jumping up and down the whole time they were going off. . .
The day after the 4th of July is my birthday . . . the BIG 3-0 this year . . . so I spent it at the beach with my favorite guys

Liam got to swim around in the ocean without much help, and now truly has no fear of the ocean . . .

Then Casey took me out for dinner and Nana watched Liam for us . . .

Maybe 30 won't be so bad . . . .

Believe in the Sun. . . even when it's not Shining

the sun FINALLY came out again. . . so of course we packed it up and hit the beach. . .

we played and soaked up the sun for about 5 hours and Liam spent almost all of that time in the ocean. . . . and before we left he had to check out the view from the guard house with Daddy . . .
He fell asleep before we even made it off Ocean Avenue - hopefully there will be many more sunny days this week.

End of School

Monday morning I didn't have to be in school til much later than usual, so Liam and I went to the gym . . . I took a spin class and he must find it very interesting. As soon as we got home he told me that he had to go downstairs and that I wasn't allowed to come - so after a minute or so he calls me down to see this:

. . . and he tells me "I do spinning, too . . . see" - he pushed a step stool up to Casey's spin bike that is kept in the storage area of the basement :)

Then Tuesday was his last day of school for the summer. He graduated from the "Explorer" room and had a great year with his teachers and friends. . . I had to take a last day of school photo
. . . such a tough guy

Story Book Land Date

Last week I took my last personal day of the school year and brought Liam down to StoryBook Land in Mays Landing. . . .

We had a great time - just the two of us, and we went on almost every ride. Liam even wanted to go on the dragon roller coaster that he wasn't a fan of back in December. This time we were the only people on the ride and he picked to sit in the very first seat!

He also went on the flying elephants by himself twice!

We spent the whole day there and had great conversations - he's a pretty laid back dude and I enjoy his company :)

My mom used to always take us to Story Book Land when we were young and although many of the rides are new and parts of it have been updated, the Little Schoolhouse is still the same as when I was young - Liam and I took turns playing student and teacher . . . Since it was about 101 degrees this day Liam found something fun to cool us off. He was very focused at squirting down the bad guys . . .

We had fun and it was nice have each other's undivided attention, but the trouble with no one else joining us was that I couldn't get a photo of me and my cute date. At the end of the day we went on the carousel again and since we were the only ones I asked the nice 70 year old guy who was running the ride to take our photo . . .

Can't wait for summer!