There are still over 200 some photos, but I started with 900ish … so believe me, although it may not seem like it as you’re sifting through them … hopefully I’ve spared you big yawns at the expense of my self-indulgence!

Enjoy!

And this …

And this …

Yeah … it stung her.  But she has got to be the bravest girl I know.

For some reason, there are a lot of bees hanging around us at the pool.  Curt, ever the naturalist, has been instructing the girls on proper bee behavior {which surprisingly doesn’t involve petting them … well actually, he did pet one, but at least he didn’t encourage the girls to do the same}.  And then he tests them when they come around.

So much so that now when Hunter sees a bee she doesn’t just alert us of the bee … instead she screams, “it’s a bee test!!!”

So this morning, the bees are flying around and being pretty aggressive.  Curt decides to destroy the ones that come our way, but plummeting them with the newspaper.  Piper yells that she doesn’t like it when he kills them.

One lands on her chin.  She sits so still and quiet until it flies away.  Then it lands on a soda can she’s drinking from {hmmm, maybe that’s why we have bees around?}.  Curt decides to swat it, while she’s holding it.

He hits it … it falls … right onto Piper’s hand and stings her.  She starts screaming, crying, screaming … and then proceeds to pull the stinger out of her own hand!

We ice it, she’s crying, but lunch comes and she finally feels better … poor little Piper!!

Taylor finished up the second book in the Twilight series, and downloaded the third onto Curt’s kindle.  I don’t think she’s read so much in her entire life!

A while back, I decided to put God’s fourth commandment as a priority in my life … “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.”  I failed pretty miserably.  I wasn’t going to email, or check my computer, etc., etc.  I did decide to close the store on Sunday’s, so I feel good about that.

Anyway, I brought the {cartoon version} movie Ten Commandments down to watch with the girls … they loved it!  Piper loved that it was a ‘true’ story.  When God was giving Moses the commandments, and came to the verse above, it struck me again.

So yesterday, I gave up the computer {and asked Taylor to too} and spent the day fully immersed in my family.  I put work out of my mind as we played games, ran, laughed, swam … it was awesome.

And I can’t wait to do it more …

When I was snapping a few of the kids, I noticed myself in the mirror and thought, “this may be the only proof I have that I was on this trip.”

Snap.

We had a great Christmas, we really did.  As always, Skye & Odinn come over early Christmas morning to open presents with us.  The girls were up late Christmas eve, so the baby was sleeping in big time and we had to wake her.  Even Miss Teenager was up before her!

Everyone loved their gifts.  I was especially proud of the shadowbox I worked on for Taylor.  Her {early} Christmas present was the Jonas Brothers concert and meeting them.  I knew she wasn’t getting much else for Christmas and saved {and took from her} some memorabilia from the concert {our wrist bands, tickets, etc.}.  I mounted the memorabilia and some photos into the shadowbox and wrapped it for Christmas.  I think at first she thought it was a tad lame, but I think she realized how hard I had worked on it {and how happy I was to give it to her} and she came around to the appreciation side.  :)

The little girls got Leapster’s for Christmas and they have been the ultimate hit!  Well, those and the praying mantis eggs that Curt got them.

I loved the girls matching jammies so much that we had a jammie day … as we went to my mom’s for lunch and then later to GrandGene’s house for Christmas dinner with Curt’s family.  Everyone complimented the outfits and I had fun telling them the girls slept in them the night before {cuz their pj’s and all}.

This morning had us up early packing {yeah, I never got my packing done}, taking baths, retiring the Christmas jammies … and heading to Mexico!

The hotel we’re at is pretty cool.  I was uncertain when we got here, as the lobby was a little shady looking … I truly felt horrible for being “spoiled” and even scarier was when Piper asked what our room was going to look like.  :(

I asked God for forgiveness and Curt too.

The girls love vacation!  The weather is nice, windy and cooler at night, but no snow!

I love comparing our vacation photos {when we go somewhere warm} from the beginning of the trip {white wisconsin family} to the end of the trip {we belong in warm weather}!

As I mentioned, the Leapster thing … brilliant!  The girls played with them for almost the whole 4 plus hour flight!

Gotta love Hunter ham-it-up {in the photo above} with her sad face.  She had some major tears in a few of the photos taken before this one.  I was snapping away and she stopped.  So I asked her to give me her sad face again.

Well, off to bed for us … we’ve been pulling some late nighters and I’ve got some sleep to catch up on!  Now I just gotta get Tay off Facebook.