Life at the Beach

Here are a few more pictures we took at the beach last week.  We were all pretty excited to find a starfish in a tide pool as the tide was going out.  This is the first time we have ever seen one at Holden Beach.  Don't worry - we didn't keep it.  We threw it back into the ocean.

On our last day, the sky was gorgeous as we watched the rain approach.  Since it was our last day, we refused to get off the beach.

Luckily, it only drizzled on us and quickly went away.  Then we were treated with this.

Did I mention that it was hard to return home?

Beach Vacation

We had a lovely week in Holden Beach last week with my family.  What a perfect way to celebrate the end of summer!  This year was a bit different in that we had a newcomer with us - Isla!  She and Sims really enjoyed playing together, and it was so wonderful to have a full week with her (and the rest of the family, too).

As torrential rains were coming down at home, we had very pleasant weather at the beach.  We did get some rain almost every day, but we had some beach time each day as well.  The temps were much milder than what we are used to in August, when we usually go, and even cooler than average for September.

As my mom put it, the 2 things she will remember from this year's trip are that Isla took her first steps there (!), and Sims kept singing A Peanut Sat on a Railroad Track.  The way he exclaims, "Peanut butter," at the end made us laugh every time.

This year Sims really took to the beach and loved everything about it.  He loved splashing in the water,

jumping, rolling, and playing in the sand,

and watching his daddy learn to paddle board.

The rest of the family enjoyed just hanging out on the beach,

napping,

and playing in the pool.

It was hard to return home from such a wonderful, relaxing week.  I'm already looking forward to next year!

ABCs

Sims is getting really good at singing the ABC song.  The only thing is that he will choose one line of it and sing it over and over again.  This morning he decided to play the piano while singing A through P.  (He skips J and K and LMNOP sounds like Elmo P.)

Enjoy!

Little Sewing Project

Remember when I realized that I had been neglecting my New Year's goal to learn to sew?  Well, I'm working on that now.  I found the cutest fabric, and I decided to make a small pillow for Sims with it.  I decided to try to do an envelope pillow cover, and it was super easy.  The worst part was all the ironing.  The actual sewing part took no time at all.  The entire project only took me one nap-time.

Here is the finished pillow.

The fabric reminds me of 1950s/1960s children's book illustrations, and I love that stuff.  Sims likes to point out the horse and donkey, but he hasn't really enjoyed the pillow more than that.  Maybe he will one day love it more and want to sleep with it.  We'll see.

This project has gotten me really excited about sewing more, and I have been looking at fabric for pillows for our bed and the sun room, and for curtains in the dining room.  I think I may have found some options, but I will need to ponder them for a while to be certain.  I don't want to have fabric regret. 

I feel the earth move...

...under my feet.  I know this is old news, but we had an earthquake here last Wednesday!  And I felt it!  It was just gentle shaking, but I felt it.  Check that off the ole bucket list.  Not that it was actually on my bucket list, but it should have been. 

Hurricane Irene came through the area just a few days later.  We got lucky on that one and were only on the edge of it.  We had plenty of high wind gusts but little damage.  We actually didn't even get that much rain out of it either.  It was a nice excuse to relax at home without any plans.  We don't get many weekends like that (I can't even remember having one recently.), so it was extra special.

Hopefully, Mother Nature will calm down a little and give us a break here on the east coast, especially no hurricanes while we are at the beach in a couple of weeks.