| | Sun setting in the west, the ocean to the south... boys running to the beach.
Baby being strolled down the beach. Delight.
Walking towards the sunset.
My Itty Bitty walking companion.
Snuggle bug.
She loves it as much as I do.
She loves her Papa a whole lot too.
My fun boys showing off all their tricks to their cousins.
They are working on getting a third boy up on top.
Amanda, my sister, joins in on the end - who can resist running on the sand in the cool of the evening? Not me.
Jumping the sand dunes. They were completely filled with sand at the end of the first evening there. Oh, the fun.
The next morning - Robert and I walked down to the beach with the kids/cousins - the children wanted to get up and go right away. Especially the boys because they wanted to play football. Mine went in their pjs.
The boys played hours of beach football. Full tackle. The uncles, Papa, and Robert would take turns being all time quarter back, or referees! They had so much fun. The boys hardly came inside to eat and they pretty much lived in their pjs all day long.
That's what I call vacation.
The girls did sand writing and sand dancing.
I love my nieces! I've got some super sweet ones!
team #1.
My sister and her husband joined us later and we organized teams for a kick ball game. Just had to draw the bases in the sand, and used a soccer ball. The adults played right along with the kids and we played for about two hours!
team #2
Christmas day the "Sand Fort" making began! The kids worked and worked - and so did the uncles. They dug and they gathered lots of drift wood up and down the beach... this, they said, was their favorite thing they did over Christmas.
Some of the fort makers.
It wasn't warm on the beach over the weekend - a cold front came through - but that didn't keep the kids from playing non-stop and working on their sand forts. Down in this big sand fort it was actually rather warm - the kids loved going down and sitting inside.
Of course the kids wanted every single adult to go down into the fort and check it out too - here is what I saw when I went in, looking out towards the ocean: a cross.
Taking a rest from the shoveling. Scott is the oldest of the cousins. He loves working on projects with the littler ones. At his grandparents house he has led the building of a whole "town" of forts in their backyard.
Itty got this fairy skirt from her cousins for Christmas. She wore it for days. To the beach of course and even to bed one night. Made for some cute "fairy" shots as she was combing the beach and playing.
She particularly liked this drift log - trying to jump from it, ride it, walk it, fall of it, roll over it...
Winter beach fairy on a foggy day.
The girls seemed to stay inside a little more of course than the boys - we couldn't get the boys to COmE inside! Morgan and Brighton enjoyed their special time with girl cousins.
We draw names for gift giving so each person has one gift to open on Christmas day. Brighton got a doll from her cousin.
The skylights in the condo made for some pretty Christmas gift giving pictures.
Baby: "For me?"
Baby's first Christmas!
Aunty drew her name and gave her baby toys!
Oh, and a hat too since her cousin had one.
So much more too from the Christmas week - this just a tiny glimpse, the rest goes in my journal.
It was a wonderful time. I loved every minute. I loved being with Robert. I loved watching the children. I loved the late nights talking with my parents and siblings after the children were all in bed. I loved the games and all the laughter! I loved celebrating the birth of Christ and seeing different children grasp the real meaning of Christmas for the first time.
It was so much fun to see the children give to one another the gift they had so thoughtfully picked out. It is something pretty much too hard to describe. . . the joy and wonder a child shows when they open that gift and are so thrilled and in awe of what they have received.
I've seen them cherishing their gifts, each one. I've been so blessed by their gratitude.
It is one of the best pictures of what happens in a heart when the gift of God's redeeming love is revealed for the first time. The boys bought Brighton a pretend cell phone and a little pony for Christmas. When she opened it, all of her emotions were shown on her face - she of course more than others - wears them for all to see~!
But then she took her two little gifts and she went out on the porch and she sat there so intensely looking at them and enjoying them, all in her own little world - relishing them, in such appreciation. She takes them everywhere. She wants them to live life with her.
It was a picture of how I should be with the gift of God's love that He has given to me. The gift of His Son.
And then Christian ~ The girls bought him a knife for his collection. He thrust the knife up into the air, elation on his face and said, "YES!" You would have thought it was a million dollars.
A picture once again so much more stuck in my mind than any picture I could have taken. That is what our response is to Jesus Christ when God has revealed the greatness of His Gift to us and asks us to then give our lives. It's a "YES!" because we know it's so little we can give in return for what we have been given by God to us: eternal life.
This new year I want to be more elated over the Gift. I want to intensely gaze like I saw some of my children do as they opened their little brown paper presents. I want the joy to come spilling out, the "YES! Lord!" to be in my heart.
a. ann~
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| | Posted 1/2/2010 12:32 PM - 2001 Views - 48 eProps - 30 comments
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