"best birthday ever!"

we arrived in florida on grandma's birthday and in her words it was her "best birthday ever"! she had her husband, mother, all three of her children and 5 (really 7) of her grandkids there to celebrate with her. not only were we all together, but we were staying on a house out at the beach - grandmas ultimate vacation. we even did her birthday cake by the pool at the rental house after a walk on the beach. finally, madelyn got to go to the beach! she would stand in the water and declare that she was standing in the ocean. she also told us that we were in "south florida" while we were driving down the beach to the house. this tidbit of information came from a "why" marathon in the car about a week before we left. i was pretty impressed that she remembered.

grandma blowing out her birthday candles, or trying to anyway. that uncle josh is such a trickster!
mason meeting his uncle brad for the first time.

madelyn showing a starfish that she found on the beach during our walk. i have never seen as much wildlife on fmb as i did during the week we were there. this was one of three starfish we saw on our short walk.

here is mason's first time at the beach. i think he enjoyed the fresh air and the sounds of the waves and birds.

here is some video of madelyn 'playing' in the waves. her main focus on this first trip to the beach was to pick up every single piece of shell she could find and put it in her bucket.



sunday we headed to church before lunch and naps. and then we all loaded up and headed in for a family portrait. there were 14 (okay, 16. adrienne was obvious, but abby hadn't told us yet) from 89-1/2 to 11 weeks. it was quite the experience and took 2 hours. i will never understand why these photo places don't tell the adults how to pose - they would sell a lot more pictures. kids look cute no matter what, but adults aren't as forgiving.

madelyn and annabell holding hands on their way to sunday school. they were telling each other "i love you" while they walked.

this was the best of our group shots. it was difficult to find one that all the adults were happy with when we were reviewing all the proofs. we also got a great picture of grandma and big pop with all the grandkids.

our group at dinner after surviving group pictures. we were all very, very hungry!

after dinner, my crew loaded up in our rental minivan and headed up to orlando for the next leg of our trip. love.