Oh, Good Morning!

 Oh, good morning!  I hope you have a wonderful day! 

My plan is to practice my sitting skills in this very large chair.

Or maybe it's a normal sized chair, and I am just teeny?

Either way, I hope my very round face and chunka arms brightened your day! :)  It brightens Mommy's every day.

Love,
 Rae Rae Beans
(aka Chunkies)

Go Beachhh?

 Last week, we went on vacation to the beach!  We had so much fun.  Here are some bits and pieces of our trip, before I can do a full post. We are in full unpacking and cleaning mode, getting back in our swing!

Here is Daddy with the girls going food shopping, one of our favorite vacation tasks!

Reilly and her new BFF Maddie. They were too cute for words! :)

Rae Rae loving the BEACH!

 Reilly in all her glory!  Rocks, water, sunshine?  This is her heaven!

 

 Daddy and Reilly playing!

 A family photo in Cape Cod.

 

 Reagan and Mommy during a short time we spent outside the sun tent - it was about 110 degrees that day!

 Kissing my chunkies!!

 Ready to go out to dinner!  This was outside our hotel.

 Kate and Aaron met us for dinner!!

 Another scorching day, we went for a walk and found a playground, and threw some rocks in the water while waiting for an ice cream shop to open :)

 Sisters early in the morning!

 Reagan and Michelle, when we invaded their home with our girlies and chased around their animals. :)

We had a perfect vacation!  Just the right amount of activities, relaxing, fun, ice cream, quality family time, and visiting with some of our favorite people.  Thank you to our friends who helped make our vacation so memorable, we love you all so much!  And thank you to my little family for making everything we do so much fun. :)  I love you three to tiny bits. More pictures to come soon.

Daddies

 Thank you Papa for your unconditional love, for your advice and support, for your "prizes", for your munchkins and desserts, for being silly and playing, and for teaching and cuddling.  Thank you for your endless patience and endless question-answering...and for always getting us ice cream.

Then, and now.  :)

 Daddy, we can't thank you enough for who you are to us.  You work and you play, you give us all that you are.  You listen and you support, you joke and make us laugh.  You give bottles and get messy outside, you change diapers and give baths.  You are the foundation of our family, our protector, our support, our rock.  You are our prince charming.  Your girls adore you - every one of us.

Thank you for all of this...and for always getting us ice cream. :)

Sleepy Heads

 My girls have been such good sleepers lately, Reilly sleeps from 7-8am, and Reagan now sleeping from 9 or 10 until 8am as well!!  So relieved that them sleeping together is working so well.

Reagan will nap on her tummy in the living room with us, and Reilly becomes infatuated with her lying there and just wants to snuggle her and lay with her.

She lies next to her saying "Rae Rae do tummy times!  Oh, HI Rae Rae!"

Cutie little sisters doing "Tummy Times" :)

My Favorites

 Every day is not always sunny and beautiful.  Some days are hard, some are tiring, some are exhausting and overwhelming. This is our family's little journal of memories - like videos in writing.  That's how I like to see it.  I may not write about these kinds of days, but obviously the stressful days are there.  On these days, I pray and seek patience.  I talk to those close to me and they do the most important thing they can - they listen.  And I lean on my Hubby who is so good at catching me. And I spend quality time with my little favorites.

One day last week, everything seemed to be going the opposite of my way - pee in the bathtub, veggies on the floor, dishes everywhere, OJ on the couch, laundry wet in the dryer, bubbles spilled in hair.  You name it!  Now it seems funny to read it, but it was not funny at the time!  But I look at these little faces and they make me smile. My favorites.  I understand a fraction of how much God loves us, but how much love I feel when I look at these faces.

I got on the floor to take a picture of Reilly's bare feeties, and she got on the floor in front of my camera and made this face.

And then she was cracking herself up, and she did this:

 

 

 Or, let's talk about my little Reagan bean.  I mean, I can't even.  I can't express how much I am obsessed with this little chunk. OBSESSED.

 These are my new favorite pictures.  I want them blown up on my wall.  I want them to be like this every day, forever.  

I love that God let's us have hard days, and helps appreciate the good days.  And the beautiful people in our life.  My favorite little faces.

Weekend With the Girls!

 Recently, we had some of our friends visit for the weekend.  It was so wonderful to reconnect after not seeing them for awhile, and there is just no feeling like laughing and chatting with good friends.  I loved getting to spend time with them, introducing them to Reagan, and watching Reilly play and laugh with these girls that I have such special memories with.  Here are some pictures from our weekend!

Rae beans, juuuust hangin' out (to quote Reilly). 

 We went for a walk in town, and browsed some of the shops. We had to stop outside this coffee shop and have Reilly sit at the little table.  And how cute are her Ray Ban-esque sunglasses?  Thank you Gabby, she is loving them!

 All of the girls on our walk :)



 My new favorite picture of Reilly and her Daddy.  Such sweeties!

 Gabby is a city girl - she was teaching Reilly how they stroll in Manhattan.  Although, I think we were strolling a bit slower. :)

 We stopped for lunch at this adorable bagel shop, and Reilly had her first strawberry milk!  She loved it, naturally.  Lizzy was Reilly's play pal!

We were all extremely exhausted from our day, so we napped and relaxed and snuggled in the afternoon.

 That night, we went to a wine bar and a hilarious party which we were too old for.  But we were entertained, nonetheless!  Of course we forgot to take pictures when we looked all glammed up.

 Here we are before our first 5K! Daddy ran, and I walked with the double stroller with the girls.  We had SO much fun, and were so proud that we finished!

 Cioci and Daddy were both running their first races!  So proud of them!

 GO DADDY GO!

 Reagan slept while Nessa and I walked, and Reilly chilled out and ate an apple.  She loved watching the people.  Nessa helped me push up the hills, and we had the best time!

The girls and I after the race, where so many picture have been taken before! :)  I can't say enough how much I enjoyed my time with these girls.  Good friends are so rare, and I'm glad to have such special ones in my life.

Dancing with Mimi!

The other day, Reilly held on to a chair, and lifted her leg like below and said, "Mommy, look! Ballet!"

So Mimi took her opportunity to show her some dance moves.

Reilly loves it! They were very prim and proper about things.

Trying to watch her touch her heels together was probably my favorite thing ever.

Touching her knees and elbows, willing her heels to touch. Fricken adorable.

But then Mimi's favorite song came on, and Mimi started breaking it down. This move was a bit over Reilly's head. Maybe we will cover this one in Lesson 2. :)

Our Trip to LI!

 Here us a bit of our trip to Long Island!  We had so much fun!

Mimi loves her Reagan Fleagan. We made up weird nicknames on the trip.  Like Meatball.

 Uncle E had his Reagan snuggle time almost every evening!  I don't know who loved it more, Rae Rae or E.  I think the love is mutual.

 Speaking of Rae Rae obsession, here is her twin, Papa. :)

 Papa met us at the park one day on his lunch!  Reilly had so much fun..

 One, two, three-four-five...(this is how Reilly counts down)

 WEEEEEE!!!

 If that isn't the picture of pure joy right there, I don't know what is.  The girl loves her slides.

 Reagan started laughing!

 We got the ice cream man, and were somewhat afraid in the beginning...

 But soon realized he gave us ice cream, and now we won't stop talking about it.

 Reilly's exact words when we went out to the giant noisy truck was, "Go inside, see Rae Rae??"

 I felt the need to document these arms.  Because I am obsessed with them.

 Mimi took some cute pics of my girls and I!  Even though Reagan looks a little bit concerned. :)

 Sissy and our guys and I went out for an epic dinner, played an epic game that made all the waiters love us, had the waiter give us free dessert because he said we were his best table all year, and pretended we were twins.  TWINNING.

 We planted flowers with Mima.

 Mimi taught us some new crazy songs, dance moves, and faces.  :)

 Mima gave us lots of hugs and kisses!

 Reilly hugging and kissing Reagan when she thought no one was looking.  I didn't even care that Reagan was sleeping, it was too fricken cute.

 Reagan had bathies in the sink, which was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

 And we introduced Reagan to some family members!
(Hi Manda!)

That, plus the nightly trips for frozen yogurt or Ralph's, pretty much made for a great week. :)  Thank you for all of the fun, and for spoiling us as always!