My own little red-headed mermaid

Ashlee has two favorite activities, running and eating. When she's not doing one, she's certainly doing the other. A close third on her short list of "Things that make Ashlee happy" would be babies, Ella in particular. Being at the beach allowed Ashlee to either be running or eating constantly, which made her little self very, very happy.

Imagine the energizer bunny with a garbage disposal attached to his face and you get Ashlee.

I think it's important to note that the last time we went to the beach as a family was when Ashlee and Lucas looked like this:

She was slightly slower and less of a food hog then. Wow. Time surely does fly.

She and Elizabeth spent copious amounts of time jumping over and running from the waves.

She's stand in them, then scream and run like fury to get away.

Of course there's always time to stop and act silly. Anything to make someone laugh.

There was lots of boogie boarding...

...and I FINALLY got her to sit still long enough to do this....

"Being a mermaid is the most fun ever Mom! 'Cept, can I get up now?"

Oh my little red-head is growing up right before my eyes. Slow down little one. Stay my sweet, loud, overly energetic, baby loving, fast running little girl for a while longer, won't you? Please?

If you try, I'll fix you a snack. Deal?

My bucket filling, boogie boarding, blue eyed boy at the "beek"

Aaron, our most independent child, quite possibly had the best time of everyone at the beach. He loved the freedom to roam anywhere his heart desired. (Except, you know, into the ocean. I think he would have kept going and going and going had we not kept stopping him. He'd get bowled over by a wave, tumble through the small whitecaps, stand up, smile and charge into them again.) He loved the freedom to dig and play in the sand, get dirty and not be told to stop.

And, he LOVED his Daddy pulling him on the boogie board in the surf.

He got mad when he wasn't allowed to take shovels or buckets or toys from his little sister

and decided laying in the sand was a good protest.

He wore the same, "my parents are exhausted" shirt just about everyday to protect his fair skin from the blaring rays of the sun and to also let everyone know the true state of mine and Luke's energy level.

He got his beach bucket filled with Atlantic salt water 5,739 times and followed his Daddy out for a fresh helping almost every time.

And, in turn, led Daddy back to his desired location an equal amount of times.

He helped dig holes and make sand castles and fill buckets of salty water with sand. He played hard, slept soundly, awoke early and probably had the most fun of his entire 2 years of life.

And we loved seeing the beach and ocean, waves and birds, boats and adventures through his 2 year old eyes. He keeps asking when we could go back to the "beek." Buddy, if it were up to me, we'd go back tomorrow.