beach weekend!

we had a great visit with nanny and pop-pop this past weekend at the beach. the girls are truly "in their element" when near any kind of water (see previous post) but the beach or pool brings them to a whole new level. at a mere 3 years old, miss maya johnson is diving into the waves and trying to ride them in. she loves every minute of the waves even though a few hours after we left there were warnings of severe rip tides due to hurricane dean. go figure. at the pool in the afternoons, maya mastered swimming without her floatie and can successfully somersault frontwards and backwards! onlookers could not believe she is only 3. crazy child! it's kind of nice to see some sort of payoff after watching her try to drown herself for the past 3 years... which brings me to ava. miss ava sees what her big sister is doing and since we are very into the copycat game, she thinks she can swim on her own as well. she doesn't want you to hold her hand in the ocean and today learned how to jump into the pool all by herself (with mommy there to catch her, of course). now i have 2 more years of near-drowning incidents! take a look at our pictures.... :)

tubaholics

it's official- we are raising 2 fish. if these girls could stay wet all day long, we would never hear a cry or whine out of them! they both LOVE the water! :)

williamstown, MA 2007

we FINALLY made our annual raod trip up north after maya recovered from a bad virus. everything was postponed a week, but we still managed to have a great time. it was so nice to see all of our cousins, aunts, uncles and grammy of course! we loved spending time with our ever-expanding family.... and meeting our newest cousin, baby ian! even though our week was brought to an abrupt halt when ava came down with a sinus infection, we brought home lots of wonderful memories!

july 4th week

the girls and i went down to sunset beach for the holiday week while daddy had to stay here and work. we all had a wonderful time- especially my 2 little tadpoles! :)

june pictures

summer is officially here- although for us southerners, it arrived a few months ago. june was a great month. we celebrated father's day and pop-pop and uncle brian's birthdays. maya went to her first week of camp and had a great time. it was a sports camp and she learned fundamentals of basketball, soccer and t-ball. however, i think her favorite part was eating lunch with her friends 'cause that's all she wanted to talk about! ava is growing with every minute. she is very expressive now and points and grunts to things she wants (which only i seem to be able to interpret). she adores her sister and constantly follows maya around the house yelling "ya ya!!"" (thats her word for maya) i went up to NJ to visit with the laurino family this past week, but the girls didn't seem to even notice i was gone because they had such a good time with nanny. it was a great month as you can see...............

a big day for ava- wearing her 1st ponytail and brushing her own teeth

camper maya and camper owen- cutest campers ever!

maya and catie "playing nice"

catie drives maya and ava to school

the girls conspiring on their next move.......

maya and ava riding bikes- our new favorite outdoor activity

ava's crazy bed head and her silly sister


"big kids"

maya and her green eggs (sans ham)

the laurino boys

i went up to NJ last week to visit with the laurino family and their newest addition. kim, drew, and big brother noah welcomed nicholas andrew on may 6th. he is such a beautiful baby! both boys are so happy and handsome. see for yourself!

the zoo!

we went to the NC zoo on friday with the rudd family. everyone had a great time and we saw lots of animals that the kids recognized. maya's favorite animal was the elephant. here are some of our pictures from the day...