Beach sandwich

When you have a new baby and you just cannot tell which way is up, you go to the beach.

You just do.

For the fourth this year, my sister and her husband so graciously took our little family in for a few days. My parents met us up for a delicious lunch and fun beach day at Taani and Ryan's. Watching kids play in the surf is one amazing way to unwind from life's stressors.





Add dads and cousins and it's pretty much just heaven on earth.









Grandma (or Gram as Penny calls her), Grandpa, Taani and I were holding down the fort at the blankets.









Kyle body boarding.  Or is it boogie boarding?













She really has grown up so much.  She's so bit, where did my baby go?







My parents went home that afternoon and Ken and I overstayed our welcome by staying TWO extra days!  Fireworks that night.  I seriously must have been tired or something because if I hadn't taken these pictures, I really don't think I would have remembered this.  I was post-partum by less than a month still.







Lest this look like child abuse, it's just my tired, nervous child trying something new.  That frown turned quickly upside down.  No worries.











I neglected to read any of my photo books on photographing fireworks before we left.  But I really wanted to slow it down so you could see the beautiful evening view of LA from my sister's house.  It's breathtaking.  I wish I could bottle the beauty.





















We spent a day lounging (well, Taani and I took a kick-butt literally class in the morning, I seriously couldn't walk for days... and THEN we started lounging).  Look at my little babies!







On the third day, we had thoroughly worn out our welcome so Ken and I went and rented a stand up paddle board and took the kids for one last play in the ocean before we pointed our car towards home.  Ken took each of the kids out on it.  Again, pics aren't fully engaged because I had just had a baby and wasn't getting up off my blanket.













Avery's turn:











Watching Ken get Penelope out there was pretty funny.  She was FURIOUS that he was going to make her go.  He had her on his shoulders and the humongous board in his hands.  She was wrenching his head from side to side, like she was trying to unscrew it from the top of his neck.  She was so mad.  But the very moment they got out there, she was one seriously happy camper.





I got distracted while they were out there, and had to document my sweet slumbering infant under the little towel canopy we made him.







Penny and Ken, soaked from coming in again.





I don't know why I felt like I needed to, but I just did.  This is me, just a few days less than one month after baby.  I am posting these to show my kids someday that I tried to be adventurous.  :) Not because I love a post-baby bod in a swimsuit. These are me almost in.  The ones he got of me out there were pretty blurry and you couldn't see much.  I was pretty exhausted from our Core-ology class that morning, so I had a hard time standing up and balancing out there.  Having a baby and then a newborn really does take you from good shape to terrible shape.  Snap of the fingers.





My kids were so proud, and that made me proud too.



Getting photos of the kids is such a tricky task.  Yes, Avery is about to punch Penny's head.





Penny couldn't be more PUMPED about holding the new baby.





Baby is rescued and taken to more competent hands.  My sweet kids.





End of longest post ever.