Fun with Cousins & Aunts

watching dolphins at the pier

Surprise

Two days ago my younger sister, Stephanie, & her dog arrived to stay during her Christmas break from college. Yesterday, we walked in from the park only to have our older sister and her 3 boys jump out from the closet and from behind the couch! It was an awesome surprise!

Here are our youngest surprise guests

Here's the latest attempt at a family picture. Trent officiated a wedding Saturday that we all attended.

A friend also took Anna Kate and my camera for a bit and this is what I found.

I'm slow to do posts because they all seem like they'd be the same to me. It's still in the low 80s every day, so we spend lots of time outside. We go to the beach often. We can't swim in our pool anymore (it's not heated), but we did swim in the Gulf last week and it was refreshing.

Playing Outside

We do lots of playing outside these days...

Sand Sculpture Festival

We love living by the beach! The last couple weekends we've had impromptu trips out on a friend's boat for just an hour or two. The highlight last weekend was when we remembered (while we were already on the Gulf) that the finals for the annual American Sand Sculpting Competition was being held at nearby Fort Myers beach. Our friends drove the boat up, we threw the anchor just off shore and walked around admiring the amazing sculptures. What a treat.
Hudson & Anna Kate love the boat! I have pictures somewhere of them that I'll have to post.

Halloween 2011

We went downtown Naples where the main street was blocked off. Kids could trick-or-treat at the business and there were kid friendly activities in the street. It was a great night of family fun with great friends!

A Cuddly Mover & Shaker

At 16 months old now, Anna Kate is extremely social, dramatic and fun! She insists on saying hi and waving to every person when we're out. All the grandparents around here eat it up. She blows kisses and waves while riding in a shopping cart like she's a queen in a parade.

She will dramatically throw herself on the ground and cry into her hands if her feelings are hurt, if Hudson is playing with the toy she wants or sometimes for no apparent reason. After a minute of that, she'll normally get up and just start happily playing again. Trent is worried.
She's learning many new words. She knows lots of body parts and likes to review them. Often, I'm holding her and talking to someone when out of nowhere she puts her finger in my eye saying "eye, eye, eye, eye..." until the attention is turned to her. :) She also loves books, animals, the beach and anything her brother is doing. This girl is either on the move or being held.

Matching Outfits

Someone passed down some matching outfits to our kiddos. While we had some middle school girls at our house last week, they noticed the matching shirts and wanted to do a photo shoot. Here are the results.

Three and a Half

Hudson is now 3 1/2, so I thought I'd post an update. He still loves swimming, imaginary play, reading books and yellow.

He can dive to the bottom of the deep end of our pool (about 6 feet), swim a few laps and play for hours on a raft. His favorite time is probably swimming with his dad.

For those of you who have "met" Tad, he's still around, but not as often. Occasionally Tad comes over to play, eat or get into trouble (Hudson loves tattling on him & watching me discipline him :)).

He's gotten into "working out" with his dad & doing work projects together.

He still loves music. Here he's playing the keyboard & singing hymns in the youth building at our church. He also still loves school.

Some funny things he's said...

while walking past the ironing boards at Walmart "Mom look, they sell surf boards here." (shows you how much I iron vs how much we're at the beach :))

whenever he makes up different people or animals for us to be, he'll group the 3 of us as one thing and then Anna Kate is always Jonah (eg- Dad, you're the Daddy elephant who's an astronaut, Mom, you're the mommy elephant who helps launch the space ship, I'm the boy elephant who drives the space ship & Anna Kate is Jonah).

I guess Hudson is a typical big brother. Sometimes he's great with Anna Kate, trying to teach her something or just play with her, but mostly he's annoying her or she's bothering him.

Overall being 3 1/2 seems really cool and you are the coolest 3 1/2 year old! We love you Hudson Lee!

Catching Waves

This past week, Trent taught Hudson how to body surf. He loved catching waves with his Daddy. It wasn't on this day, but one where the waves were a tiny bit bigger.

Baseball & Bubbles

We've been playing a lot of baseball & tennis recently.

Toothbrush Rockstar

She loves to brush her teeth!

A Fun Day in the Casto Household

Today was Hudson's first day of preschool and he loved it!

His classroom

finding his desk at the open house

his teacher

with 2 great friends from church who are both in his class :)

When we asked what his favorite thing from school was, he replied "P.D." (he meant PE). He told us all about how he got to do big jumps & little jumps on a trampoline there.

Also, today is Trent's birthday!

He requested grilled steak & chicken shish kabobs for dinner accompanied by one of his favorite veggies, roasted asparagus, & rice. His birthday "cake" was a peanut butter banana cream pie with chocolate. :)

Happy Birthday my love! I pray this is the best year yet for you!

Two Peas in a Pod