Darby 31/52 v2

**Darby's regularly scheduled monthly update is being delayed 1 week due to Thanksgiving and our Caribbean adventure**

After 8 days in the Caribbean (4 in St. Thomas with us + Grampy and Jamie, and 4 in St. John just us) she was tired of the sunscreen application (slightly lessened due to long-sleeve rashguards), but could have stayed in the sand and water forever. During the trip her swimming improved, her acceptance of sand increased, and her full faced cheese grins took over. 

52 : 38 (part 4)

Not many kids get to spend Thanksgiving in paradise, but this year ours do as we escape the carousel of life and celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. Ewan has been anticipating this trip for months and did not believe us that the Caribbean would be as cool as Hawaii (he now does). Ewan enjoyed 4 days in St. Thomas with us + Grampy (who we convinced him had a new job as a pirate) and Jamie, and then 4 more days in St. John with just us. Ewan loved the swimming, the smoothies, and the hole digging. In this week's picture he and his dad are digging on the beach in St. John, many kids walked by and complimented how deep their hole was! Another highlight was the swim up movie at the Westin, they had a huge blow up screen and showed "Rio" while we swam, so cool!

Darby 30/52 v2

Taking Darby on a trip that required 2 flights, aka 9 hours in the air, each way, was feeling a bit daunting, and maybe a bit like a bad idea, so we put our heads together on what would equate to our survival... The two most vital were the paci and the iPad, the others remained largely tucked away in her backpack. This week's photo is DeeDee waiting for her red eye to Miami (en route to St. Thomas)... Luckily she rocked the flights, and seemed offended that we ever anticipating otherwise.

52 : 37 (part 4)

It is important to us that Ewan has a giving heart and understands that others are less fortunate. We discuss this concept pretty often and try to bring him to volunteer and community events. When his school announced their food drive we googled a list of what food banks really need and bought one of each item on the list. PLUS cake and frosting, because Ewan said, "every kid needs cake!"

Darby 29/52 v2

As a child I hated the angst of school pictures... what to wear, how to do your hair, and then waiting to see the images weeks later. But as a mom I LOVE PICTURE DAY! And picture day is even better when the school does sibling shots... Darby in the mustard yellow Zara shirt I got her in Spain, with her curls and proud baby posture, the perfect representation of her at one and a half.

52 : 36 (part 4)

As a child I hated the angst of school pictures... what to wear, how to do your hair, and then waiting to see the images weeks later. But as a mom I LOVE PICTURE DAY! And picture day is even better when the school does sibling shots... Ewan in his camouflage polo makes my heart melt, such a big boy!

Darby 28/52 v2

This is probably the last Halloween that we will get to dictate what Darby dresses as so we made the executive decision that she would be a purple treasure troll. We thought the likelihood of her keeping the wig on was pretty low, and that we might get ONE picture, but once we put it on and showed her in the mirror she did not touch it! She had fun trick-or-treating and impressed the neighbors (and us) with her "thank you" as we had not previously realized she knew this phrase!

52 : 35 (part 2)

Months ago we asked Ewan what he wanted to be for Halloween and he responded quickly (and with gusto) that he would be a praying mantis. If you google "praying mantis costume" you will not come up with much so Kevin took it upon himself to make a costume. Many hours of hand sewing, spray adhering, and hot gluing later Ewan was the BEST preying mantis EVER!