Beachin' It

Cole (3.5), Owen (2 in August), Will (1.5)

It was a blast to hang with the Pughs at the beach for a few days! It was fun to compare this year to last year. Will was still sitting in a bumbo last year and this year, all three boys were running around and much more independent.
We arrived at the beach on Friday night late...about 10:00. Will was an excellent car rider this time. We didn't even have to bust out the M&Ms that I had bought for the trip and was fully prepared to let him eat the entire bag if it kept him quiet and me sane. He slept the last hour and a half or so, but when we arrived in the condo, he quickly woke back up and realized there were 2 fun boys about his size who were here too! Pajama party ensued in the den for about an hour and then we began trying to get little man down.The Pack and Play was a no go AGAIN...he has NEVER slept in his pack and play, even as a baby. He HATES it. This time he let us know that he hated it by crying hysterically and jumping out (twice). I didn't even know he could do that. So we tried having him sleep in the bed with us the first night...He does not sleep in the bed with us. The only time he is in bed with us is on Saturday and Sunday mornings for a few minutes after he wakes up to play with us in bed. Therefore, whenever he is in bed with us, he thinks PLAY!! Finally we cranked up the sound machine, turned off all the lights, and with Will in between us, we ignored him. At one point I rolled over to see what he was doing and he had his head laying on John's pillow and was rubbing John's hair. It was incredibly sweet and I wish I had my camera close by to snap his pic. He finally fell asleep at around 2:00 and was up a little before 6am. You can imagine what happy campers John and I were for the first part of the day. But having others around helped us to snap out of our funk and we all headed down to the pool. Will loved the water. My mom bought him a puddle jumper earlier this summer and he has lived in it at the pool ever since. I am so glad that it doesn't bother him. It gives me much more peace of mind since he wants nothing more to be independent in the water.
The place we are staying (Caribe in Orange Beach) is AMAZING. I cannot say enough about how nice it is. My gracious room mother from this past school year let us stay in their unit. It is the perfect getaway for kids. It is on the bay side, which was fine with us, and has 3 pools (complete with water slides) and a lazy river. The pool at our building has those edges where you just walk into the water. This was perfect for the boys. It kept them super entertained to just sit by the edge and play with their water toys. John introduced Will to the water slide on Saturday and this is what he has wanted to do the rest of the weekend. As soon as they fly off, he immediately starts pointing to the stairs to go again!
Going out to dinner at the beach is not really a fun thing to do!! Last year when we came, Will was 5 months old so we could basically keep him in his carseat for the whole time and he was pretty content. This year...Oh my! Saturday night was our fault. We went to Lulu's (Jimmy Buffett's sister's restaurant the night before Jimmy Buffet was set to play a free concert here at the beach). It was packed. Thankfully there was this huge sand mound for the kids to play in. We were thankful when we saw they were going to have something to do...not so thankful when I spent about 25 minutes cleaning Will off-sand was everywhere!After 2 hours of waiting and having 7 parties still in front of us, we knew we just needed to call it a night. We went through McDonalds drive thru for Will and picked up Shrimp Basket for us and headed back to the condo.
Sunday night we had a much better game plan. We ate at Cosmo's, got there at 5 and had no wait! The boys wore their matching t-shirts and couldn't have been cuter. It was definitely harder this year to get them all to pose.Many thanks to Tara at Smitten & Co. for doing the boys shirts again this year! They turned out so cute. I have ordered several things from there and they always turn out great!!

We headed to Bruster's and then the beach after dinner to just check it out. Dax picked up some tar balls and the ocean definitely had a sheen to it from the oil. Will immediately went for the water (ocean is closed for swimming) so we knew we couldn't come spend the day at the beach for Will to play in the sand because he would just want in the water (Plus, he had enough experience with the sand at Lulu's!!!)
I absolutely love these pictures of Will and John...

Thank you Pughs for another great beach trip! Excited about next year....we will be adding a baby to the bunch-Holly is due with Baby #3 in late December. Logistics of sleeping should get really interesting next year...