Milestones

And, just a quick milestone update.

Rhys is pretty much a full-time walker now.  Started 1 week after her birthday and is actually pretty good at it now.  She makes the transition from carpet to tile really well and loves to carry things around with her.

Rhys also has 3 teeth, and the 4th is just about poking thru.  She got top left, bottom right, bottom left, and now top right is almost in.  I haven't checked to see if any others are making their debut, but she's at the right age, so a mouthful are probably on their way.

Natalie has been using the potty full time!  She had a few mis-haps while we were camping.  I think she was too busy / distracted /excited that she forgot, but outside of that, she's been doing awesome.  I'd have to guess 5 or 6 accidents total in the last month since she decided to use the potty??  She's even waking up dry most mornings.  This past week I think she was dry 5 of 7 nights.  Not bad!  And I'm still not convinced that the 8 months of trying and frustration were worth it.  I wonder if she would have gotten here regardless?  Will definitely not stress ourselves out when it is Rhys' turn.

Swim Lessons

We've been doing swim lessons on Friday nights - at least on the nights that we've been in town.  A couple of sessions, one of the grandparents got into the pool and used a waterproof camera to take pictures of the kids.  They were nice enough to share with us!  Some of them turned out pretty fun!

Natalie did her first "Clownfish" Lesson last night.  The big girls are finally moving up to the next level.  Up to this point a parent has been in with them, but they are starting to be able to follow directions and pay attention for longer periods of time, so they are trying the big kid class.  (It's supposed to be limited to 3 kids, but they let the 4 big ones try this time).

The kids swam while the dads were just sitting around chatting..!

Camping 2012: Take 2

We did a second camping trip this summer.  Our first trip earlier this summer was a bit of a disaster, and this one was SO MUCH BETTER in comparison.  We had a fabulous view:

 

 

 

great (quiet) neighbors, and the kids did awesome! 

Yummy watermelon!  (on the comfort of carpet. Everyone takes carpet when they camp, right??)

And a little potty break!  We'll definitely use this as blackmail in about 13 years.  So glad we took "little potty" with us, because there is no way I wanted Natalie in a Porta-Potty.  See how she's got her hands?  Yucko! This was a much better choice.

Marshmallows!

Thank goodness for baby wipes!

Marshmallows on night #2.  We spent the day at the water slides.  The girls all loved it!  Natalie is just barely big enough to do all of the kiddie slides by herself, so she had a blast.  David and I took turns taking Rhys down and she was having a ball.  Lot of laughing and splashing and no pictures!

Our camping dog, Miss Hailey. 

A Family Picture!  I told Trisha "I'll pay you big bucks if you can get a good picture of all of us".  Good thing we didn't settle on a real number!

I like this picture - they are just sitting taking in the view.

Sunday morning - we were packing up the camping gear, so we moved Rhys' bed out into the shade.  The big girls were good at entertaining her.  I think they secretly wanted into the crib too.

Natalie's "Silly Face"

She was helping clean up - she did a good job sweeping all of the leaves.

And Rhys did a good job hanging out.  Who would want to nap with that view in sight, anyway?

More Rhys pictures

Rhys is the only one who will sit still these days to have her picture taken, so I took these, just because.

Wearing her cute birthday outfit from Auntie Patty

And sleeping so peacefully that we were able to get a few pictures in before she woke up!

Painting party

Patty & Ryan stayed the night after Rhys' party.  On Sunday morning after breakfast, we were waiting for Rhys to take a nap, so I got these paint kits out of the goodie bags for the kids.  They did a good job painting their pictures and then I gave them each a big sheet of art paper too. Ryan finished his up and went on to play in the other room.  I'm pretty sure Natalie sat there for almost an hour emptying out the paint jars from both kits.

Little artists in the making.

Happy 34th Anniversary!

Happy 34th Wedding Anniversary to my mom & dad (Grammy & Papa)!  It was July 28th.  Thanks for sharing with Rhys' birthday party!

The Barn

Grammy drove over on August 4th to help watch Liam while mommy & daddy packed up for their move.  We took the kids to the barn to see the animals.  They were very excited!

 

Liam wanted to feed them...Natalie was a bit more cautious.

We saw they had the tractors running, so we waited for it to come back around.  We hopped on with the kids.

 

 And the tractor took us to pick blackberries!  We'd never taken Natalie to pick berries, and I'm pretty sure she ate more than we took home.

Liam was trying to figure out how he could get Natalie's basket..

They had these cute little adarondak chairs out back. The kids were impossible to catch...they kept sitting in one, then waiting for the other to come over, and then one would get up and run to the next set.  I tried hard to get one of both looking, but no luck.

As we got ready to leave, we had Natalie and Liam hold hands.  Liam knew just what to do!  When two people hold your hands, you get to jump, right?!  He kept jumping and practically pulling Natalie down with him.  Pretty funny!