Just fun.

Great morning-girls were in better moods today-sleep can do that! Running around and having fun. I made some pancakes, and who doesn't love that for breakfast. After getting the little ones settled and the big ones hyped up for time with Grandma, Jenny & I went to the outlet for a little while with the babies. Got a few deals for the kiddos and nice to get some time to chill with the little ones and do some adult type stuff like shopping. Without fighting. Jane has pretty much reached the age where she's got to be in a really good mood or have lots of incentives to do a much shopping-and with 2 kids--I find that I don't have much attention left for the actual shopping. Any opportunity to go without is awesome.

Typical day...

Today was probably a pretty normal day when you get 4 kids under the age of 4 together at once! Kids running around like crazy, learning to share, feeding and holding babies, the occasional tantrum from the older girls, and some yummy breakfast casserole. Barely contained chaos. And I'm sure it's only going to get better since two of them mostly just sleep and eat right now-they don't move unless we move them! We didn't make it out of the house before it was time for Averie's nap. So attempted to put her down (she was less than thrilled), Gram D & Arlyn took a nap, and the rest of us watched the Jungle book. Got out to a little art show in Howell, kids got a balloon puppy, and then some ice cream. Park after that--pretty chilly outside today, but they needed to run off a little energy. Feels like fall or something. Not sure we really had summer yet! By the time we got home from that Averie was done with a capital D. Managed to get some food into everyone and we went home. Jane was ready for bed early since she didn't have a nap either.

Weekend at Gram D's

Jenny brought the girls down for the weekend to hang out at Gram Deb's house. Tonight's activity-music in the park in Howell. Crazyface Averie would rather have visited a huge field where she could run free. Jane was a dancing machine. Nice evening... Much better than the day--during which Jane hacked a piece of her hair off when I was vacuuming in the basement. :( Not horrible looking, I suppose, but horrible that it happened! You can kind of see the 'long bangs' in this photo. I guess she gets her first haircut soon--get it all evened out a little bit.

Afternoon at the Park

Decided to make something of the nice day and went to Kensington for a little while. Got some chicken nuggets and camped out on the blanket by the playground stuff. Just a beautiful afternoon, and no mosquitos here! Cutie pie girls...

Visit to the lake

We surprised G&G Carlson--all the great grandkids at once. Photo has Penny (3 months), Collin (6months), Ian (2yrs), and Jane (3.5 yrs). Beautiful hot summer weekend. Pretty fun pulling off such a fun surprise, and the kids had fun.

cupcake love

Thought we'd make some cupcakes-just for funzies this afternoon. Mike was actually pretty excited to come home to cupcakes as well! And yes, that IS frosting all over her face. We made some mini ones for her...

Cottage

Just a beautiful weekend at the cottage. All sorts of craziness with two toddlers running all over and two babies. Fun stuff. Wonderful weather, finally felt like summer, although I can't believe it's already August. It was great to catch up with everyone, and Jane had so much fun. Once she warmed up, she was all over everyone, and we got a break-she got lots of books, tickle time, and fun with Mike's cousins. She and Averie also did just awesome playing together.

Princess...

Fixed Jane's Princess dress that had a bit of ripped from all the love it receives. She rushed to put it on and her shoes and her tiara from Averie's b-day party. I had to put up her hair... Seriously. Where did the princess thing come from? It's all we hear right now, "but I'm a PRINCESS"...we've never refered to her as one, she doesn't watch many movies with them, a few books here and there. Whew. It's a lot of work raising a princess, that's for sure!

Summer Corn

Finally got some good corn; it's been disappointing thus far. Jane was a good helper doing some shucking-even though she thinks the silk is too icky and tickly and gross, so I have to do most of it. She also thinks that she is hilarious trying to 'eat' it before it's cooked. Such a silly kiddo.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Rollin'

And so it begins...

DDS

Jane had her 1st Dentist appt today. What an awesome job...she was chatty the whole time. We have the best hygienist-so nice. She got scraped and flossed and polished and fluoride, too! Best part--she lays back for Dr. Bouhana to check her after the cleaning--and says, "my baby poops and pees and crys a lot!" Gotta love it.

How sweet are these girls?? Jane is obviously ecstatic to be able to hold her baby sister.

Outside

Wish we could spend more time outside, but the mosquitos have been horrible this summer. Crazy weird cool summer days are great. I'd spray Jane down with bug spray, but that doesn't really work for Penelope. Short jaunts outside will have to do.

Isn't she fabulous??

Peek-a-who?

Peek-a-who was one of our favorite books for Jane-we had to buy it after seeing it at the library. She wanted to read to Penny, so figured that was a good one to start. Penny seems to like it, too!

Summer weekends

Seems like in the middle of winter we look forward to lazing about once summer rolls around. In reality, seems more like we run around all crazy and busy once summer is here! We had a great weekend, Debbie's b-day get together on Saturday and Reynolds picnic on Sunday. Jane got to play with Averie and then with some of my cousins kids at the lake. Got a few free weekends and then busy again for most of August. Mike has one side of the upstairs framed in now-at least the ceiling and outline for the closets, so we're getting there slowly.

Sing a little song

Jane was 'writing' in a journal on her side of the basement and singing a little song about loving mommy and daddy and I started e-mailing Mike about how cute it was. I ended up basically transcribing her singing. Just way adorable. Of course, my favorite is 'I love momma with all my heart'. Seriously, can't get much better than that. I had to do a layout before I forgot too much of it! I also got yummy kraft paper last time I was in Kalamazoo. I love using it for layouts.

Watermelon

Sure...you can have the rest of the watermelon. Since you took the whole last piece ya stinker winker.

Smile...

Penelope is grinning and smiling. She seems to think she's pretty funny. I love it.

Cherries Layout

Skipping around with my scrapbooking, but I had done up most of this page earlier this year with papers I didn't use for Arlyn's baby girl album. Mike took Jane to Spicer's over the weekend to get some cherries, and I couldn't resist printing out some photos and getting this one put together.

4th of July

Great day-breakfast at the French Laundry, Parade in Downtown Fenton, helping Gram D move some stuff, and fireworks in Fenton later in the evening. Whew.

Check out the little diva! She is such a girly girl sometimes.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Nine years. Just crazy that we've been married for NINE years. We're heading out for Sushi tonight, and I can't wait! Did get a LO done last night...Jane is my Honey Bunny, been calling her that for a long time now.

Milham Park

We got hotdogs at the Rootbeer stand for lunch today and went to Milham park. It was pretty windy and tiny bit chilly, so we just ate in the car. Maybe next time we can have more of a picnic like I remember growing up, they also had the water fenced off, so no duck feeding today either. It was nice to burn some energy off of Jane, though! Did some car seat shopping, and after some icecream at Sonic, I headed home. Ended up hitting the outlet mall on my way back; shopping with a 7 week old is just sooo much more fun than with a 3 year old. I'm sure that Jane much prefered hanging out with Gram Sandee & Grandpa Mike than shopping too!

Grandparents are the best.

Homeward bound today. Visiting Mom & Dad and Great Grandparents. Grandparents are something special. Who else lets a 3 year old dress them up in boxes as hats? This was a beautiful afternoon of yummy dinner and kite flying and hanging out. Unfortunately Grandpa Don got hit in the head with a branch on his way home while getting some ice cream. Doing okay, but tough recovery with lots of sitting waiting for him now, and he likes to be active, so it will be a little rough. At least it's summer, no snow and ice to deal with. We're hoping he gets better fast!

Strong Baby Girl

Seriously with the neck control--she is soo strong. She's really starting to focus more too, kind of cool to have her really 'looking' at us. Tuned in to voices, definitely hears Jane! She has to sit like this to get her burps out--otherwise she pukes. I think Jane maybe burped 5 times, so it's definitely different with Penelope. I still forget and then realize she's not eating or she's fussing--OHH, probably needs to burp! She's got great ones, too--like she could probably do some beer commercials or something.

Grin!!!

We've got full on smiles! Nothing better than first gooey happy smiles. She got her 'first' bottle (we're not counting the couple of formula ones she had at the beginning!) tonight from Mike. She's pretty sure that something is not quite right-hence the furrowed brow. She did drink most of it, though.

Hot!

It's summer--like HOT today. Jane did some painting in her swim suit, and we had to strip Penny down to her diaper just to be outside without over heating too much. Makes for sleeeepy baby!

Baby Coos

Just a little bit of Penny 'talking'. She's been making even more adorable noises lately. I love cooing. She's also kicking up a storm and flinging her arms around-doing some baby exercises, I suppose.

Daddy Day

I packed a picnic for us to take to Kensington Park today. Mike's been fighting a bit of a cold, so thought it would be nice to lay around on the grass for awhile. Jane fell asleep on the way there, of course (maybe due to her getting up at 5am today??). We found a nice spot under a tree, had our picnic snacks, and Jane and I checked out the playground. Mike and Penny dozed on the blanket. Super nice day, really feels like summer has finally rolled around.

Nice weather-dunno about global warming, though...

Ummm...getting some pretty darn funny faces out of Penelope all of a sudden. Cracking up at the one! It's just really nice weather lately, but still kind of cool. Especially in our house-we wake up and it's not quite 60 inside, and it's barely been shorts weather. Jane, however, sees sun outside and insists that she should be wearing a tank top. I know in a few weeks we're going to be feeling the heat, though. Can't believe that Penny is almost 1 month old already. She's changing and growing before our eyes. Kind of makes me a little sad. But then she cries and screams for 20 minutes straight and I'm not quite as sad about missing the baby baby stuff. She also UNLOADED on me twice...yum, I forgot about that almost projectile baby vom. She weighs like 10 pounds, but when it comes up, it sure seems like there is a gallon of milk in there somewhere. Ewww.

Low key day

Stayed home today...nice to not have to go anywhere. Penelope has been doing pretty good sleeping in her co-sleeper at night, and she's been sleeping in the playpen in the basement. Doesn't seem to care if Jane is playing or yelling or that I'm doing laundry (with a washing machine that seems to be constantly off balance=loud). Jane would love to hold her all the time-I'm not sure from this expression if Penny's quite as excited about the concept!

Moby

Loving the moby wrap...she's so comfy in it. Went to meijers and she just slept away. Tried to do some kitchen pick-up tonight with her in it...little harder to get messy stuff. She's crazy with the neck control--soo strong.

A Wedding Day

Went to Georgi's wedding today. Made it there early, even though at 10 am we realized that the ceremony we thought started at 2:30 was really starting at 1! Penelope is seriously so good--she just chilled as we were running around like crazy to get out the door, then she slept on the way down there. She ate before the ceremony and then went back to sleep. Up to eat again afterwards, then slept again for most of the reception. Got passed around to friends for awhile...just really good girl!

Wedding was great, super fun to catch up with college archery people, and nice to have an evening out with adults. Jane spent the afternoon and night with Gram D.

Solo...

Went solo with the girls for the first time today. It went pretty well. Little shopping/errands this morning. Jane threw a mini fit when I had to feed Penelope in the car-no surprise there. Spent a little while at the library after that. Both girls took naps-Jane with a bit of protesting as usual. She then slept for a good two hours. I'm sure it's going to be both up and down from here, but so far, so good.

Memorial Day

We had a great day today. We've had such beautiful weather this week, and today was no exception. Just perfect for a parade. Jane has been sooo excited waiting to go to the parade-compounded by the fact that she gets to wear a pretty dress AND gets to wave a flag. Not much more that a three-year-old girl can ask for apparently. We found a decent spot in the shade under a tree, although Mike and Jane ended up out on the edge of the road for a better view. I hung out with Penelope and 'tried' to feed her. Gotta work on the public feeding stuff, just don't have quite enough hands yet, and she's still not always ready to get down to business. Parade was nice this year-even more monster trucks at the end than last year, not sure what's up with that! Nate and Kara showed up just in time to see the trucks. We parked partway down from our house; I'm doing so much better than after having Jane, but just really didn't want to try to do the walk back up that hill to our house. The moby wrap is working well, I carried Penelope the whole time in it, no problems. I asked Jane what her favorite part of the parade was--oh yeah--the CANDY. (She got probably all of 6 pieces-kept running each one back to put in the drink holder of her chair.) Nice lunch out with Nate and Kara after wards. Got some cute pics of Jane and Penelope this afternoon-before too many mosquitos started attacking. Gotta love the family photo--all three of them have Jane with this cranky look sticking out her tongue. She's three, that's for sure!