we're all geared up to root for team usa!
the girls and i made this olympic flag cake this afternoon, and i must say that it is a little more complicated than it looks. ya gotta get those m&ms just right to make the rings hook together!
ok, the opening ceremony is just about to start... yay!
the kids and i met up with some friends at a little water park this week... i am thankful that we chose the ONE day this week that it did not rain! this park is the perfect size to let the kids play while the moms sit and chat. this may very well be the only moment that my kids were standing still all day...
the kids loved playing with lily, jake, and grace. it was so crazy bright... they really were having fun, i promise!
lily is right in between amelia and caroline's ages, so she is the perfect playmate for the girls. jake and grace are who my kids think of when they think about getting older... you know, like when you say, "you can do that when you're older"... my kids will say, "when we're jake and grace's age?" they are such an example of servant-hearted teenagers and always show great care in talking to my children, so i have no problem with the fact that my kids think they are the best thing ever! this little water park is not exactly geared toward teenagers, but jake and grace were super sweet and played with my kids or sat with hallie so i could get in the water a little bit.
so speaking of my kids looking up to jake and grace... when we got to the water park, jake asked me if ethan would go down the big water slide. i laughed (ethan was not around) and said, "i'll give you $10 if ethan goes down that slide." (his mom quickly told him he would not take any money from me.) i told jake there was no way ethan would go down that thing. well... 5 minutes later, ethan and jake come walking up, and ethan is ready to go down the slide! it only took his favorite teenage boy bribing him with $5...
once he'd climbed the stairs and headed into the slide, it seemed like forever before he emerged at the other end! and emerged is the best word... he didn't fly out or come swooshing down.... he came out verrrrrry slowly! he scooted to the edge of the slide and plopped in the water. it was very anticlimactic, but if he was happy, i was happy! (this picture must be from a later trip down because he's going a lot faster here.)
ethan loved the slide and went down it over and over, eventually figuring out how to go faster and faster. i reminded him that he was not getting $5 for every trip down that slide!
thank you, jake, for encouraging ethan to try something new! he was so glad that he did!
while everybody else was splashin' around, hallie slept in the breezy shaded picnic area. i brought her out in the sun to get a quick picture, and woooweee, was it bright! i bought this little sundress at a consignment store when caroline was a newborn, knowing that she'd probably never wear it (she was a november baby). i was right. then amelia was born in january. nope. she didn't wear it either. finally, this summer baby gets to wear the little dress just made for a trip to the pool! (and wow, doesn't amelia look gigantic?)
isn't it a sweet lil' dress? and hallie says, "enough already... get me back in the shade, please!"
i really didn't take a lot of pictures of the kids playing because they were on the move the whole day... and when i wasn't feeding hallie or reapplying sunscreen or getting amelia another snack, i was enjoying every moment of visiting with my sweet friend, dawn!
after dawn and her kids left, we stayed a little bit longer, and caroline made a new friend (which she was hoping to do that day, she told me on the way out there). this girl can strike up a conversation with just about anybody, and before you know it, she has a new friend!
i hated to make caroline leave right as they were starting to play together, but i wanted to make it to sonic before happy hour ended. the kids could've stayed until closing, but the minute i mentioned sonic, they were fine with calling it a day.
this was before the sonic sugar rush...
and this is after!
"wook! my tongue is bwwwue!"
here's a little video of hallie "talking" tonite. she was so happy and chatty before bedtime! pardon the shaky video-- i was trying to hold the camera away from my face so she'd smile at me.
i ended the video when i did because i wanted to snap a picture of her smiling so big... but of course, i couldn't capture it. it's amazing how she can be so smiley one minute, but as soon as i pull out that big ole' camera, she's done. i did manage to take a screen shot of the video... not great quality, but you sure can see my girl and her smile. :)
i saw this smile this morning at 7 AM after hallie slept twelve hours! she woke me up with her giggling and talking-- such a pleasant way to wake up!
well july is just a flyin' by! seems like we were just celebrating our country's independence the other day... but it was almost two weeks go! can someone just please slow this summer down a little? i didn't take a ton of pictures this 4th of july, but i did manage to snap a few in between relaxing and letting brian have the camera for his technical-on-the-tripod-fireworks pictures.
our children are not hurting for patriotic clothing. (it seems like just yesterday that these cousins were this little...)
i love how amelia always runs to get in their pictures :) she is not bothered in the least by the fact that she is not matching them or that she is the little one...
so i saw this cake on one of my favorite recipe blogs, and i thought that'd be fun to make for the 4th. my sweet mother agreed to "help me"... in other words, she agreed to cut the layers and completely ice the cake for me. my contribution was periodically testing her amazing almond buttercream icing to make sure it was indeed still amazing. it was. anyway, she did a fabulous job, and the kids were quite excited to see the plain white cake turn into a flag...
it got a little messy when we were slicing because we were trying to cut little slivers for the kids... we should've just given them big honkin' pieces so that the pictures would've turned out better! but you get the general idea...
after our cookout and dessert, we headed down the street to watch the fireworks. what did we ever do before our sit-n-stand stroller?!
brian's brother and dad went down a little early to find a spot and set up all the chairs... well, we got down there, and brian's mom and i both vetoed their set-up because it was behind a ditch, and we were sure we'd get eaten alive by mosquitoes. so we set up a little more to the left, and as soon as the fireworks started, we realized they would not be high enough to clear the trees. so we enjoyed the show with the tops of the trees in the way. (hence, no perfect fireworks pictures making it on the blog this year.) so jeff and neil, for the record, YOU WERE RIGHT! here we all are, just waiting for the show of lit-up trees to start...
right when the show was about to start, we saw some familiar faces walking toward us! ethan's buddy, drew, from classical conversations and his family were setting up right next to us! it was great to see them!
we failed to have a radio playing all the patriotic music this year, and we realized that the music really adds a lot to the show. kristie and i belted out our version of "God bless the USA", but it just wasn't the same. so the kids were not frozen in awe of the fireworks like they usually are... but they kept themselves entertained with pop-its...
(did you know that those things also make a great prank? put a couple of them under a toilet seat and wait to surprise your next potty guest... or so i've heard.)
amelia loved waving this thing around in our faces while we tried to watch the fireworks light up the trees... you can tell this was just a memorable experience. :)
gram and nana with their grandson!
i meant to get a picture of hallie sitting with pappy to watch the fireworks, but i got distracted and forgot. so here i am with my little butterball on her first 4th of july.
hope you all had a wonderful 4th!
it's amazing to see and experience the changes in a baby in one short little month. since the beginning of june until now, hallie has gone from just beginning to sleep consistently to (praise the Lord!) now sleeping 9 or 10 hours at night and taking several good naps during the day. sleep is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
hallie's baby acne is finally gone, and she still has a good head of hair. i think she has lost a little of her hair, but her brother and sisters were almost bald by this point... so i wonder if she'll just start growing more now or if she's just late in losing her hair.
hallie sure is smiling and cooing now. it's so precious to see her smile when she hears her sisters' voices or sees them in front of her (especially caroline). i have yet to really capture her big smile on camera... but i almost caught it here.
and then i panned over to the right to snap a shot of her entertainment... how could you not smile at these two silly things?! :)
they sure do love their baby sister. they have not stopped marveling over her every time she gives them a huge grin or "talks" to them.
here is hallie with her three biggest fans...
her "floppy airway" still makes hallie quite a squeaky baby, but i think the squeakiness is getting quieter and not so often. her doctor said the cartilage would harden by 6 months or so, so maybe it's beginning to harden. (i probably learned about this during grad school, but umm... 10 years and 4 babies later, no recollection!) it has also been at least a couple of weeks since she's gotten choked up during nursing (and then losing her lunch all over me!), which i think is related to the squeakiness...in my--ahem--professional opinion! all that to say, my baby's growin' up, not throwin' up!
(updated 7/11/12: we just got home from hallie's check-up, and the doctor said the technical term for her "floppy airway" is tracheomalacia. it goes away when you put her on her tummy... interesting! her projectile vomiting has nothing to do with the tracheomalacia. just in case y'all were wondering. and it may be a year or 15 months before it goes away. so why did he tell me 6 months before??)
ok, moving on... hallie has found her thumb, as i mentioned recently. this is a monumental occasion in our family. our kids are apparently wired to be thumbsuckers-- we could see their hands by their faces in almost all their sonograms. and frankly, it's fine with me! i have nothing against pacifiers, but my babies usually don't care for one once they've found their thumb. the perk of the thumb? it is always available and ready for soothing. i can't guarantee its level of sanitariness (is that a word?), but i never have to run out to walmart at midnight to buy another thumb! i agree that ridding a child of a pacifier is probably much easier than stopping thumb sucking, but that's really not my concern with a 2-month-old. so just let me enjoy my baby enjoying her thumb! :)
besides thumbsucking, hallie's favorite pasttimes right now are watching the ceiling fan and swatting at her toys in her gym. a quick poll: have any of you had a baby who did not lovingly gaze at a ceiling fan? just curious because my babies have all loved their friend the fan.
this past month, hallie had her first trip to the beach and
first out of town trip to see family. here she is with two of brian's precious aunts.
with two months under our belt, i'd say that we are in a pretty good routine with hallie at home. the kids do their best to be quiet while she's napping, and she is the center of their attention when she's awake. some days she requires more attention than others, and we just go with it. some days we get some (catch-up) school work done, and some days we don't. some days i get some house work done, and some days i don't. i usually don't accomplish a lot of both in one day! but what is always guaranteed is a busy home full of little people learning how to love each other and their Lord... and lots of snuggles from this scrumptious doll! God is good!
now that hallie is sleeping so wonderfully, i can move on to other goals... like taking more pictures and video of her and bathing her more often. yes, such is life with the 4th child!! (and seriously, is she really all that dirty? well, she is definitely the least dirty member of this household!) i really will be back soon with pictures from ethan's birthday and the 4th of july!
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