Night, night!

Isn't this how you put your babies to bed? No? You mean you don't climb in the pack n' play, cover yourself with the baby's blanket, and then sit the baby on your lap? Oh, well that's how Sam does it!

Rice Cereal

We gave Lucy her first taste of rice cereal a couple days ago. Oh my goodness, this girl wanted it! I have never seen a baby so eager to shove that runny stuff in her mouth. As soon as she saw the bowl and spoon she got so excited she almost jumped right out of the Bumbo. Seriously, she even popped the tray off with all of her wiggling around. Once the spoon got close enough to her she would reach out to grab my hand and shove that spoon into her mouth with a force I didn't even know she had! It was hilarious to watch, and she certainly seemed to love her first taste of rice cereal. Oh and yes, she's practically naked under that bib but she had just spit up on her shirt and I didn't see any reason to put on another one just to get it messy again!

Ready and waiting.

See the excitement once she saw the bowl and spoon!

She ate the whole bowl. I call that a success!

Five Months

Our baby girl turned five months old yesterday! I think I can finally say it out loud, she is my easiest baby. She sleeps 11-12 hours at night, she takes great naps, all I have to do it put her in the crib and she usually finds her thumb and goes to sleep without a fuss (sometimes she will cry for a couple minutes). When she's awake, she's happy and smiling, and she doesn't hate her car seat, which means she's a pretty good traveler. She rolled over (back to tummy) a few times last weekend and then this afternoon I went to get her up from a nap and she was on her tummy looking at herself in the mirror, squawking like she does when she's tired of what she's doing. I think her absolute favorite thing to do these days is suck the water out of the (clean) washcloth while taking a bath. All the kids fight over who's going to take a bath with Lucy and Anna loves singing songs to her little sister in the bath tub. Little sister seems to love it! We love this baby girl!

Happy Summer

I just have to brag about my deal here. I bought the outfit that Lucy is wearing back when Anna was a baby. Got it from a local consignment shop, and even though it was new, it was still a great deal for a smocked bubble. A few months ago I was checking out dresses on ebay when I came across a dress in the same pattern, in a 4T, for $15 (and that included shipping)! I couldn't resist that deal, especially when I knew it would be as cute as this:

And here's a little comparison for you...

This is Lucy today (almost 5 months).

And this is Anna at 7 months old.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the great fathers out there, especially this guy. He is the best Daddy to our children. He plays with them and prays with them. He works hard to provide for our family and we can't say thank you enough. We love you!

Also, a special shout out to Grandy and Pop on Father's Day. We love you both so much!

Our Annual Beach Photo Shoot

Every year at the beach we try to have our family pictures taken. Usually there are extra family members with us who have willingly been our photographers in the past. However, this year it was just the six of us. We decided to have the friend of a friend meet us on the beach and try to capture some shots of our family. Our photographer was super patient with us, and thank goodness, because our kids required a significant amount of patience on our part that evening. They were a bit uncooperative, to put it nicely. As you can see it was really windy out on the beach, but I think our photographer did a nice job, considering the subjects he had to work with that evening!

pictures

I told the kids I wanted to take their pictures last week after church. Anna and Sam immediately ran to the tree and posed so I snapped a cute one of them. Jack was already sitting on the steps, so despite the dying hosta along the sides, we tried to take pictures there anyway. The pictures turned out about as I expected they would with four uncooperative kids!

Daddy didn't get in these pictures because everyone's willingness to sit still was long gone by the end. But don't worry, since tomorrow is Father's Day, we will definitely make up for the missing Daddy!

Great Wolf Lodge

The next stop on our itinerary was Great Wolf Lodge. This is an indoor water park and I was so excited about this leg of our trip. We got to check right into our room once we got there and the kids were in awe. It was like a regular hotel room, only with a tiny log cabin inside. The log cabin was just for the kids and had a set of bunk beds and a twin bed inside, along with their very own tv. They thought it was the best thing ever! Once we got changed, we headed straight to the park to play. Jack and Anna had a great time, but Sam was terrified of the water spraying everywhere. He hated it (which is surprising because he has absolutely no fear of anything else)! So I couldn't get many pictures since I had tiny arms wrapped tightly around my neck the whole time.

Jack is standing on his top bunk peering over the top of the log cabin.

Sam HATED this water that dumped out every so often. The wolf would howl about a minute or so before tons of water came pouring out onto the kids below. When he heard the howl, he would stand and glare at the thing until the water dumped out and then shouted "no" and "stop" over and over.

After a fun afternoon in the water (Sam did finally warm up to the outside pool), we went out to dinner and then came back to get ready for story time. The kids were encouraged to wear pajamas and watch a show, then Wiley the Wolf came out for story time after the show. Jack had so much fun on the big water slides that he chose to go back to the water park with Daddy while I took the others to story time.

After story time we met up with Jack and Marshall in the arcade and everyone had tons of fun playing all the games (even in pajamas)!

We picked up doughnuts for an evening snack and headed back to the room to get ready for bed.

We actually slept in the next morning (remember, Lucy wasn't there to wake us up) and finally got downstairs around 10:00. The kids saw the ice cream shop and begged to have ice cream. Since we were on vacation we decided to go for it - they loved it! We took this picture right before heading into the water park on the second day and then my camera died so this is all I've got.

Sam never did love things on the inside, but we still had a blast and would go back again! I hadn't been on a water slide since middle school and I have to admit, they are pretty fun!