July 2014

We've had a wonderful, busy July! I am fully embracing summer, and trying to take advantage of every moment! Below are some of our July activities.

We joined a few other families at Ryan and Robin's for Independence Day. Their new house is out in the country and the setting is beautiful! It's so nice to let the kids roam and enjoy. Here are a few of the kids (Ethan, Savannah, and Bennett) playing in the sand which Henry loved!

Here's our girl in her 4th of July outfit! This look on her face is reminiscent of Henry's at this age!! She's almost 6 wks old here.

The Busch crew-looking patriotic indeed! The outfit Clayton is wearing was Henry's...I think he wore it his first 4th, too! 

Our family

The Stookeys...I forgot to get pics of the Rollins and Potters. Grr...oh, well! They were there, too! We had a great time grilling, visiting, shooting off fireworks, and roasting marshmallows by Mr. Ryan's bonfire.

The next day we went to my parents' house for the day. Lee brought the girls to visit. Here are all the girls together! Miss Annie met Emma for the first time!

We swam and swam! Henry had a blast and Annie had lots of cuddle time inside in the AC!

She must like cuddle time! Look at that smirk!

We started out with me holding him up to the goal to make baskets, but he quickly realized he could grab hold of the rim and hang on. Then he started pulling up his legs-little monkey! He was pretty proud of himself.

Cuddling in the hammock after lots of water time.

Here is Uncle Lee meeting his niece. This is about as close as he gets to babies, so consider yourself lucky, Annie!

Here's papa giving his littlest granddaughter some lovin! We had a great day and grilled and  made homemade ice cream before heading home (I wasn't ready to do an overnight yet with my 6 wk old!).

Annie loves the changing pad. She stretches and coos on it, stares and the light and is so happy! Her bubba is usually right there to "help" with diaper changes, too, so that keeps her entertained. I was taking pics to send to Aunt Mae of her "I'm pretty magical" onsie she gave Annie.

Sweet siblings! I love how Annie has her fists up in this picture. Ready to defend herself! Ha, ha!

Henry crawls up on the stool and participates in each diaper change:) He usually kisses his sis and talks to her, calling her "sweet girl", and chattering all the time about something.

Because of our sudden Orlando trip, we had to miss Bennett's 3rd bday party which was SO sad! We had them over one day to play and made Bennett lunch and cupcakes and gave him his gift (train puzzle). Henry has been REALLY into birthdays lately, so he loved putting a candle in Bennett's cupcake and singing the bday song to him, then letting him open a gift. Here are the boys doing "cheers" with their milk cups. :)Henry has a serious sweet tooth (he comes by it honestly, poor guy). Bennett didn't even finish the cake part of his dessert, but Henry gobbled his up really fast, then asked innocently, "Can I have another one, Mama?"

Robin brought the craft they were going to do at Bennett's party to let Henry be the guinea pig since we were going to miss the party. The boys did great painting their wooden trains!

Annie is a paci girl, but not always. Henry loves talking about her paci and here he is trying to get her to take it, too! She doesn't look too interested!:)

Henry pretending to put it in his mouth instead. Annie looks HUGE here, doesn't she??I love the little outfit she has on. It's soft and lightweight, and I love the colors and print:)

The next weekend (7/11), we drove to Nashville to visit Steven's cousin and his family who were in town. They were staying at the Opryland Hotel where Luke, his cousin who is a principal, could attend a principal's conference there. He was receiving a big award-he was named Iowa's 2013 Elementary Principal of the Year, and he received a scholarship for his doctorate because of this! We were excited to see them and hang out for the evening. His 3 kids (Maddie-going into 9th grade, Jack-6th, and Riley-4th) were SO, SO sweet to Henry and all 3 of them wanted to hold Annie and dote on her. It was precious!

The whole gang!

We grilled and played inside and out, then Henry asked to watch Veggie Tales with them right before we left. It was so funny that all 4 kids were singing along together!

The next morning we attended Chloe's 3rd bday party-a super cute princess party!

Annie generally sleeps a while after Henry wakes up in the mornings, which is great. It gives Henry and me a few hours (usually) together to eat breakfast and play or work on tasks around the house. One morning I was cleaning windows and he was such a big helper. I would spray the glass and we would both wipe them down. He was so happy and wanted to get right in there like a big boy! He was proud to show daddy our hard work that evening when he got home!

I finally pulled out the bouncy seat, and here is Annie all smiles in it!

Robin came by another day to drop some stuff off and we tried to take pics...her two were great and my two were not! Oh, well. It was funny to try. This one looks like Annie is saying, "Mom, Clayton's touching me!!"

Big boy Bennett was doing his best to hold the babies since Henry had just woken up from nap in a foul mood and would have no part of it!

On Wed (7/16), I drove Maggie to the farm so that his dad and Peggy could keep her while we were in FL. Henry was SO excited to go see the tractors and the cows. Grandpa spoiled him for sure! We had a great visit, and it made me realize we need to do it more often by the way Henry just chattered all the way home about the visit.

Getting to sit in the tractor like a "cowboy".

Annie and I hung out in the back of the car while they "worked"...it was a beautiful day!!

Hand in hand!

After working hard at the farm, Grandpa treated Henry to his first ever Happy Meal. He was pretty pumped about it, and especially about the ice cream he got afterward.:)

Here is Hankford playing with his girl...he's been loving on Maggie so much lately. She tolerates him so sweetly! He has his golf gloves on here and if you could see his feet, you'd see cowboy boots (with shorts-quite the fashion statement he's been making this summer!).

Friends Ben and Melanie from our small group got a time share last minute in Orlando. There was a whole separate bedroom and bathroom with plenty of space, so they invited us along. At first we figured we shouldn't-who takes a 7 week old and a newly potty  trained 2 year old on a 12 hour drive to such a sweltering place like Florida?? But then we thought-who is crazy enough to turn down a free week of vacation? Not us! It turned out to be great, and I'm so glad we went.

This is a view of one of the four pools we had access to. I love the pool and just don't get to go like I'd like anymore. While it wasn't a vacation where I could lay out and read a book (those were the days, ha!), it was still so relaxing not to have anything to do except be together and just chill. The palm trees added a wonderful, tropical feel!

Annie slept in her carrier by the pool most of the time, but I got her in one day. She just slept in the Moby wrap and squirmed as I lowered her into the water!

Bathing beauty!!

 Chillin' with Mama in the shade.

Dipping her toes in the kiddie pool.

Henry shows no fear in the water. I guess this is a good thing, but we had to keep a close eye on him and were so thankful for the puddle jumper a friend let us borrow. Here he is about to jump in!


This boy loves the water!

Henry absolutely loved swimming everyday. One of the pools was a zero entry kid-friendly one with all kids of water features in it, and he had a ball! Steven's sister had just handed down this wet suit of Camden's, and I'm so glad we took it because he loved "wallering" all over the pool floor and it scraped up his knees in just regular swim shorts (pic above is proof!).

Please mom, can we stay just a little while longer? :)

Annie was such a good sport. She got lots of attention from the public eye...it's hard not to notice such a little baby in those surroundings!

While we were right by all the Disney attractions, we did not actually do any of that. The kiddos are too young at this point! We did decide to break away from the pools one day to go to Sea World. We had a great time!

Henry checking out the rays. We are feeding them in the picture below (Steven wanted no part of this!).

We went to 3 different shows, and pictured below is part of the dolphin show. It was pretty cool...Henry was all eyes. Eight dolphins jumping in unison is quite amazing!

This is us after the sea lion and otter show. After this we headed home for naps before coming back to the park. Our condo was basically right across the street from Sea World, so it worked perfectly!

This is the dolphin nursery area. These young dolphins were very entertaining to see! They were so playful and would jump up and poke their heads of the water. Seeing them so close made us realize just how fast they are in the water, too. They have some serious speed!

 

This picture was taken during the Shamu show. Annie had an explosive diaper during it and had to be totally stripped down, wiped down, and changed. It was a mess!! The people sitting behind us got an eye full, that's for sure. I love how this picture looks like she is watching just like her bubba (we are in mid-change here). She turned 8 weeks old on this day by the way!

 

Back on the home front we tried to stay busy to distract from the fact that we were not still on vacation!:) The kiddie pool in our back yard is rather disappointing after all the fun we had in Orlando. Oh, well! Here is an attempt at a picture of both kids. Every time I lay Annie down to try to get her photo, Henry wants to lay beside her. I was trying to capture her "Birth: Nailed It." shirt.

 This is from earlier in the month (7/3).......we had heard the Kiddie Carnival in Athens was a lot of fun, so we finally made it a point to go! We met the Busches there and had so much fun!! These boys are best buds.

The rides are just the cutest thing and it was so nice they had a buddy to ride with the whole time!

This was THE funniest thing to watch. We 4 parents had more fun and laughs than the 2 kids did I think! Look at those faces-they were screaming at the top of their lungs and looked so tiny in front like that!!

 

The rest of these are random shots of our days...this one is of Henry (in his gloves and boots again!) looking for an airplane we heard. I love that curious face!

 Here he is "playing baseball" as he says. Steven put together a makeshift tee after Henry showed interest in Bennett's tee during one of our visits. He loves it!

 We went to the park one day. He's getting pretty brave to climb on his own now!

 During another play date at Bennett's house. Henry spotted his baseball glove (the beginner kind with velcro on the glove and ball) and played with it the whole time. We are going to have to get this boy some real baseball gear I guess!

One of my teacher friends was kind enough to give us this wagon this summer and we have started putting both kids in it for walks around the hood in the evenings.

That's my boy...we went on a walk one morning, and he wanted to go with his boots and 2 golf gloves on pushing this shopping cart. Why not??

One Saturday we went over to Hampton Cove to Hays Nature Preserve. It was great! Henry loved the rock climbing part of the play house. There was tons of other cool stuff to do there, too.

 Ready for church one morning!

 We were at the store and Henry latched on to the disposable socks in the shoe dept. that are suppose to be used just to try on shoes. He put his flip flops on (notice the wrong feet?) over them and walked all over the store. He wore them home and kept them on the rest of the night and into the next day until they "accidentally" got misplaced during his nap. Steven and I have NO idea where they went! :) What a funny guy.

 Our sweet girl!

Chillin' with Mama!

You can't really tell in this sweet smiling picture, but Annie still hates her car seat! She usually cries in it the majority of the time.

 Here is another one of her happy in her seat.........sideways of course. It accidentally uploaded this way, and when I try to remove it it removes a bunch of other pics as well. I guess I will end this awkwardly! That's our July! :)