More Summertime Fun!

We’ve been having a lot of fun around here lately, so I thought I would share some new pictures!

Beka continues to get bigger every day…no surprises there!  We were sad to realize yesterday (on her 5 month birthday!) that she was already too big for our favorite PJ’s from the Luke era…the Sneaky Sub!  Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures of Luke in the PJ’s either, and we were hoping to put Beka in them, but alas, she is already too long for the size 6 month “Sneaky Sub!” 

Luke still loves his baby sister, and she loves him right back. She gets noticeably excited when he comes into the room, and she loves to watch his every move. Sometimes he loves her a bit too much…

I know it looks like he is tackling her, but it’s really just a hug – no harm being done, I promise!  Love the look on her face though!

Thursday we hosted playgroup here at our house.  I set up a few wading pools outside and brought out some other outdoor toys.  We had 12 kids at one point, and they all had a lot of fun!  Luke continues to show off his complete lack of fear of the water, as evidenced by his “diving” into the wading pool…good thing it was on the grass!

Over and over he went…and was having a ton of fun!

But he knows how to relax too:

He did that pose all by himself – was sitting like that when I walked into the living room!

Today (Saturday) we went to a birthday party for his friends Brooke and Natalie. It was an “Under the Sea” theme party and there was more wading pool fun! This time however he did not dive into the pool, but still had fun going down the slides.

In his surfer outfit for the occasion.

Headed down the slide.

It was a very fun day, and ended with bath time where it was reinforced to us that…

“I need a haircut, mommy!”

Don’t worry – we won’t cut off all the cute curls…just a trim. But it’s definitely needed – here’s another “crazy hair” shot:

 

But such a sweet face under all that hair!

And one more shot of little miss Beka – she’s becoming so expressive and “talking” to us all the time!

We’re headed to Denver next weekend to visit Aunt Wendy, Uncle Micah and Cousin Ida – can’t wait!

More Fourth of July Fun!

This weekend was a lot of fun!  Friday night we were going to go out on the lake, but thunderstorms forced us to have a small get-together at our house instead.  Luke has been having a great time playing with his friends Jeffrey and Jacob, who recently moved to town.  He now refers to all his friends in pairs: “ Carter Cade” and “Jeffrey Jacob” – at least he knows who belongs to each family!

Saturday we did make it out on the lake, though it was pretty overcast and chilly.  We went with the Warners and Colbergs. The kids all had a great time hanging out again.  Five adults and six kids (ages 3 and under!)  makes for a fun time! I did not take the new camera out with us for fear that something would happen to it, but Kristy snapped this shot of me holding Beka and Cade (Colberg).  Beka is sporting her stylish new pink life jacket!

I think she’s not so sure about what is going on.  She was pretty happy for a while, but it got kind of chilly and she just didn’t want to be out there anymore. So I took both she and Luke home and put them to bed, then watched the fireworks from our front window. At least we can still see them from there!  Luke was pretty tired as well, from an afternoon of doing cannonballs off the boat!  I guess I didn’t have to worry about not signing him up for swim lessons this year, he’s doing just fine on his own!

Here’s some pictures of the kids dressed for church on Sunday morning:

After church and naps, we headed out to the lake again with the Warners – it was a MUCH nicer day and we had a great time. Luke was once again doing cannonballs off the boat! 

All in all it was a very fun, relaxing weekend, and it was nice to hang out with all our friends!

I thought everyone might like to see this pic I put together the other night – a great comparison of Luke and Beka!  Luke is about 23 weeks in this picture, and Beka is 18 weeks. Same smile!

Happy Fourth of July!

 

Firecracker Festival

This morning Luke and I went to an Aspiring Artists class at Parks & Rec.  Beka got to stay home and hang out with Daddy!  It was a small group today, which was nice. Plus, I have my new camera!

They started off by sponge painting stars and stripes – it turned into more finger painting, but was still fun!

Luke had a great time stamping stars on the paper.

Then they made Uncle Sam hats which could be turned upside down and used as a snack cup.

The next station was where they got to make their own rockets and decorate them.

This is the fireworks station – they painted Q-tips different colors, glued them to a black piece of construction paper, and then sprinkled them with glitter.  I didn’t get a picture of Luke making his, but there is one of the finished product a little further down!

The group showing off their favorite crafts. Luke has his American Flag he made out of popsicle sticks and construction paper.

And the finished projects!

Not to leave out Miss Beka – now that I have a camera again I finally have some more pictures of her!

In the Exersaucer for the 2nd time ever!

Just hanging out looking pretty!

Later Gator

I just realized that I had never made a post about the other Parks & Rec class we went to a few weeks ago called “Later Gator” – it was also at the park, but this night we got to see some real live reptiles and play fun games with our friends!

We first got to see a Bearded Dragon lizard – it was very cool, but unfortunately I don’t have any good pictures of it. But the next animal that came out was…

An Alligator!  The kids all thought it was very cool! Most of them (including Luke) got to pet her tail.

It was very impressive. Then we saw a box turtle as well, but again, no good pictures, sorry!

After the animal show we played a bunch of games. First up was Musical Lily Pads.  The kids had a great time jumping from pad to pad.

More jumping!

Then they did an obstacle course where they jumped over a “pit of snakes”…

and then pretended to be snakes slithering through a tunnel. 

The last project was to make a slithery snake out of a necktie. Unfortunately we took our snake supplies home to make the snake another time – it was WAY past Beka’s bedtime and she all of a sudden decided to let us know it by screaming! :-)  But here’s a great picture of the other kids with their finished snakes!

Muck & Mud

Last week I took Luke to a Parks & Rec class called “Muck & Mud” – sounded like something that would be right up a little boy’s alley!  We started off by making plaster volcanoes under the park shelter.

Addie demonstrating the volcano.

Making our volcanoes – we’re at the end of the table (new camera just came from UPS today – so I’ll be back up and running taking our own pictures soon!). Luke is in the green shirt.  Our volcano is currently on top of the fridge – I’ll try and take some pictures when we actually make it “erupt!”

Then we headed over to play in water and mud…

The Mud Pie Station.

Jack & Carter playing with trucks in the sand.

The wading pool was a definite favorite though – couldn’t get Luke out!  He really liked the slide.  He wasn’t as interested in the dirt, but I wasn’t going to complain about that!

He even managed to go down the slip & slide (with some help!) :-)

It was a great way to spend a (very hot!) morning at the park! 

On another note, our friends from Norway were here this past weekend, and they have 2 little boys who are 3 and 5. Luke had a WONDERFUL time playing with them, even though there was a definite language barrier. But I think they managed to get along just fine. Hopefully we’ll have some pictures from the weekend soon and I’ll make another post to share! 

The funniest story I think from the weekend happened Friday morning while we were making pancakes. Luke was getting kind of impatient and running around going “Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes!” He was quite excited about having pancakes.  But as soon as he sat down at the table and we put the pancakes in front of him, he yells, “WAFFLES!” – he wasn’t asking for waffles, I think he was confusing the two. But he was excited for either!