End of Summer

scenes from the end of summer

We really took advantage of the pool at our rental complex! We spent many nights having takeout pizza by the pool. The big news in the pool was that towards the end of the summer Amelia started swimming on her own! She told Mark one day that she didn't want her floatie and low and behold she swam on her own!

Juliet leading the way to the pool. On one of our last pool outings Juliet decided that she needed to see what would happen if she dumped an ENTIRE bag of tortilla chips into the pool. It is a black bottom pool. It was a total mess. Thanks to the Cates family who attempted to fish out soggy chips with us... The rest of the chips sunk to the bottom and covered the black bottom pool. Oops.

balloon animals with Norah

Picking fresh green beans at Pendleton's farm. As for the haze in the picture that is called Kansas in August. For those not familiar with Kansas in August that is what we call insane humidity. I adore Amelia's face in this picture as she is looking at the train like she has never seen one before. I wonder if she was trying to figure out why there were not people on the train and where the train stop is OR wondering what in the world is wrong with the weather in Kansas.

Juliet and her beloved summer hat

 the girl can't use a fork but thank goodness she can eat edamame with chop sticks.

Colorado 2013 (forgot a photo)

I forgot to download the photos on my phone before doing the cabin blog post.. How could I have forgotten what may be my favorite picture from the trip! Amelia learned that when making the drive from Lawrence to Colorado you have to manage your liquid intake as there are many stretches of highway with no conventional restroom stops... Thanks to a potty training little sister, Amelia wasn't totally out of luck....

Colorado 2013

A summer isn't complete without a trip to the cabin! This year instead of lugging two car seats in a taxi to Midway, dealing with two little ones on an airplane, etc we were able to drive. We hadn't had a real family vacation in over a year so we really enjoyed our week together! Papa of course was at the cabin and Vivian joined us for a few days. Viv was such a trooper and played many rounds of dominos with Amelia! I am fairly certain the highlight of the trip for the girls were the new swings Papa bought them. I personally was super excited to see the cabin renovations as the cabin had not been renovated in 30+ years and man did it need it!

Amelia not so patient waiting for the new swings to be put up.

Of course what do you think Juliet will do when there is an open ladder and no adult watching?

and the swings are up! It couldn't have been planned more perfectly. We found pairs of trees that are at just the right angle that the girls can swing towards each other but don't hit. Needless to say they could not have been happier each with their own swing, the fresh mountain air and amazing view for swinging.

Juliet still loves baby swings as she just sits back and enjoys the ride.

After a summer at Raintree, Amelia is a pro at pumping her legs!

walking back from the swings. She the swings make them so happy that they  can even make it from the swings to the cabin without arguing. 

loving the deck comes naturally to all of us!

Amelia and Papa worked very hard putting in a new stone path, flower bed and planting wild mountain flowers.

we attempted a hike. It was a mile walk around a flat lake :). Juliet would walk five steps, stop, eat some crackers, mess with the stuff in her backpack, maybe sit down and then be talked into getting up and walking another five steps before repeating.

This was the first summer it seemed the girls were old enough to enjoy some of the finer activities in Estes Park.

By the end our very brave four year old had to ride by herself...

Anyone who has met Amelia knows that she is a bit of an observer. Amelia likes to watch other kiddos do something new before she tries it. Also, she will only do new things on her terms. She actually can be a bit adventurous but the idea has to come from her. Well when walking up to slides she spotted kids on the trampolines and said she wanted to try. We went got her ticket, waited in line and Mark/dad/myself all expected her to decide she didn't want to try once we got to the front of the line. All the kiddos she wanted do it were quite a bit older. Brave Amelia just hopped right on up when it was her turn.

As they started raising her up I kept waiting for her to want to get back down. Or at a minimum I thought she would want to be done before her four minutes was up. I guess she showed us!!!

She really had a great time and told us that next year she will do flips like the big girls were doing! So once again we were reminded that Amelia really does like to try new things but on her terms and certainly not when forced to.

and this year's obligatory family photo had a bit of a spin to it :).

Amelia at Raintree

To say that Amelia loves her preschool Raintree is an understatement. She is really happy there. I don't think she can decide what she likes best between the swimming pool, amazing playground, her buddies and all the cool stuff she is learning. Summertime at Raintree is extra special as they have a large summer camp program for grade school kids. With the summer camp comes parades and the summer festival. Amelia's teacher Ms. Lisa sent me these photos this week... Juliet loves Raintree too but I just don't have pictures of her there.

Olivia (or as Amelia calls her, her BFF), Amelia and Addison enjoying snow cones after a round in the bouncy house at the summer carnival.

More sugar with Addison and Jack at the carnival.

Learning to put letters together!

No clue what Amelia is working on here...

And Ms. Lisa sent me this little video. Amelia stopped napping a month or so ago. In their mixed age class, the "nappers" go in the special nap room in their classroom and the "resters" get a rug and book and have an hour of quite time. Ms. Lisa said she usually works at a table next to Amelia's resting spot. The other day Ms. Lisa was working away and heard this.... Yes, that is the rug on top of us as if it was her blankie.....

Summer 2013

Here are some scenes from this summer. The girls are loving swimming every day at Raintree and definitely need their weekends to recover from their fun week. Merrill and I even were treated to lunch one day by Vivian who was in KS visiting her sister! 

Everyone was right when they told us that Juliet would start taking one day and not stop. Someone commented the other day at how vocal Juliet is for her age. I NEVER thought we would hear that about Juliet and I think that the majority of her talking has happened within the last month to two months. Her talking has not made her any less mischievous :). She gets a look on her face that Mark and I both know means she is looking for trouble.   

I think this video is very classic of the girls right now. Juliet is doing whatever seems fun at the moment and Amelia is right there to keep an eye on her. 

All dressed-up and ready to spend the 4th at the Meyer's house on the lake! The day started off great with the lake triathlon which Mark did the swim portion, Gekas biked (in full costume as a French man, for those that know Gekas you won't even ask why) and Meyer ran. It stayed great as we played on the beach and just enjoyed a day with the kids. After attempts at naps (what can you expect when you try to put four little girls to nap in the same room) we headed out for an evening swim. The short story is; Amelia jumped off the dock into the water to Mark, Mark didn't know Amelia was jumping into the water, Amelia's chin landed on Mark's head, blood started gushing down Mark's face, Amelia had no blood on her, the blood was all from Mark, Meyer helped him out of the lake fast as we were worried he was going to pass out, Amelia was totally traumatized, Mark recovered but has a nice gash on his hair line, Amelia milked her sore chin and from now on we will be extra when jumping into the pool/lake.

This photo is ala Amelia. 

Picking fresh strawberries. Juliet ate each one she picked. As did most of the little ones we saw there.

Amelia took her strawberry picking a little more serious. We picked so many we had frozen strawberries for almost a month....

modeling a new outfit from JuJu and her love of wearing my shoes.

The girls, GranAnn and I played hookie one Friday and spent the morning at Deanna Rose Farmstead in Overland Park. It is a really great park with ponies, goats you can feed, tractor rides, fishing ponds, cow milking demonstrations, etc. You know what the girls wanted to do the whole time? Go and play on the playground equipment that they saw on the way INTO Deanna Rose. Go figure... 

Part of uprooting your family is certainly making new friends.  Amelia and Grace all dressed up. Both girls are at Raintree and I went to Raintree with Grace's mom!

And of course we are getting to spend time with lots of "old" friends. Juliet, Amelia, Norah and Sophia are all off-springs of my architecture classmates. They needed this bath desperately after a long day at the lake! Norah and Sophia are both getting baby sisters this fall so next summer we will need a tub for six little girls! 

Settling In!

We are starting to feel like we are getting settled in to our new life in Kansas. The girls love their school, Mark and I are being trusted more at work (aka we are way busy), we are loving seeing "old" friends more often, also loving meeting new friends, trying to spend as much time as possible outside before the Kansas summer hits and stalking real estate websites!

Mother's Day weekend was extra special as JuJu & Poppy were here for a long weekend on their drive back to Illinois!!! The girls were in hog heaven with our guests. We even bought a new guest bed before they arrived so hopefully that will help convince them to come back ;).

Juliet really likes to take off her diaper and all clothing. She also really loves to wear underwear. She just can't hasn't mastered what to do without a diaper so we have been cleaning up a lot of messes this past month. I feel like we have a puppy.

Juliet took her first class at the Art Center. There was a water table in the room and a playground out back so she was pretty uninterested in doing art.

Their first Raintree school pictures!  Sweet Juliet won't walk in her classroom, she will only run. She get so excited she has to run anywhere she goes. When I pick her up in that short time I'm there I hear her teachers calmly, "walk Juliet" at least five times. Well one day she was doing her normal run, tripped and hit her poor little face right on the corner of a book shelf. She didn't learn her lesson BUT she does occasionally walk and her teachers get SO excited.

I wasn't smart enough to figure out the sibling schedule for pictures and didn't realize Amelia was getting her picture taken the same day as Juliet. i thought she was getting hers the next day and had already talked ot her about picking out a cute outfit.  I suppose in the long run I will love this picture more as it is 100% Amelia with a mismatched all purple outfit on and a random hair accessory.

It only took us girls three days to eat this whole bag of popcorn :)

We knew we would love living buy my mom and sister. But we miss the Lang family a lot. I sure wish there was a way to get all our family to pick one town and all live in :).

On Mother's Day I actually got the girls to actually wear cute dresses. Since Mark was doing all the cooking/grilling I just got to play outside with the girls.  Juliet's dress lasted for about 10 minutes then she was back to herself. Given that we are still renting I do hope we don't get kicked out for naked girls outside our unit ALL the time (perhaps that is because we live in a college town). This would be totally fine in your own backyard but plenty of people walk by our unit. Most of the smile so hopefully that means they aren't complaining to management.

And Amelia was being SUPER cooperative and let me take her picture. Amelia especially is really loving Raintree. She plays school most of the time she is at home and constantly wants someone to write letters, sound out words, do simple math additions, talk about her friends, etc. I think she has officially outgrown naps which I candidly was dreading. It does make for a good buddy to run errands with. I have her now hooked on having to go by the coffee shop before we can do too many errands. She just sits in the back and chats the ENTIRE time. 

Our sweet girls really have such a good time together. For the most part they are so sweet to each other. Juliet adores Amelia and wants to do whatever she is doing (hence the matching pig tails). Amelia (most of the time) loves helping Juliet out and mothering (aka bossing) her. Amelia is very into mom right now and to say Juliet is into her daddy is a complete understatement. I can't even get her out of her crib in the morning as she will just lay back down and ask for Dada :(. The nights I put Juliet to bed and Mark puts Amelia to bed you would think we were torturing them with how much they both fight it. The torture is worth it so I can get Juliet snuggles and Mark can get Amelia snuggles.

Happy 2nd Birthday Juliet!

Our little firecracker is two!!! And oh man is she a two-year old... Any given thirty minutes with Juliet can look like this; she tries to communicate something to us and we don't understand, she tries to do something for herself she hasn't yet mastered and struggles to get it done, she loses it, she flails herself on the ground, we try to talk to her and she loses it even more, we try ignoring her and the tantrum doesn't stop, her anger boils over, she kicks Amelia, she hits us, she throws whatever she gets her hands on, then the tantrum lessens in intensity, Amelia starts whining, we look at each other like today may be the day we totally lose it, we take a moment to sit on the couch and collect ourselves, little Juliet comes to join us, she gives us the most amazing/messy/sincere/full body hug you could imagine and in an instant we have forgotten the past thirty minutes and our hearts are melting. That is Juliet! In one moment she has you pulling your hair out and the next she is lighting up a room with her grin.

Juliet -  Keep being yourself! We will try our hardest to hold on tight to the parenting Juliet ride as long as you keep those grins and hugs coming! Fair deal?

Just give me time, I will eventually get it.

You want to tell her she didn't quite get it all on correctly?

I'm cute right now but really I'm just thinking about what I can do next.

Coloring outside the lines.

Charming Papa. And eating all his breakfast. Juliet still loves being fed. She will eat your entire dinner if you feed it to it to her.

Her birthday cake made by EE with love.

It's my birthday so if I want to pick at the frosting on the whole cake I most certainly will. 

What seems to be a classic moment these days; Amelia whining, Mark looking like he may lose it (we take turns playing this role), me smiling like this is of course how I envisioned having two young children and Juliet with an expression, "I didn't contribute to any of this."

The girls calming down after birthday cake. Amelia is such a great big sister to Juliet and was so happy to show Juliet the ropes on her birthday. Amelia helped her open her gifts, got excited for Juliet for each gift she got, told her when to blow out her candles and couldn't have been sweeter to her little sister.

Our little firecracker enjoying a warm spring day, meatballs from Basil Leaf,  covering the front steps in chalk with her sister and getting read to cheer on the Jayhawks in the Big 12 tournament!