Cooling Off

The WTCC has moved to the backyard. And can you see that patio?! Thanks dad and crew for making our backyard so beautiful! Now I just have to clean up the landscaping a little (or a lot).

Hot Day Needs A Cool Snack

The girls didn't seem to mind the heat when we didn't have AC or when we played outside before the weather hit 90*. But when we came inside the girls enjoyed a nice cool treat. Cantaloupe...half a cantaloupe! The picture of the cutting board was the last of the cantaloupe rind after their snack was done...1/2 a cantaloupe!

15 Month Update

A month late, but an update none the less. Both are as healthy as can be and little Miss Kaylee had quite a growth spurt! I had two different nurses come in and measure her since the Doctor didn't think her growth was possible. Turns out that between 12 and 15 months toddlers usually have a slight plateau in growth, not our Kaylee! She grew 3 inches!!! She is now 33" tall, I can hardly believe she is almost 3 feet tall! So crazy. Now my sweet Alex grew as well, but she is happily sitting (standing) around 31" and a little change. She grew as well, but only about 1.5-2 inches. Still a lot of growth for her age, but sister has a good 2 inches on her.

I don't remember exactly how much each weighed, but I think Kaylee was 24 lbs and change and Alex was 22 and change. Those are the biggest updates that came out of the well baby visit- we will have another one in October before #3 shows her face (hopefully).

Pinecones, Needles, and Rocks! Oh My!

All these 'new' things to see...so different than what we saw at the beach.

Plate Vs. Bowl

Bowls please!
I bought the girls some plastic plates with suction on the bottom (doesn't work very well, by the way) and the girls used them well enough, but introduce them to a bowl and they just light up! So for now on we feed the girls in bowls...like little troughs .

I'm Cute...

and check out Alex's curls! It is scary sometimes when I see old pictures of myself and how similar Alex and I look...down to those little curls.

My Pal Violet

Daddy bought us a new toy before we headed to the beach. Our friend Katie Beth has this toy and we always played with it during our play dates, and now we have our own!

New Toys

We played with Duplo blocks with daddy in North Carolina and we LOVED them...we particularly liked pouring all the blocks from the tub to the floor, the noise was magical! Mommy can we please play with these at home with daddy?! PLEASE!!!

Just Hanging Out

I've got Grandma's bracelet on and just think I'm as sassy as can be.

A/C Update

So we had no A/C for about a week when the temperature was in the 90s all week, except the day of the new A/C install, a beautiful mid 80s. Surprisingly the week wasn't too bad despite the heat during the day, the worst time was at night when you would wake up and realize there had been no air movement from the time you fell asleep to the time you needed to roll back over at 1am...fun times when you are 6 months pregnant :)
Why no air movement, you ask? well, 1. God did not deliver the cool breeze that I so hoped for and 2. That thing that spins above you to get the air in motion, a fan...well ours broke not too long ago and didn't at the time see the need to fix it since we hardly used it. awesome.
But all in all it wasn't too bad. We were lucky to have the mall and grocery store to hop into to get cool if needed.
Now we have a whole new HVAC unit- the price was "right" so we just did the whole kit and caboodle. To celebrate our new found coolness we splurged and set the A/C to 77* the first night...and we were soooo cold! Sounds a little crazy, but I told Greg we had to turn it up before bed the next night. So here is to sleeping at 78-79*!

Traveling With A Toddler (or 2)

We did our fair share of driving during July with the girls and with great success I think. It may have taken awhile to plan, pack and ready the car but it was all worth it considering how the trips played out. I have a few suggestions for those who are thinking about long rides with the kiddos...

1.Plan- what do you need...and what DON'T you need. If there is a washer and dryer think about packing less clothes...and the kids don't need ALL their toys from home.

2.Pack smart- This trip I used clear storage bins for 'luggage'...I needed them to pack up the clothes the girls grew out of and figured I would use their easy packable size/shape for the trip. When I pack now, esp. with the girls I pack with themes in mind. For instance my packing list has different sections, sleeping, eating, playing, bathing, etc. and when I actually gather the items for each specific 'section' I pack them together. I had a small makeup like bag and put all of the kids bath items in there, shampoo, toys, washcloth, cream. There was a small box for items needed in the kitchen, kids plates, sippy cups, spoons, snacks...and the packing list continued from there. Keep like things together- life will be easier.

3. Backseat- In our backseat we had a cooler placed so it could be opened by the passenger. We also had a bag of snacks for kids and adults, another for kids toys/books/entertainment, and a 3rd for diapers, wipes, and cream.

When packing food for toddlers it was tricky of thinking what to do since 90%+ of what the girls eat is fresh and finger food which isn't always easy on the road so I bought Plum Organics food pouches which was a great success! If needed we could feed the girls in the car with a spoon, but if you train the kids they can drink the pouches* and life will be that much easier. We also brought fresh blueberries which were a big hit and not really messy- perfect car snack for the trips.

After driving 10 hours to South Carolina and then another 7+ to North Carolina I feel like we are experienced travelers with toddlers and more importantly our toddlers are experienced travelers and they were amazing! We couldn't have asked for better passengers and I could not have asked for a better husband! He had those girls laughing and happy whenever they were getting bored or antsy-High Fives were a HUGE hit!

Travel safely this summer! and don't forget the snacks :)





*There is a learning curve to these pouches...I would not recommend giving your child these as a drink your first time out in a car :) It will most likely end up with a mess!

Can't Swat Me...

I'm too sweet looking..aren't I!
Kaylee found a new toy while we were in South Carolina- the fly swatter was supposed to be used to make bubbles but the netting of the swatter was too close together to make good bubbles. Kaylee thought it was a good fit for a toy.

A Little More Beach

So back to South Carolina...in my mind and on the blog!

So we spent a week in Folly Beach, South Carolina. If you have kids that have never been to a beach this is the place to go! The waves during high tide and low tide are perfect for little kids. There was no riptide, which makes mom and dad happy that they don't have to worry too much about their little ones being sucked out to great wide ocean. The beach is wide and there is so much hard sand so it makes for lots of easy play area- just a really great 'training beach' as I like to call it for little kids.

Our neighbor, Gigi, had given the girls bathing suits, cover-ups, and sand toys for their birthday party in anticipation of the beach trips the girls had in their future. The sand buckets were a hit- the girls would walk back and forth from the ocean collecting water for a 'pool'. When the girls spent time in the sand pool they enjoyed playing with the little watering cans...unfortunately somewhere in the ocean there is a shark happily using two new water cans along with Greg's favorite sunglasses :( the ocean had a good week with us.

The girls had fun on the boogie board with Grandma and Aunt Laura- Alex actually tried to stand on the board, my little dare devil and Kaylee was happy just being pushed and pulled by the water. And where there is sand there is digging...you can't get Alex away from making at least a little bit of a mess wherever she goes :)

Oh! What's That?!

Ban-pa and Uncle Adam wanted to show me some cool things the ocean had to offer and hanging out with the boys in the family was pretty great, we were just missing Cousin Hunter who was busy boogie boarding most likely. Stay tuned for more on our adventures!

Daddy and Kaylee

Our time at the beach was amazing! It felt so good to have the family together and no school schedule in sight :) Kaylee and Daddy explored what little shells the beach had to offer (not only were there only a few but they were also small) but Kaylee didn't seem to mind, she was pretty into whatever dad was showing her.

Sorry About That

We have been on vacation and having a great time...now we have returned and it feels great, minus the 85* tempatures we are experiencing indoors. Now if we still had our ocean views with this indoor heat life wouldn't be so bad, however we have neighborhood front property and views of trees with little breeze. So, hopefully when life cools off a little I'll be able to get back to updating life on the blog.

Side note- I can't 100% blame vacation for my non-blogging..I'm 100% addicted to the Hunger Games Trilogy. I don't normally get hooked on books like this, but I wake up thinking about reading the books, I long for the girls nap time, and I am annoyed when I see Greg reading the book (which means I can't b/c we are sharing one copy...not good for a marriage :)

So Much To Do!

I've made my list and checked it time and time again and keep adding to it! We are headed to the beach on Saturday and I'm a little too busy to get excited yet, but I'll get there once we are on the road. For now, I need to go add to the list of 'To Do's' and 'To Pack'.

WTCC and Dad

4th of July was a great day here. Dad was home the sun was out and the water was a great temperature! We started our day at Fairfax Corner Fountains and this time the girls weren't that excited about it..i think it was because there are only boys playing. So rather than trying to make the girls play in the water, we took them home and took out the WTCC. I think dad was a great addition to the fun and I think he had a good time too!
After a good nap the girls and I headed to our friends for a little more playtime and dinner. I'm pretty sure the girls tried to eat our friends out of house and home- 2 chicken breasts, an ear of corn and rice. I hope we will be invited back :)

Friday Fountains

Last Friday the girls and I met up with some of my former co-workers at the Fairfax Corner Fountains for some play time. The girls had never been and I was happy one of my friends didn't have a toddler to chase (yet...she is due in October!) so I gave her one of mine to watch over. And my dear friend Marcy was there as well with her 2 year old and her sweet little 2 month old. We had so much fun playing in the fountains...
They were naturals! Alex saw the water shoot up in the air and just stepped right up and played amongst the children and water spouts. Kaylee took a little time to warm up to the idea but she made momma so proud and marched right into the water spouts and enjoyed the water falling all over/on her. She was proud too!
Those adorable and sun fearing mom approved bathing suits were birthday presents from our neighbor GiGi along with those adorable little terry cloth cover ups. The girls love wearing their coverups and Kaylee is known to wear the cover up by just the hood. silly girl. They were perfect to wear during our after play snack in the shade.
If you haven't taken your little one there yet, I highly recommend it. We will certainly go back to the fountains again.

I Can Do It

All on my own!
My darling children wanted to feed themselves in public...with spoons and sorbet. As you can see Alex is just a giant mess and the people around her couldn't help but look on and laugh as she maneuvered the spoon to her mouth face. It may not seem like she did a good job, but she did do well for a first timer.
Kaylee opted for a large soup like spoon and wanted to scoop the sorbet or her leftover yogurt by herself. She held the spoon with her left hand so that she could then use her right hand to take the food off the spoon and bring it to her mouth...I guess she will learn one day that that is what the spoon is for :) Do you see how shiny her right hand is?!