The "July Cool-Down"....Outside Fun

We have been LOVING this crazy July weather.  We usually spend our evenings outdoors anyway, but the fact that we've had this weird "cool down" and have had temps in the 70's has been AMAZING!  We love to take walks to the park or bike trail!

Brynn wanted to do it all!  HA!

Emory LOVES to swing.  Every single time her swing comes forward she makes this huge smiling face!

Brynn and I were having fun helping her climb through this tunnel and she really liked it...until she reached the middle and found some little rocks.  This child puts EVERYTHING into her mouth...so we had to rescue her from eating all the gravel!  HA!

We love walking (or running or bike riding) on the bike trail!

We usually pull Emory in the wagon, and she loves it.  I'm not sure why we didn't bring it this particular day...but she loves the carrier too...even if she looks less than thrilled.  =)

 Back toward the beginning of July my cousin was in town from Dallas.  On Wednesday we took all the kids to the water park and then headed to my moms for a big supper together.  My mom put together this big scavenger hunt for the kids.  It was so fun watching them run around and collecting their "treasures" (which included silly string, orange hair, etc.)

Oh and clearly Brynn and Ebby Lee had gotten into the dance costumes (surprise, surprise!).

The funniest part is that my mom tries to make it educational.  They were supposed to find a card at each "spot" and find the card that had the opposite on it.  Then they got to pick up that treasure.  But of course with kids, they were just so excited about the little toys and running around the yard that we were all laughing and yelling after them "yeah, the opposite of old is young.  The opposite of fast is slow!"  HA!

Something else we've done a lot of this summer?  Getting cake pops from Starbucks.  We are usually out running errands/delivering cookies/leaving the gym around the time of Emory's morning nap.  So we usually let her snooze in the car and finish our errands while she takes a quick nap.  We usually drive through Starbucks and Brynn gets a cake pop or an apple juice and I get an iced coffee!  This has become such a fun little part of our week!

 

Emory is a pretty messy eater!

But she cleans up pretty nice!

I just can't believe how big she's getting!  Well, both girls really.  Brynn is really starting to get the hang of riding her bike, and we usually have to run on the bike trail to keep up with her.  She's learning how to use the brakes and she isn't scared to go down big hills anymore.  (Now we just have to get her to swim by herself in the pool!  AH!)  

Loving this gorgeous weather and trying to soak it up!

Some June/July Cookies

Here are some of the cookies I've done over the last month or so...

Cardinals/4th Birthday Party

Cute little second and third firefighter themed birthday party.

A little girl from church was turning 10 and her mom gave me a picture of their chevron napkin and just wanted something fun to match...I think I almost got carpal tunnel doing these...HA!

And here was the Chevron in progress...

An artist-themed birthday party for an 8 year old (whose mom I used to teach RIGHT next door to...and I had this sweet little girl in kindergarten!)

I've had a couple of pirate birthday parties (can't get the picture to rotate around).

Good old Spider-Man!

40th birthday pool party...(should have taken a picture of the napkin they were matching...if you don't see that then the colors/chevron probably seem out of place).

Fourth of July party cookies...

Tie-Dye 8 year old birthday party...

My friend sells 31 and she and some of her friends were going to the national conference.  She just wanted a few cookies as little gifts for the girls riding with her.

I just saw Brynn's toothbrush by the box...I have NO IDEA why it is right there!  HA!

A sweet family from our church were surprising their kids with their first trip to Disney!  They gave them these cookies to help tell them!

I have a few more but I haven't loaded my phone in a few days...I'll post more soon.  WHEW!  I am ready to have a little more room in our new house to help me with these cookies!  HA!

Emory - 9 Months (A WHOLE MONTH LATE!)

MOMMY FAIL - So Emory is already 10 months but I forgot to post this from 9 months.  I guess I had it in my drafts but forgot to post it because I hadn't taken a picture yet.  I snapped this picture on my phone a couple of days before she turned 10 months.  So here's her 9 month post, and hopefully in the next couple of days I'll have her 10 month one up!  =)

Lots of big things going on this month!

• 17 lbs., 9 oz. - 26th percentile
• Forgot how many inches, but I know it was the 86 percentile
• Wears size 3 diapers
• Wears any clothes from 6-12 months
• She got her first tooth this month right when we got back from Gulf Shores.  It's the bottom right tooth, and so far it's just that one.  
• She is crawling all over the place (not just army crawling, but crawling on all fours).
• She is pulling up on EVERYTHING!  She is starting to cruise a bit.  But she can't really get down (or thinks she can't get down) once she's pulled up, so once the novelty of standing up for awhile has worn off, she will start this little screeching noise "aka - someone come get me!"
• She is MUCH louder this month!  HA!  She makes a lot of fun little noises and babbles a lot, but she has also starting screeching or crying more if she isn't happy or needs something.  And I think her little voice is pretty loud...a couple of times when we were at a restaurant this month she was SO LOUD.  She was happy and they weren't cries, but it was still pretty loud to where I thought "oh my gosh, should I take her out?"  HA!
• Which brings up this point...she does not know how to suck on a paci.  She won't take one, and in those situations I wish she would!
• She's not a huge fan of the car these days (paci would be nice in those situations too!), but she can be distracted by trying to drinking out of her sippy cup or playing with little toys.
• She is starting to use a sippy cup a little bit.
• She is still nursing about 4 times a day...morning, lunchtime, after nap, and before bed.  I'm honestly starting to get a little nervous about weaning her once she turns one, because when she's hungry she will seriously climb up on me and start pulling my shirt down and try to start nursing!  OH MY GOSH!  I don't remember that with Brynn at all, and it was so easy to stop nursing with Brynn.  I was thinking the other day "why does it seem like Brynn wasn't so "into the boob" like Emory, and I think it's probably because I was still teaching full time and Brynn was so used to taking a couple of bottles everyday.  Emory still will take a bottle, but she also has gotten pretty smart at knowing where the milk comes from!  HA!  Hopefully it will go pretty smoothly, and I'm not planning on weaning her until she turns one and gets cleared from her pediatrician to start drinking regular milk.  But in the meantime, my family has all gotten a pretty good laugh during dinner time watching Emory climb up on me and try to find her milk.  =)
• She's been sleeping later in the mornings, and wakes up between 8 and 8:30.  (I get her up by 8:30 if she's not up).  Then she usually gets about a 30 to 45 minute catnap (during the week it's usually in the car while we are out running errands) in the mornings, usually from 10:30-11:15.  She naps in the afternoon from about 2-4:30, and then nurses around 8:30 or 8:45 before bed.
• This month she started eating table food.  She still eats baby food, especially her oatmeal/cereal, but at every meal we are giving her little bites of our food and there have been a couple of meals where we were out and forgot her baby food and she ate an entire meal of table food.
• She's been to the water park, the pool, slip n slide with Brynn...she seems to love it all!  She loves to watch Brynn and will start cackling when Brynn is being silly.  It's really fun to watch how much they love each other and to watch then "interact."  I pray they will always love each other and be the best of friends.
• She's SUCH A JOY to everyone and we are SO BLESSED AND THANKFUL to have her in our family.  WE LOVE YOU EMORY!

Catching Up...July Fun

Since we were going to be in St. Louis on the actual day of July 4, we decided to let the girls do some little fireworks and sparklers a few nights before.  Uncle Jason and Ryan were having a little trouble getting them to light....=)

But all the girls loved their sparklers!  Although I will say that keeping four kids(well three, because clearly Emory wasn't going to be holding a sparkler...just Ansley, Brynn, and Charli) under the age of five without burning each other with sparklers was a little tricky...hence the reason there are only 2 pictures of our fireworks.  HA!

Cutting up and eating some watermelon...

And we got around to making some homemade ice cream with Ryan's new ice cream maker!  We made strawberry and it was delicious!

 A couple of weeks after we got back from the beach Emory got her two bottom teeth.  The first one came in SO easy, you wouldn't even know she was teething.  Then several days later she starting cutting the second one and IT WAS NOT REAL FUN!  She slept okay at night and at naptime, but anytime she was awake, she was GLUED to me.  She wouldn't let me move two inches away from her.  I guess because she just didn't feel good and needed some comfort?  Who knows.  Thankfully, the worst part lasted only a couple of days and she is back to her normal self.

We've been checking out the new house...I need to do an update soon.  They are drywalling as we speak!  (Brynn likes to go out there and "clean.")

The teeth came in and she was back to HAPPY GIRL!

We had fun watching the World Cup soccer tournament.  GO USA!

And Brynn has enjoyed taking pictures of herself on my phone.  =)

July has been SO FUN...DON'T END SUMMER, DON'T END!

The BEST Birthday Gift

Just a little peek into life lately...

Brynn is really into helping feed Emory, and Emory seems to enjoy having her big sis help!

I forgot to post these pictures and they are from Ryan's birthday, which was back at the end of June.  We had gotten Ryan an ice cream maker because he was really wanting one.  I had told Brynn "let's NOT tell Daddy what we got him because he will be so surprised!" And what did that child do?  The moment he walked in she yells "Daddy come open your present!  We got you an ice cream maker for your birthday!"  HAHA!

Then she had taken some extra wrapping paper and told us she had gotten daddy a special present.  We were DYING laughing because she wrapped him up some...

TOILET PAPER!  She was so proud of herself (as evidenced by her huge smile) and kept saying "you can use that when you go potty Daddy!"  HAHAHA!  Clearly Ryan was a very good sport and was so thrilled with his special gift!

We headed outside to play...

She is REALLY into flipping these days...she wants to do it everywhere!

THIS GIRL...=)

I just can't believe how fast this summer is flying by!