Summer Update

I thought that you all might enjoy seeing a couple of updated pictures of Lydia and Hannah. We went to Little Monkey Bizness earlier this morning with a couple of my sorority sisters and their little girls. Hannah and Lydia had a great time playing, and they were worn out by this afternoon.


As for our summer, we have certainly been busy. The girls have taken swimming lessons this summer - that has really been our only scheduled activity. Hannah is a fish in the pool. In fact, her lack of fear has me more nervous than anything. She loves to jump into the pool, whether there is someone there to catch her or not! And Lydia has definitely made progress this summer at the pool as well! She loves to blow bubbles and prefers to spend less and less time in the "baby pool."


We have also had the opportunity to make several trips to Wonderscope and Deanna Rose Farmstead, which are always favorites. And our new favorite activity is going to the library quite regularly. Lydia has grown tired of the books that we have here so it has been fun to pick out new books at the library each week.

We have also enjoyed nature this summer. We will be at my parents in Hiawatha this week to make homemade applesauce from three bushels of apples. I might be crazy by the end of it. The girls also enjoyed picking a few cherries from Grandma and Grandpa's cherry tree and picking blueberries from a local blueberry patch over the July 4th holiday weekend. And we just got a bucket full of sweet corn from my parents this week. We LOVE enjoying all of the fresh fruit and vegetables!

We hope that you have enjoyed your summer as well!

Birthday Bash Weekend

Wow - life has certainly been a whirlwind the last few days (or the last few months as well since I haven't updated our blog since December). Yikes!

But, I thought that I would share some pictures with you from our birthday bash weekend. Hard to believe that Hannah turned two and Brian added thirty years to her age at their birthday on Sunday, April 11th. Since we celebrated Brian's 30th birthday in Shawnee Mission Medical Center after I had Hannah, I thought that I would try to pull off a surprise party for him. And it was certainly a surprise!

We went to Jose Pepper's for dinner and then off to a fun night of bowling with some of our friends and family! Fun was certainly had by all, and we were glad that several people made the trip from Wichita to celebrate with Brian!


Can you tell they are brothers?
On Sunday morning, our nieces Parker and Brecken joined Lydia and Hannah for a fun trip to Deanna Rose Farmstead. We love that place! This was the first time that we had been to the "farm" this year and the first time that Parker and Brecken were able to join us. It was a beautiful morning and the farm was not yet packed with people. We were able to get some cute pictures of the cousins all together. All in all, a great start to Hannah's birthday celebration!


The birthday girl

The cousins (Parker, Lydia, Brecken, Hannah)
On Sunday afternoon, we headed to Garrett Park for Hannah's party. It was a lot of fun to watch the kiddos run around on the equipment and enjoy being outside. Hannah really enjoyed opening her presents - she has all of the dress-up clothes a girl could ever want now. :) All in all - a great weekend for celebrating birthdays!


Hannah modeling her new attire!

Any Guesses?

It has been confirmed - Hannah drives like her mother! :) Yes - Hannah took her Winnie the Pooh car for a drive down our basement stairs about four days before her second birthday.

The situation played out as follows. We were finishing up dinner, and I had just cleaned Hannah up. I let her out of her booster seat and was helping Lydia get cleaned up, cleaning dishes, and loading the dishwasher. All of a sudden, we heard a thump, thump, thump down the stairs. My first thought was that Hannah had simply fallen down the stairs. Leave it to my little daredevil to actually try to drive her car down the stairs. Obviously, it didn't turn out too well for her. But she only had a bruise on her leg to show for it. For being a daredevil, she is at least graceful!

Here is to the next year with my ornery two-year old!