Siblings

Baby K has the most adoring older brothers.  J loves it now that she "talks" to him.  He is really good at getting her to smile!

They have started a new ritual after bath time.  I put Baby K on the floor and they hover around her.  She is holding hands with 2 brothers and just talking away.  

I put her under this play mat the other day so I could start lunch.  Baby K didn't last long before she started fussing.  The brothers came to the rescue and started talking to her.  She immediately quieted.  She began talking, smiling, and kicking. Baby K is definitely a social butterfly.  

How did the Captain and I end up with such social children?

Lego club

Our local library has all sorts of children's activities during the summer.  This year they have a lego club.  The boys were so excited to go.  

There were mats all over the floor with piles of legos.  The kids could free build or there were books of ideas and instructions to follow.

Here is W's creation.  The library will display all the kids designs in a cabinet.  They can't wait to go back and see their creations.

S made a car that Diego is riding inside of.  He did it all by himself.

J made a house with a garage for Luke Skywalker.  The garage had a car that pulled up into it.  The house also has a turret for a cannon.  You just never know when you will need cannon fire.  

They had a lot of fun and can't wait to go back.  I would have thought this wouldn't have been that fun, because they have a million legos of their own.  Apparently, playing with someone else's legos in a different location is very cool.  They did do some team building with other boys so there was the social aspect as well.    Boys just love legos!

A little bit of K

It's so fun having a little girl!  I was walking through a store and saw the orange bow that she just "had" to have.  It's super cute.

She is sleeping at night and most of her naps in the crib now.  She is an amazing squirmer even with her arms in her swaddle.  She has had 2 nights of sleeping 7-8 hrs before getting up.  We are making progress.  Hopefully, this trend will continue.

I found a company that makes all sorts of cute monogrammed clothes and I love it!  Cute baby girl!

I just love the look on her face.  Sweet girl.  She has turned into quite the talker.  She likes to "talk" to daddy in the evenings.  It actually appears like she is trying to have a conversation.  We are going to try and get some video.  I will post that later.

Swimming lessons

We finished our 2 weeks of swimming lessons.  The boys did great this year.  Everyone passed their particular level with flying colors.  

W is getting more comfortable in the water, especially getting his face wet.  Here is working a front glide.

Now he is practicing his back float.  He is very creative.  He can come up with the most interesting ways to retrieve toys off the bottom of the pool while only getting part of his head wet.  That boy!

J is a great swimmer.  This year they worked on stroke development and endurance.  He had to tread water for 3 mins as one of his skills.  Here is working on his back stroke.  

Now he is practicing the butterfly.  He decided that was his hardest stroke.  I was on a swim team and butterfly was my hardest stroke too.  He was exhausted after lessons each day.  He literally swam for 45 minutes.  Each lesson finished practicing their cannonballs in the deep end.  He really liked that.

S had the same teacher as last year.  He loves to play in the water.  This year he was concerned that he was going to "sunk."  I kept telling him to obey his teacher and he would not "sunk."  

Here he is going under water.  This seems to be one of hardest skills for my kids to learn.  

They all had a great time and were VERY hungry at the end of the lessons.  Swimming makes them hungry.

Nana's visit

Nana came to visit again.  Baby K loves it, because Nana will hold her all the time.

The boys read books with Nana.

She took them swimming and did other stuff with them that is difficult for me to do with a newborn.  (I have no idea why S and W have wet spots on their shirts.  We had not even eaten yet.)

Here's 2 pretty ladies all dressed in their purple for church.  

We love having her come visit.  It's nice for me to have some adult conversation during the day and lots of help with the kids.  The kids love it because she spoils them.  They love playing games on her Iphone.  She reads to the them and listens to their every word.  The only bad part of the visit is that she has to leave.  I still cry when my mom leaves.  I am not sure that will ever get better.  Look forward to the next time...

Smiling at 2 months old

Baby K is now 2 months old.  She is just beautiful.  She has started to smile.  Big smiles and often, except when you try to capture it on film.  

She was smiling in her swing until mom tried to take a picture.

She had a big grin looking at Nana until...I got out the camera.

This is about the best we got.  She has such a beautiful smile. 

Her baby acne is clearing up.  She is sleeping a 6 hour stretch at night usually followed by another 4 hours.  That is awesome!  The only down side is that she now wants to eat about every 2 hours during the day.  That is not so awesome.  

She still loves to be swaddled.  We had to move her up to the next size of swaddle blankets.  She still prefers to sleep in a reclined position and in her bouncer.  Her hair/fuzz looks like it could be a shade of auburn.  It's still too early to tell.  Her eyes look like they might be the slate blue of S.  Although these pictures make her eyes look brown.  

I will just have to keep trying to capture those smiling pictures.

Ground floor complete

The Captain worked for many hours to get the ground floor of the tree house complete and the boys were ecstatic.

There is an enormous sand box.  It took 18- 50lb bags of sand to fill that sucker.  They now have a nice big bench to sit on all around the sand box.  (My mom and I hauled the sand to the sandbox.  I decided I should return to taking care of baby K full time after that.)

They immediately gathered all their sand toys plus wood scraps and began playing.  I didn't see them the rest of the day.  They did briefly come in for food.

The Captain hopes to get the 2nd story floor/roof for the sand box up soon so they will have some shade.  It's supposed to hit 100 degrees tomorrow.  It's going to be a hot summer!