Visit with Em and her girls!

We are really enjoying our summer around here.  Emily came to visit with her girls for a few days.  Brian was in Louisiana for work, so we stayed busy playing outside, swimming at least twice a day, riding bikes to the park, eating Em's homemade desserts and just having a TON of fun!  The kids got along great...Gwyn was in heaven playing with Grace who is a year older:

 They brought Jacob down a birthday present...a game called Headbanz, it was quite entertaining!  You try to guess the thing/food/toy/animal that is on your headband by asking questions...this proved hard with Annie who regularly either gave you the totally wrong answers or just blurted out what your card was:

 Precious little Sadie who is 6 days younger than Annie swims all over the place, rides bikes, and is potty trained!  I tried to put some pressure on Annie, but she just said, "I wear diapers!"

 Jacob lounging in the pool "fake sleeping."  He did really well with all the girls in the house, I told him at one point that "I know there are 4 girls here and just you," to which he quickly corrected me that there were 6 girls here (counting me and Em).  He was outnumbered and had some guy time when Daddy came home Thursday night and Jason came to eat dinner and see Em.

 Oh the many faces of Annie...I've got to get a good picture of her scowl...almost as distinct as Eddie Suttons!

My littlest can pedal!! Check out those little curly pig tails...her first haircut will be coming up soon and those curls will forever be gone:(



This little boy is serious about baseball and OSU.  He made a list of things he wants for his birthday, and one thing he listed was an OSU flag that we can put outside our house...he saw another one on his bike ride with Brian.

 Oh so many poor rollie pollies...the girls loved catching them and unfortunately many ended up in the pool water:(

 My friend Julie gave Gwyn a pink leapster and a ton of new games...Gwyn was hooked with all the "girl" games since she is used to playing with Jacob's that has only "boy" games.  She was super excited!

 Poor little Annie, who gets only hand me downs and cast offs from Gwyn, was so excited that Gwyn gave her the "struction" manual for one of the games (Not the game, but the instruction manual that came with it!).  She just "pretended" to read it all weekend, carried it around like it was something special.

 At church today, all the 1st graders and their parents went up on stage and the parents presented Bibles to the kids.  Brian picked this Bible out for Jacob, we had his name printed on it, and he was super excited.  He carried it around all day, and is determined to read it front to back.  He talked both Brian and I numerous times throughout the day to read him about 7 chapters of Genesis.  After he was done swimming, he went and got his Bible again while Gwyn was swinging on the swings.  He said, Gwyn, aren't you going to come read the Bible...it is more important than swinging!  LOVE THIS KID!

Gwyn in her goggles has got to  be one of the cutest sites I've ever seen.  She completed quite the feat tonight as she swam the entire length of the pool.  She said she couldn't do it before she tried and then she did it!!

 Another picture of Jacob having fun, before he requested a "fake sleeping" pose.

 We have had several swim playdates at our house over the past week and a half.  One day we had 3 moms and 10 kids (we decided that was the limit!), another day we had 3 moms and 8 kids, and then with Em here we had 2 moms and 5 kids in the pool.

After Emily left, Brian and I took the kids to see Brave.  It has got to be the absolute worst movie for kids...it was way too scary, they pretty much couldn't have made a scarier looking bear as the villian in the movie.  Jacob loved it, Gwyn hid her face in Brian and said she didn't like the mean parts, and Annie pretty much just sat in her seat and repeated word for word the entire movie (she does this when we read books too).  She repeated in a perfect Scottish accent, "Stitch it up, mend the bond" to which we've been repeating like crazy people all weekend around here!

Funny things the kids said this week:
Annie:  Sissy gave me the hiccups.
Annie:  Sissy said I'm not being nice.
Me:  Are you being nice?
Annie:  No.
Gwyn:  Daddy, I love you more than a dog.

Happy Father's Day to the best Dad EVER!

 We are blessed with a great Daddy in our house!  Brian woke up to coffee and breakfast in bed, along with handmade drawings, candy, and a few other surprises.  We have had a great family weekend, swimming and bike rides and hanging out together.  It was the first weekend in awhile that there wasn't something going on, so it was nice just to hang out together.  I loved this that Gwyn made at camp this week:

 Brian also let Gwyn "do" his hair.  She was so excited and was giggling the whole time.  I didn't put a picture of the end result, but let's just say that it was VERY nice...and Brian took a shower before we went for pizza!

 We let the kids run around at City Center after dinner, they had fun and we wore them out a bit before bedtime!

 Here is a video:



Here is a video of the bike ride we took...Gwyn is doing well, but gets worn out.  We rode by Jacob's Kindergarten teacher's house, and he begged to ring the doorbell, but he gets to go to her house this week in the afternoon for a "Young Author's camp" and he's VERY excited about that!




Annie loves to ride in the trailer on bike rides:

 Sweaty headed Jacob was always leading the pack:

 I love this face, and Brian did her hair that day...you should have seen it from the back.  It was enough to make me say that for that reason alone, I hope nothing ever happens to me!

 Jacob loves to sport the faux hawk...he's one cool kid!

 Seriously, how is it possible to get this much raspberry sherbet on your face while eating it??

Our summer is off to a great start, we've had numerous play dates, gone swimming with friends, we're still doing swim lessons a couple of days a week and Annie is making great strides.  The kids were in a camp all week at Gwyn's preschool, they each had friends in their classes, so they loved going.  It was Annie's first time to ever be in anything like that and she did great.  I did have to take Annie to an allergist this week, hopefully she is just having a reaction to a virus, we're in a wait and see over the next couple of weeks.  I also have to get my wisdom teeth out at the end of the month, I'm not looking forward to that, but the afterwards part of having milkshakes for dinner doesn't sound so bad!  Annie is still my little runt, but seems to be catching up.  At 2 1/2 she was 35" and 27 lbs, in comparison Jacob was 37" and 33 lbs and Gwyn was 39" and 33 lbs.  Here is a video of her singing:



I just can't get enough of Gwyn's people that she draws.  I love how everyone has a distinct belly button:

Jacob decided to come up with the hardest math problem ever for Brian...he solved it and impressed Jacob big time!

Funny things the kids said this week:
Gwyn:  I know how to spell Brian.
Me:  You do, how?
Gwyn:  D-A-D-D-Y
Me:  You're right!  Good job Gwynnie Bear!
Gwyn:  Annie almost bited me!
Me:  How do you know she almost bit you?
Gwyn:  I felt some lick on me.
Annie's prayer at bedtime:  Thank you for God, Amen.
Jacob to Gwyn:  I'm sorry, it was an accident.
Gwyn:  You have a lot of accidents (Brian says this a lot).
Annie yelling at Gwyn and Jacob from inside the house during their swim lessons:  Don't take your goggles off, you have to pay! (I have had to tell her that numerous times that I don't want to pay for swim lessons for her swim teacher to have to put her goggles on for half of the time because she keeps taking them off...I don't think she gets it, but she is yelling at Jacob and Gwyn about it!)
Meredith one of Gwyn's friends who I picked up and took for ice cream after camp:  I like ice cream, but I like fro yo best.
Gwyn:  I don't like fro yo, but I like frozen yogurt with the toppings.

Summer is HERE!

 Summer has hit in our house, BIG TIME!  Jacob had his last day of Kindergarten, boo hoo!!

 He was pretty excited about sporting his new faux hawk on the last day of school:

 We met up with some friends after school got out to participate in boogie down Brittmoore, where the 5th graders run down the middle of the street and all of the kids and neighborhood comes out to throw water balloons at them...the kids loved it...loved this picture of a motley crew!

Here is a video, it was so much fun.  The guys yard we were standing out came out and hooked up his water hose and was spraying the kids on the other side of the street...love this neighborhood!!

 We are in our pool about 5 days / week...Annie is doing great in swim lessons and looks so stinking cute in those goggles!  She does swim everywhere she goes with her tongue sticking out...all my kids have inherited that from Brian!

 Gwyn is a little fish, and this is how you see her most of the time...I'll get a better video this week and post next week...she's determined to keep up with Jacob:

 Jacob loves the water and would live outside if I let him:

 Love this smiling face!

 Annie and Gwyn got some play makeup...here is how Annie turned out:

 Hollywood!

A close up of Gwyn's makeup...I thought she did a pretty good job!

My parents were here for a week after Jason got his gall bladder out, which was full of gall stones, so now we know the culprit of all his issues the past year or so.  We took advantage of my Dad being here and, "worked him to the bone!"  He cleaned out all the gutters, fixed our vent fan in the bathroom, installed a new A/C return, and fixed a leak on our bathroom faucet...THANKS DAD!!

 Sweet little Annie didn't look too comfy, but I didn't dare wake her up...her naps are few and far between and she needs them!!

The kids were playing dress up, and I thought this little pirate Annie was just too cute!

 I don't think this video turned out, but DRUMROLL PLEASE.......Annie can pedal!!! Whoo hoo!

 Best buds:

 We couldn't start summer without a lemonade stand...we made $4...and only one lemon ended up in the street:)  This one lady rode by on her bike and she said she didn't have any money.  Jacob said, "It's only $0.50...you don't have $0.50??"  Nice.

 Loved their homemade signs...Jacob is pretty good at drawing lemons!

 A master pourer:

 She was best at yelling at cars:

 She was best at drinking the lemonade:

 Loved these sweet pictures the kids made for their swim instructor Rachael:

Biggest news of the week...we got our windows installed, whoo hoo!!  The noise reduction is amazing, and I can't wait to compare our electric usage...I'll have to put together a spreadsheet for that!

Funny things the kids said this week:
Jacob:  Mommy, can I check the ipad to see if the Cardinals won last night.  (Seriously, Brian, you are brainwashing him!!)
Jacob:  Buster is my favorite dog, Gracie is old, like 95.
Jacob (after I told him Gracie died):  I'm glad it wasn't Buster.  (Sorry Sue!)