Crafty

Two years ago a new family moved in to our neighborhood. One of their little girls was in Maggie's class and they became fast friends. We have spent quite a bit of time with them over the last couple of years. Because of the Dad's job they move frequently so next month they are on to somewhere new. Their last name is True - so from the time I met them, I have had the quote from the board in my head. When I heard that they were moving I decided to make a going away present for them. It was pretty simple and I liked how it turned out :)

Milestone!!

Hailey has hit one of the best milestones EVER! She can swing all by herself. She was very, very proud of her accomplishment. She has been so close for awhile and the other day it just clicked. She is quite dressed up for the occassion too. Such a sweet, funny, charasmatic little one.

Waterfall

 

A few weeks ago we went to the coolest waterfall. It was like at outdoor waterpark! There were people everywhere. It was so fun being able to get in the water and slide around on the rocks. There were three waterfalls along this stretch of the river. At one of them you could jump off of a pretty high rock into a deep pool. Both Maggie and Jackson loved it. Hailey was too cold and pretty whiny by this point so she didn't want to try. Caleb might have if we gave him the option :) We will definitely have to go back to this one again. The hiking was beautiful.
Caleb is pointing to his head because a guy was fishing nearby and when he pulled in a small fish and tried to get it off the line it flipped around and bounced off Caleb's head as it escaped. He thought that was pretty awesome.

Firepit

The weather has cooled off a little more so we have started to use our firepit. The kids LOVE it. The first time or two was a little crazy with kids wanting to play with fire.... luckily, that has worn off and the activity is a little less stressful :) The other night we made tin foil dinners in the firepit and ate them outside on the deck at our picnic table. Decks are awesome! Hopefully we get a lot of use out of it this fall. Next week we are going to do some dutch oven cooking. Oh, have I mentioned that it's great having the youngest be all the way to 2 years old already?!

We have a deck!

Here is a pretty good pic of the completed deck!! Well, it still needs a step down off to the right side and maybe lattice or something to hide the framework on the side but those are so minor compared to what we started out with. I should try to find a pic of what it looked like before all this. Matt and I built this deck completely on our own. It took a long time and A LOT of nails/screws but we are pretty proud of the finished product. Matt gets points for being the project planner and manager while I filled in with mindless hammering and such whenever I could......

Happy 4th Hailey!!

On August 1st Hailey turned 4! My third 4 year old....... A few months ago when I asked her what kind of cake she wanted - she said a snake cake. I thought she would change her mind but she stuck with it. It was funny because she doesn't seem to have a real interest in snakes and she loves girly things. So I thought she would pick something else as time went by but even after looking through the cake books she still wanted a snake :) Funny girl. She loved popping her balloons to get her dollars out. Some of them went flying and we had to search for a little while to find them. Caleb had a hard time not getting to blow out candles and pop balloons........
She was so excited to open her presents. She got some cinderella glass slipper like shoes so Maggie wanted her to put on her Cinderella dress.... We also gave her a small set of Lego Friends. She was pretty excited about that. All of kids love Legos. The girls are especially happy about the new Friends sets :)
Hailey is such a fun little girl with an amazing personality. She loves to help people and will go and do things for you if she hears you mention something that you need done. She really likes going to the pool and hates it if she has to wear her lifejacket. She gets dressed all by herself and is anxious to go to school with the bigger kids (we still don't know if she will be going to preK or not). Her favorite toys are the little dolls and houses. She loves to play with the neighbor girl that is her age..... although it doesn't happen as often when we go to the pool everyday. She loves to give and receive hugs and kisses. She often takes a nap still but then stays up really late....... She is pretty fearless - riding bikes, scooters, jumping off the diving board. She still sucks her finger but is trying hard to stop since Matt told her that she's 4 now and needs to stop :) She is perfect fit in our family and we wouldn't be complete without her :)

Arlington Cemetery

When Matt and the big kids picked me up at the airport - it was early enough that we could do something around DC - so we headed out to Arlington Cemetery. I wasn't too excited about the idea since it had been a pretty long day for Caleb and I already - not to mention that it was hot and really humid. UGH. But it was pretty neat. We went to Tomb of the Unknown Solider and watched them do a changing of the guard. Jackson thought that was pretty neat. Caleb was not doing calm and quiet to watch so I had to take away...... It was a pretty quick but I was glad we stopped despite any complaining I may or may not have done :) See the Washington Monument in the background of the headstones?