August Happenings

I am SO FAR behind on posting.  I considered just skipping all of the stuff that happened and just going forward, but I'm way too sentimental to leave anything out.  Here's a look at the second half of August.

 Kate and I had quite a few water balloon battles.

My cousin Sandra visited from Florida.  Collin, Reagan, Kate and I had a great time with her.  The kids swam in the pool at her hotel and we went to Panera for lunch.

We went blueberry picking on a super hot day.  It was the end of blueberry season and the bushes were pretty bare.

I purchased two of these huge containers to fill, and we didn't even fill one.  It was just too hot and the pickings were too slim.  We did get enough to make our favorite blueberry muffins and blueberry pie!

Reagan had a great summer of gymnastics with this group of girls.  I think they are all still together for this season.  Reagan is competing at the Xcel Silver level this year and this means that she is now competing sanctioned.  I don't know enough about gymnastics to know what this really means, but my explanation is that her scores are more meaningful and will be used to determine eligibility in meets.  (FYI:  the two girls in the front middle are half of a set of quadruplets!)

 Tyler met his favorite country singer, Brantley Gilbert.

 We could not let summer slip away without tie dyeing.

Kate had her very first soccer game.  She is having fun being part of a team.  Kate runs back and forth with her team, but she isn't really interested in getting too close to the ball yet.  She is happy to go in whenever her coach calls her though!

We ended August with a bang.  Ha ha!

We had an end of summer party and I guess I was too busy having fun to take many pictures, but I have a couple of some of the kids watching Tom's fireworks display.

Now I have to catch up on September before this month is over!

Cousins

We were all SO VERY EXCITED to spend time with Karen, Mark, and Hannah over the last few days.  My children are so in love with their baby cousin.  Kate was funny; she was so excited to see Hannah and she set up all of her toys for them to play together.  She will be thrilled when Hannah is a little older and can actually play with her.

Hannah is so adorable, and maybe the happiest baby I have ever seen.  I wish they lived closer.

Tom's cousin, Ryan, was also in town over the holiday weekend, and we spent a few hours visiting with him, Narcy, Logan, and Elaina.

Kate and Reagan both enjoyed playing with Logan and Elaina.  Kate and Logan are only three days apart; it's always fun to see them together.

Reagan was quite the entertainer for this crew.

My kids don't get much cousin time, but they love the time they do get!

Hannah!!!

My sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in December, and while pictures and videos are lots of fun, there is nothing better than the real thing.  Well, they live about eight hours away by car, so we weren't able to be there to meet Hannah.  Reagan, Kate and I were fortunate to have the opportunity to meet up with Karen, Mark, and Hannah in Stockbridge last weekend.  We all stayed at the Red Lion Inn.  The Inn was very nice.

This was the view from our hotel room:

We had this cool light fixture above our bed.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the hotel.  There was a very cool gift shop with fun, unique things like:

We found a rocking horse to ride.

An old fashioned elevator was a big highlight for these beautiful girls.  We rode in it five times.  I thought it was funny to see people walking up the stairs faster than the elevator could make the trip.

Each hallway in the Inn had areas with different themes, like the Santa section.

Simon (the cat) is a permanent resident at the Inn.  We saw him twice while we were there, but he wasn't interested in hanging out with us.  Once when Karen and Mark stayed at the Inn, Simon spent the whole night in their room.

Reagan was SUPER excited about the pool.  We arrived around dinner time on Friday, and Reagan asked many times when we could go to the pool.  Well, as you can see, the pool is OUTSIDE!  It is heated, but still, it's OUTSIDE!  The temperature was definitely in the single digits, but I promised to brave the pool.  On Saturday afternoon, we got all ready and headed to the pool.  Reagan went in first and I could tell she was cold.  Mark followed her in, and he said the water was cool.  They were in there for all of three minutes, maybe.  Kate and I never made it into the pool.  

We all decided that the hot tub was a better idea.

Can you believe that I have written this much already without a single picture of Hannah?  Well, I decided to save the best part of our trip for last.  She was definitely the highlight of our trip.  Reagan and Kate are over the moon excited to have a cousin, and they are even more excited that she is a girl. The boys are excited to have a baby cousin too, but this was a girls weekend.  Hopefully, they will meet her this summer.

Reagan did a great job holding Hannah, reading to her, playing with her, and just marveling in the wonder that is "baby Hannah".  The girls call her "baby Hannah" all the time; I assume that will change someday.

It was very sweet to see Kate interacting with Hannah.  She was gentle and loving and totally in love. When Kate finally had a chance to hold her, Hannah started to cry and Kate opened her arms rolling Hannah right out.  Luckily, Karen and I were right there.  It was kind of funny.  Poor Kate; she didn't want any part of the crying.

 

I was amazed by Hannah.  She is beautiful and perfect in every way.  What a good baby too!  She was so content most of the time, and she really seemed to enjoy having the girls entertain her.  Even though we were only with them for a few short days, I loved seeing my sister as a mom.  I knew she would be great, so I wasn't surprised, but seeing her in that role was better than I ever imagined.