It's Always a Good Time

 

Tim, Krissi and the kids came to visit last week. We really didn't do anything special, but as always the kids had a great time together (despite my two giving their colds to Krissi and her kids).

 The girls had fun doing "projects" one morning. They also discovered the excitement of placing Scotch tape over their mouths. Who knew?

 

We stopped into Old Navy and the girls had fun playing with the mannequins. I had to convince them that the platform was not a stage for them to sing and dance on.

Popsicles and "Team Umizoomi" before bed.

Oh, Luke and Miles. Something tells me these two will be wrestling as much as Brooke and Lexi sing and dance together.

 

We actually braved going out to eat a couple of times.

Love this shot Aunt Krissi got of Mi-Mi.

Group bath. As I put this post together, I'm realizing this looks a little "Lord of the Flies"-ish. Contrary to how these photos appear, adults were around all week.

The last night they were here, after Tim had gone back to St. Louis for work, Krissi watched all four kids BY HERSELF while Matt and I went to our friends' Allan and Mackenzie's wedding. Luckily, she had a little helper.

Thanks again for coming up. We love you!

August

Here's another photo dump for August. Miles is getting pretty stinking good at tummy time. He's rolled tummy to back a few times, but I wouldn't say it's mastered yet.

A little while back, we went to a restaurant called 2 Toots with my friends Jen and Joy and their kids. It was a really cute place and the kids had a great time. Brooke enjoyed riding the mechanical horse.

  

A couple of weeks back, I was at the park with my friend Amber and we were pushing our kids on the swings. I thought that Miles was fussing as I was pushing Brooke, but when I looked down I realized that he was cracking up every time she came near us for me to push her back. It might be one of the cutest things he's done so far.

Poor Ozzie. He's so patient with the kids. How his life has changed...

Bumbo attempt #1: fail. It didn't help that it was close to bedtime (6:30 these days!) and his sister was trying to climb in behind him. Subsequent attempts have been much more successful. And I am aware of the recall -  I keep him on the floor and within reach whenever we use it, which is not often. For Brooke, it was a nice transition piece before she was totally independent in sitting up.

Chilling at the playground. I'm trying to remember to enjoy him "chilling" before he gets on the move and things get that much crazier.

One of our last days at the pool for the season and we had the place virtually to ourselves.

This girl is the SLOWEST eater. Good thing she's cute. We've got to figure something out or we're going to be *that family* rushing in late to preschool every day. Actually, we'll probably still be that family - I can just blame it on her if she keeps eating slowly.

This boy is not going to be the sleeper his sister was/is. He's great at night, but some days can get by on a couple of 45 minute naps. It probably doesn't help that he cut his second (!) tooth this week. And no, he's not quite 5 months old.

Last week was when I would have been going back to work for the school year. I was sad, but not as sad as I expected to be. I LOVE my job as an OT and I LOVE the people that I work with at Jefferson, but I know that this is the right choice for our family right now. As I've said to several people, it's certainly not the easier choice. There are days that I wouldn't mind someone else coming up with ways to keep the kids occupied for the day. But I'm so blessed that I'm able to do this and I know that the time is going to fly, so I'm going to try to treasure as much of the time as I can. Life is good. God is good.

Happy Birthday to Me

Last Friday was my birthday. When I said to Brooke early in the week, "Did you know my birthday is Friday?" She said, "Yeah, and then my birthday will be Saturday, right?" Sorry, kid, give it a couple more months.

Matt had prior obligations on my actual birthday (golf and football, but who's keeping track?) so he took me out on Sunday night while Jamie and Will watched the kids. We saw "Beasts of the Southern Wild," an indie movie that I'd read about. We really liked it but it's certainly not for everyone. And it was one of our only non-blockbuster options. One thing that I really miss about St. Louis is the ease with which we were able to see good concerts and indie movies. It's definitely possible up here, but it takes a lot more work to get to them. At any rate, we had a really good time.

The night before, I enjoyed my free birthday dinner at Medinah with Matt and the kids. I'm going to go ahead and brag here because this is my blog: the is the second time in about two months that we've been out to dinner and been complimented by strangers on how good our kids were. That's certainly not always the case and it's nice to hear that to balance out the times that I leave the grocery store near tears because they're both melting down at the check out...or the times when Brooke refuses to smile and look at the camera.

The Ryder Cup is coming to Medinah next month and everyone is pretty excited. I got a little more pumped when I found out Justin Timberlake is going to be an "ambassador," which probably just means that he's going to be around for some camera time to get people like me more interested in the event. Stay tuned...

Gigi's 75th

We took a(NOTHER) quick trip to St. Louis last weekend to celebrate my Grandma's 75th birthday. My Aunt Diane, a self-described "party pooper", did a great job coordinating and planning the event. She even ordered these cute sandwiches from P'sghetti's.

I think that Gigi was happy to see everyone together in one place. I'm not sure who migrated to whom, but all of the great-grandkids ended up at their table.

 

The kids all had a great time playing together and running around. The girls didn't want to sit for this picture but I wanted to get a shot of them in their matching outfits from Gigi.

With all the great-grandkids. Beckett was not excited about being in the photo so Amy sat behind the chairs and lifted him for this shot.

The whole family.

The kids were excited to greet her when she arrived. This is Brooke's new "Cheese!" face. She screams "Cheese!" at the top of her lungs, hence the bulging eyeball look.

Miles in his outfit from Gigi.

The kids had fun playing with their uncles.

 

It was a great time and as always, great to get together with family. Happy birthday, Grandma Williams!

Moves Like...?

Jagger? Elaine? You be the judge. All I know is, the girl LOVES to cut a rug.

Alley-fest

Brooke (and Miles, but all these pics are of Brooke) is lucky to have such great aunts and uncles on both sides of the family. And luckily Matt's side is great about getting pictures.

AND getting her to smile. What?!?

 

Here she is cuddling with Aunt Jane. I think Jane was playing with her hair. Unfortunately there still isn't much of it to play with. Maybe someday...

We love you guys!

Lately

 

I could probably find a cute way to organize these photos into a few different posts, but honestly I don't have the time or energy for that right now, so here's a little photo-dump/stream of consciousness post.

Miles had his 4 month appointment today.

 

Oh, you wanted his stats? In that case, here they are: weight - 15 lb, 14 oz (52%), height - 26 3/4" (95%). He was only in the 70% for head circumference. He took his shots like a champ and is currently sleeping them off.

 

Brooke is really into Miles' transportation book. I think we're going to submit her for a "Baby Hoarders" reality show. Her bed is ridiculous. We have to take toys or books out of it daily. I vaguely recall that I also always had a ton of junk in my bed. She's definitely my daughter.

She and Miles continue to adore each other (we'll see how that changes when he can get into her things...). While the two of them were sharing a room on vacation, he started crying one night. I got up to go calm him and as I approached the door, I heard her say, "It's okay, Baby Miles. Your big sissy's here." He stopped crying and I started. Melt my heart.

She continues to push her limits daily, but she's still such a good girl. She loves the park by our house (ours is the second one in the background, next to the one with reddish roof). As we were pulling up to our house from vacation, she asked if she could go to the playground. I said that first we were going to unload. She said, "Where's unload?" Get it? It took me a minute to understand what she was asking.

 

Guess who's getting his first tooth? His front, right, lower one is starting to pop out. So far it isn't really affecting him except that he gnaws on anything he can get in his mouth.

 

Courtesy of Big Sis.

It's getting easier to make him laugh.

Hanging out with Dad. He's working hard to instill the love of football into both kids. I think he's given up on me. Speaking of, football at WWS started this week. Say a prayer for me.

 

Sorry Matt looks possessed in this pic. Isn't it a cute shot of the kids, though?

Playing around before nap time. There's usually at least an hour overlap in their afternoon naps. Some days I'm more ready and thankful for that time than others, but I must say, life is good and we're very blessed.