Lots of Photos!

We have so many great pictures right now that I'm going to let them do a lot of the talking in this post. Left is one of a few pics from Father's Day and below is the watermelon face I mentioned in my last post. Very similar to the 'hey that's anything other than breast milk' face that we saw each time we tried a new solid food. But, we are making great progress on that front and she eats a lot of the foods that we eat now - even with no teeth!

Before the first hair cutDuring - she loved having a personal Dora the Explorer video to watch - she thought it was funny and she's so expressive!And after - with hair so neat and 'big girl'-like In the pool with Papa Uncle Mat came to Austin to run with Papa Just precious... LOVE the gummy grin!!! Into everything - killing time at Jake's guitar recital I love that cute baby!! the sweet sleepy face that looks up at me in the morning... a visit with Grandma,great Grandma,and cousins puppy love the scrunchy face grinfavorite bedheads

We are having fun this summer. It's been SUPER hot in TX - many days in a row above 100 degrees. We've spent a lot of nights at the pool and days at the movies.

Jake performed really well at his guitar recital. He played so badly in practice the day before that I thought it would be a disaster but in the back of my mind wondered if he had my 'pull it off at the last minute' gene and it turns out he does! I'm glad his first recital was a success - we didn't get any really good pictures but will try again next time.

Jake and Sydney had a fun week in Jamaica with their Dad, Felicity and Bryce. You can see Sydney's braided hair to the right. She missed Bria tons, but they were inseparable last week before Bria left this past weekend for a sleepover camp. While they were in Jamaica, Martin booked us a night in San Antonio at a great hotel and arranged for his family to keep Kiley so we could see Wicked. It was a fantastic show and a wonderful getaway - thank you, love!

We had a good Father's Day. We were HOT at Jake's first LaCrosse game, but then got snow cones and had some time to cool off before dinner at Pappasito's with my Mom and brother, and dessert and gifts at Mom's house. I have a hilarious photo that I'll have to scan in for next time.

This past weekend we had our family reunion and it was fun but too dang hot in Blanco TX in an unairconditioned pavillion all day Saturday. None of us felt well on Sunday - truly recovering from the heat on Saturday - but then on Monday, Jake came home from camp in the morning with a 102 degree fever and was diagnosed with the flu. I think that tamiflu is a wonder drug, as he hasn't run a fever since about 5 hours after his first dose and is 100% Jake today when he didn't move most of yesterday.

I will finish this with a Kiley update... she is so totally mobile now and still so much fun. I can't believe how much her face has changed (right is a picture from Feb.) and how much older she looks now. She is standing on her own now for enough seconds that you can count and know she's really standing and it's not just an accident :). She claps with her hands together - she was clapping her fists together weeks ago but now really claps the palms of her hands. She waves; today she was downstairs and the kids were up and she was waving at them and dancing back and forth and laughing. She doesn't really have stranger anxiety, but shows a preference for me - especially when she's tired. She reaches for me when I come in the room and twice she's said something that sounded like 'mom' while reaching, but I think it's coincidence. She does 'talk' quite a bit and often she is silly and giggly. We're trying to feed her when we eat. She likes starches and is not thrilled about green veggies but she has had broccoli, eggplant and green beans. She eats bananas and apple sauce, sweet potatoes, squash and carrots, spaghetti, bell peppers, cherries, pretzels, and crackers.

We'll have more pictures soon - Stephen (Martin's brother) and Sarah are getting married this weekend and then next weekend the kids and I are off to Galveston with my girlfriends (Jill & Kristi) and their kids - three Moms, two teenagers, five elementary kids, and a baby in a condo for three nights. Wish us luck!!!

Summer's Definitely Here

I think we can all agree that, well, it's HOT in Texas. I really need to do a brain dump to this blog more often. The kiddos are having a lot of fun and keeping very busy and Courtney has been the mastermind keeping us all in sync. She's pretty amazing! Jake and Sydney are traveling the tropics with their dad and getting as dark as they possible can before the summer is over. And Kiley, well Kiley is growing up. She's dancing and singing and making the most peculiar sounds. Lots of clicking, giggling and the weird rolling of her vocal chords (that's the only way I can describe it). It's somewhere between a laugh and practicing rolling Rs. Must have been something that my gran taught her while she was in San Antonio for the night.

Jake

He's reading. This is the summer of Lord of the Rings. I made a deal with him that if he reads the books we can watch the pg-13 rated movies. So he finished up the Fellowship and is pretty crazy about it. We got a poster for his room of middle earth and we're tracking the fellowship as they make their way to mordor and mount doom. If you know what I'm talking about youre a total geek. Hey but that's okay cause us geeks need to stick together. I'm raising jake to be just the same. Well as much the same as i possible can. He's been learning the guitar and that's not quite geeky. He had a concert recently and I was pretty impressed. His playing is fine but I was really impressed when he took the stage in front of a bunch of people. He seemed very comfortable. He seems to like that a lot, along with his other hobby which is pretty cool too. He likes to build legos and he's a star wars fanatic. Ha!! like i said i'm trying to make him as geeky as possible. :) But really in spite of my efforts I think jake is way too cool to be a geek. He's even playing what I'm beginning to believe a really cool sport, lacrosse. He's not great now but I think he will be. He missed the first game because he was in jamaica with his father, sister, his father's fiance and his soon to be step brother (who he lovingly refers to as brother). During the game right after he returned he made a catch and tried to score. it was pretty exciting. We need to practice a lot more. it's a new sport for him and for us so we have a lot to learn.

On a side note.....Jake was heard saying to Kiley, "".

Sydney

Yep she had a great start to summertime too. you might agree that the trip to jamaica was an okay start for her (who wouldn't like that, right?) and she's really enjoying her continued time on the water. Last week she spent the week at a camp where she kayaked or swam for a few hours of the day. When she wasn't doing that she was swimming at our neighborhood pool or with her friends in their pool. you could say she enjoys the water.

she's the best at putting games together. She loves to make rules. our latest game involved some very HIGH stakes. The loser had to be a maid for the other person. Now if you have ever played games with Sydney you know that you have no chance of winning. So I had to come up with a plan of my own. This game involved kicking a soccer ball into a fabric covered frisbee thing we take with us to the pool. Well she was winning so I prolonged the game to the following day then distracted her with another project she wants done. She wants to put up a swing. We had to get soft rope because she was going to sit on the rope while swinging (not a board). With Courtney's help I think we've convinced her otherwise. As we were picking out the rope we looked and felt several. I wanted to make sure the rope would support multiple people because she was sure to be using it with her friends, but it had to be soft. We found a think nylon rope that was sure to meet everyone's requirements.

Kiley

she is such a joy!! The kids love to play with her and she is so talkative right now. Most people don't understand her but I do. She says stuff in clicks and daiy daiy daiy....which could be confused with dada but since were calling me papa i know she's not really referring to me. She also says stuff like raRRrrr and snaps her tongue off the top of her mouth making the sound like CLUCK-CLUCK-CLUCK. She loves when you imitate her. And now she's playing peek-a-boo. which is really very entertaining. She loves that game right now. She likes to go on walks and runs and often falls asleep but I know she's dreaming really good dreams. Sometimes on a run she stays awake and talks with me the whole time.

This past week has stood numerous times on her own. not for very long but she's definitely getting her balance. She has the crawling thing down. She does that little thing most babies do where she looks back at you that crawls really fast as if want you to chase her. I do. :)

She's sleeping through the night really well even though she has had difficulty napping during the day. Which might be why she's sleeping 10 to 12 hours through the night. She so tired.

We're working on getting her to eat solid foods much more. At some point we hope to have her completely on solid foods. She like mango, peach, squash, banana, peanut butter sandwiches, watermelon (sometimes), spaghetti (and other pastas) and she's been seen eating green beans and red, yellow and orange peppers.

She's such a happy baby......except when she's not. :)