H & R Visit

A couple weekends ago, Hollins, Rachel and Jillian came for a weekend visit.

It was fun to watch the girls negotiate playing together...and gave each other lots of hugs and kisses!

It has been a scorching summer, and this weekend was no exception. We enjoyed a trip to a hotel pool, the YMCA water park, and the splash park in Hesston.

The girls enjoying a bedtime snack at Grandpa and Grandma's.



You can check out more pictures by following this link (though I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked) or you can click here to see Rachel's blog post.

18 Months

Some things I don't want to forget about this stage...

Probably like most kids her age, Aubrey loves to climb.

She likes to try to stand in her high chair during the entire feeding time, unless it's something she can feed to herself. That seems to keep her on her bottom for a little longer, anyway. Several times, she's managed to climb onto her tray. She has quite the upper body strength and is determined. A dangerous combination. :) She likes to jump off the ottoman. If she jumps into the pool, she doesn't mind if her head goes under. As Tyler says, she's "fearless." As a result, this fearless Love has also had a few fat lips and bruises and other such minor maladies.

Aubrey is opinionated. When it comes to food, all kinds of cheese are her friend. A girl after my own heart. :) She lets me know what she wants, and if she is uninterested, will say "no" and turn her head away. Like many things, Big Brother can get her to eat bites of things she refuses to eat for me. This compliance for Big Brother is not only with food, but with other things as well. For example, if she refuses to hold my hand in the parking lot, she will hold Tyler's hand. Squirt.

 

She has some favorite books. When we read, she squeals and giggles to share her enjoyment and mimics the emotions of the book.

One of her favorites is So Big! (An Elmo book). This week, I introduced her to a CD of Elmo songs. Now, every time we get into the car, she asks for "Mamo" and happily bops along.

Of course, she still loves those off-limits items. Sometimes, she goes after things and gives us a mischievous look, peeking at you out of the corner of her eye with a sly grin. The other night I let her play AlphaBaby for quite awhile. Basically, all she has to do is touch the screen and numbers, letters and shapes appear. They are named when they appear and can be manipulated. She squealed with delight over and over.

Happily Playing AlphaBaby

Love her.

Botanica

Thursday evening, I took the kids to check out the new Children's Garden at Botanica while Wayne played frisbee golf down the street.

It was amazing! We had a great time. We also enjoyed the other gardens, and the butterfly house, along the way. Even though the high was in the 100s that day, there was plenty of shade and nearly all of the exhibits included water somehow - fountains, misters, etc. We'll definitely be going back.

Click here to see more pictures from our visit, if you're interested.

a little catch up

We've been busy with a little of this (working, painting, swimming at the YMCA, going to the park) and a little of that (a fun July 4th party with friends, taking the kids to the Sedgwick County Fair by myself, date night)...but have I taken pictures or written about them? No. Sorry Grandparents who live far far away.

Here's a small tidbit from today, only because I'm already writing...with not much else to say. :) At 12:30 pm, I not-so-wisely but full of enthusiasm, headed out for a walk. It was WAAAAY too hot. When I had to take a break so that I wouldn't pass out, I was feeling quite pathetic. I was taking A Break. From a Walk. Wow. When I arrived at home, separately, both Tyler and Wayne strongly suggested that I take a shower. Apparently I smelled about as good as I felt. :) .

Random side note: Today I thoroughly appreciated this article explaining that mysterious "outside smell." Wayne and I have discussed what this is for a long time. (And really, had no clue what it was).

It ended up getting up to 111 degrees today, so Wayne and Tyler enjoyed swimming and later running in the sprinklers to try to keep cool. I felt quite dizzy again later on - don't know if it was still from the heat, but I'm going to blame it on that. Ha!

Time for this heat wave to let up!



That's it for now. :)

Enjoying the sunshine

Reading with Daddy

Happy Father's Day

We had a great day with Wayne's parents, Ted and Sue, in Hesston today. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, went to the spray park, cooled off (for the adults) with a trip to Sonic for drinks, and back to Ted and Sue's to relax and hang out. :)

Tyler's kindergarten teacher sent him some things he could work on over the summer. One was a finish the sentences page to give to Wayne on Father's Day. (I'm underlining Tyler's responses):

MY SPECIAL DAD
ByTyler Stuckey

My father is the most wonderful dad in the whole world! He is as strong as he weighs. He weighs 200 pounds and he is 6 feet tall. His favorite food is pizza and his best friend is Pat. When my dad was little he probably liked to play with cars. I think dad looks funny when he poops.  I wish my dad would go to Worlds Of Fun  with me EVERY DAY!!! I wouldn't trade my father for a bey blade because I love my dad as much as anything! I love him MORE than anything!!! 
Happy Father's Day!

Popsicles

Even though yesterday's weather was cooler and it rained, Tyler wanted to invite our neighbor kids over to run in the sprinklers. After a very brief time in the sprinklers, we got out the popsicles.

Aubrey fell and gave herself a fat lip last night. For some reason, I thought that this warranted Aubrey to try her first popsicle. :) She loved it, and ended up a little blue mess.

Aubrey and Brody

Tyler is a goofball!

Harvest

My Aunt Joye invited us to come up for supper this week. We enjoyed a picnic/harvest dinner by the field the men were working at.

Tyler and Wayne rode on the combine for awhile...but Wayne only took pictures of that with his cell phone. Soooo, here's a silly picture of Tyler. :)

Back at the house, Wayne played croquet, and we marveled at the beautiful double rainbow..which was very hard to capture with our point-and-shoot camera.

Again, not the best picture, but I wanted to share Aubrey giving Buzz a hug.

17 Months

For awhile now, we haven't needed to use the monitor. This month marked the end of using 2 of 3 baby gates (the 3rd is to keep her out of trouble), and she was weaned from her bottle. So, I guess she is officially no longer a "baby," but of course she's still my baby. She enjoys initiating a game of Peek-A-Boo, and still loves waving at people (when she's not feeling shy), and loooves dogs. She can really ham it up sometimes, and enjoys making silly faces at us. Tonight, I took a few pictures...