Family Masks

One night Brady asked if we could make masks.  I am about the least artistic person in the world so anything beyond coloring is risky business, but surely we could handle masks.  The cutting and coloring part went fine, but then Brady looks at me and says "how is it going to stay on my face."  Then he said, "how about tape."  We gave tape a shot, but clearly it is not designed to hold masks to human faces so decided we could just hold the mask.

Once his was finished he decided that everyone in the family needed one.  Best line of the night, "Mom, Ellie doesn't have teeth.  What should I do with her face?  Can I just give her big lips?"  Sure, big lips will work just fine. 

Conquering the Tunnel Slide

Over the weekend we went to Great Wolf Lodge.  Brady had an amazing time.  We went about a year ago and Brady had fun, but now that he's a year older he enjoyed it even more. 

The only problem with Great Wolf Lodge is that several of their slides are tunnel slides.  If you have talked to Brady about slides you know that he does not like tunnel slides because as he puts it "I can't see the end of them."  He has routinely told us that he will try a tunnel slide when he is older, usually he will quote 7 as the magic age.   Brady was tall enough to go on one of the tube slides with Cory.  Cory asked him if he wanted to try it and we just assumed he would say no because of the tunnel.  However he said he wanted to try.  He came out of the tunnel with a HUGE smile on his face.  Then, he went down the single passenger tunnel slide all by himself.  I guess all we needed is a trip to Great Wolf Lodge to cure him of his feer of tunnels. 

Mini golf, as always, was a huge hit as well.  Brady and Jay figured out how to retrieve the ball after it went down the 18th hole.  They thought that was pretty cool!

Sunday night, we had the final test to see if Brady had conquered the tunnel slide.  We went to the neighborhood playground and asked if he would go down the slide.  To our amazement he did.  He was so proud of himself!

Sibling Love

Capturing pictures of Brady alone is difficult enough, but getting pictures of the two of them together is even harder.  I pleaded with Brady to please let me take his picture with his sister.  He didn't want to hold her so I settled for him laying next to her.  Don't they both look thrilled?

 

To Grandma's house we go

We spent most of this week at my mom's house.  It worked out pretty well as Cory drove down with us on Sunday and then flew to Kentucky for work.  It was nice change of pace to not be alone with the kids during the week. 

While in Oklahoma we visited the zoo and Brady did a lot of swimming.  He's getting pretty good at swimming and is a great diver, but not quite ready to get rid of the floaties.  

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the week was watching Brady run from my mom's new puppy Harley.  He was terrified of the little 2 pound dog and wanted to be carried anytime he was in the vicinity.  It's probably my fault to some extent because I always tell Brady to stay away from dogs because of his allergies.  Brady would see the dog and either run or climb on a chair and yell, "my allergies".  I shouldn't laugh about it, but it was pretty funny.  Fortunately he didn't have any allergic reactions while we were visiting.

Somehow I failed to take a single picture of Ellie visiting grandma, but I can attest she did come with us.  I need to get better about taking pictures of the kids together.

Balloon Festival

I saw some cool pictures of a balloon festival that some Facebook friends posted so we decided to check things out on Saturday night.  I was under the impression that a Glow 'Ride' was taking place so figured we would just get the cheap seats and watch without paying the $15 to get into the festival.  We got a great parking spot and could even hear the announcer.  As the 'launch' time got closer Cory mentioned that there was no way those balloons were going to take off so close to each other.  I agreed that it didn't feel quite right, but was just positive that I read 'ride' on the website which to me inferred they were going in the sky.  After pulling out the phone and doing a quick search I discovered I misread and that they just light up the balloons.  It was still neat to see, but I liked the idea of balloons flying in the night sky better.  Probably not the safest thing though.  The morning launch would have been neat to see, but our family just does not get up and going in the 6 o'clock hour for pleasure.

Splash Cove

We told Brady early in the summer that we would take him to Splash Cove (one of the Shawnee public pools).  The summer got away from us and this was the last weekend the pool was open so we kept to our promise and headed to Splash Cove.  The pool is perfect for younger kids and Brady has lots of fun!  I was enjoying a spot under an umbrella with Ellie and was quite content watching, but Brady thought that I needed to take a turn.  The water was a little on the cool side (which I honestly don't know how is possible considering how hot it's been this summer).  I narrowly avoided having a huge bucket of water dumped on my head.  I got a huge kick out of the fact that a lady that went onto the playground after me who was oblivious to the buckets dumping water got nailed.  I guess the nice thing to do would have been to warn her. 

Ellie - 2 Months

We survived another month.  In fact we survived the hottest month on record in the US.  My mom used to tell me about how hot the summer of 1980 (the summer I was born) was, but 1980 did not stand a chance against 2012.  Ellie and I spent the days indoors while Brady was at school, but since I had no foresite into the fact that we would have a miserably hot summer we spent a lot of our evenings outdoors watching Brady's various activities.  When the last week of July came and we were officially done with t-ball, soccer & swimming lessons I must admit I was pretty excited.


Stats:
Weight:  11 lbs 6 oz  75th percentile
Height: 22 inches 50th percentile
Head: 15.5 inches 75th percentile

Everything went well at her first appointment.  She is tracking to be short and stocky at this point.  Perhaps she won't have issues with her pants staying up like her big brother does.  We do have to work on Ellie turning her head to the left.  She favors looking to the right hand side right now so we have started doing neck stretches and more tummy time.

Other highlights from the past month:

• Sleeping -  We were graced with Ellie sleeping one time through the night a few days ago.  However the norm is still about 4 -5 hours.
• Favorite activities - Swinging, being held, taking bathes (last month she wasn't a big fan, but now she is)
• Dislikes - vitamins
• Notable accomplishments - Cooing, lots of smiling, blowing slobber bubbles.
• Eating - She continues to be a really good eater.
• Other notable activities - Ellie traveled to Peoria, IL to visit Nana, Papa, Granny & Aunt Katie.  She also visited Des Moines and we made a quick pit stop in Iowa City. 

Brady asks to hold Ellie pretty much every day.  It only lasts about 20 seconds before he decides he's done, but at least he has some interest.  Overall he is doing really well with her.  Before she was born I was worried that he would want to try to pick her up.  I'm pretty sure he has that male syndrome where he's scared to hold a baby for fear she will break.  This is a GOOD thing.  Brady has his moments where he shows signs of jealousy, but fortunately he has never taken it out on her.  I can tell he's a proud big brother when I pick him up for school.  The girls in his class always run over to see Ellie and Brady will run over and tell them it's his little Ellie.  He also continues to show an interest in what she wears.  He wants her to wear a dress and hair bow every day because "Mom, she's a girl and girls wear dresses and bows!"