Cooling Off

Lauren and Ella have been enjoying pool time to combat this hot weather. Ella usually waits until later in the day when the sun has warmed the water a bit, but she really had a great time yesterday, and to my surprise she crawled around in it and splashed until she was soaked!

Fish Food

With this warm weather the fish are really coming in along the shore, and Lauren loves to sit and watch them. And then Mischa gets jealous and goes in after them! We've seen some pretty big bass and of course tons of sunnies. I realized yesterday that Lauren has never fed the fish (like grandma Flo always let us do up at the cabin), so I got out the old bread just like grandma used to. And guess what? The fish didn't like it! Either that or they were too scared with Mischa watching. So I grabbed the tub of worms Dan bought the other day and Lauren spoiled those fish! She thought it was great!

I think she likes it...

We finally hung another infant/toddler swing so Lauren and Ella can both swing at the same time. It makes things much easier now when we go outside to play- before Ella was sitting on a blanket and crawling off every two minutes to eat some grass:) I think it is safe to say she likes to swing!

Slide Time

On Saturday the girls and I went shopping with Kelly, Grace & Lucy, and Tina & Maggie. In case you lost track, that is 8 girls out buying clothes! We sure had a good time, treated ourselves (I mean the kids) to Chipotle after, and then headed to Kelly's for some play time and ice cream cones. Lauren was exhausted by the end of the day, but she mustered up enough energy to go to the barn that night and help grandma feed the calves.

Lauren thought the "Slide Train" was pretty fun with Aunt Kelly!

Ella went down with Grace!

Monkey pile on Grace!

Hanging with Cousin Maggie

Thursday night we all packed up and headed to Tina and Susie's. We stayed overnight and watched Maggie while Tina was at work since Susie was in California. The girls had a great time playing with their cousin- I can't believe I didn't get a picture of Lauren holding Maggie. Ella was fascinated with her!

Ella checking out Maggie's chair- yes she can pull herself up to standing now!

Sitting Pretty

Ella learned to sit up on her own yesterday. She gets pretty excited when we all clap for her, so she did it almost 20 times in a row. She definitely has it figured out now!

A Big Mountain to Climb

Last night Ella decided to tackle the mountain of toys in the living room. I can't believe how big she looks trying to get to the toys that she wants!

Sippy Cup

Ella has mastered the sippy cup, and she definitely thinks it is pretty neat! She drinks a lot of water now!

Lesson Learned...

When you buy a play set, specify that you would like it delivered on a SUNNY day! Seriously. It is crazy windy out there, and guess where we spent the entire afternoon. I'll give you one guess.

Our Rainbow castle arrived today and Lauren watched out the window for the entire two hours that it took to assemble it. And she had her shoes and coat on before the last swing was up!


It took her a whole two minutes to master the climbing wall- I thought this was something she wouldn't be able to do until next year.

Her favorite thing to do so far? Spin. "Fasssst."