Working Out

Today we had a fun family exercise time. I went for a run, pushing Hannah in the stroller. Scott rode his bike to keep me company, pulling Micah in the trailer. I forgot to take a picture of our cute little caravan, but I did take a picture of Hannah in her work-out gear. This outfit is her tribute to 80's aerobics instructors. :)

eat your heart out, Jane Fonda.

if only she had matching leg warmers...

Matinee

Micah went to his first movie in the theater!  Meghan volunteered to watch the babies so I could take the older boys to see "Winnie the Pooh".  The most entertaining part for me was watching them trying to get comfortable on the theater seats.  They were fine sitting on the front edge, but if they tried to scoot back, the front would flip up.  Ha!  It was pretty cute.  :)

Picnic

Picnic dinner at the park last night...

eating is serious business

posing for her glamour shot

"More" Video

For the past few weeks, Hannah has been working on the sign for "more" (closed fingers tapping together).  She would do it inconsistently, like when blueberries were on the line or when screaming and grunting wasn't working.  She's definitely got it now, though.  This morning I picked her up and asked her if she was hungry.  She looked at me and started signing "more"!

She has not, however, figured out how to walk yet.  She has the balance, but we can't get her to move those feet!

Cake-Taker

Over the past three and a half years, there have been several posts about the places and positions we find Micah sleeping (or not sleeping).  Today's takes the cake.

 

Waterslide

A few weeks ago I snagged a free plastic slide from a neighbor's curb. It's the perfect size for a waterslide!

eating leaves, of course

The Rest of the Weekend

Friday was beach day.  It was awesome.  Meredith drove up with the girls.  The weather was beautiful.  The kids were adorable and happy.  We all loved it.

Micah played frisbee with the waves for a very long time

me, my babies, and some random girl in a bikini

Gramme and Micah

Poppa and Hannah

Natalie

can you handle the cuteness??



Lucy and Micah wore themselves out running back and forth to the water.  The run got longer and longer as the tide went out. :)



lunch break



We speculated how many mouthfuls of sand Hannah would eat before she realized it didn't taste good.  Apparently she's not the sharpest tool in the shed.  :)  I am also not that bright - I took several pictures before I noticed that smudge on my lens.



Hannah was asleep before we started the car.



I don't remember much about the rest of that day, but I know it involved lots of sand, baths, and macaroni and cheese.

On Saturday we met Eric, Meredith, and the girls at Wanakee UMC.   My family has been involved with this church camp in many different ways for most of my life.  Saturday was the annual music camp concert, BBQ, and also the 50th anniversary celebration.  It was really fun for me to be back there and see some old friends.

Afterward, the whole family went back to my parents' house.  We did some more swimming, then went out in the motor boat.  Eric and Lucy went tubing, Poppa and I went skiing, and Micah sat in the boat worrying about going too fast and tipping too much.  :)  We ate another delicious round of seafood for dinner out on the water to bring the weekend to a wonderful close.

Our travel home on Sunday was thankfully uneventful.  Daddy picked us up from the airport, took us home, and let me take a nap.  :)

Thursday

 Poppa stayed home with Hannah on Thursday morning so that Micah, Gramme, and I could go blueberry picking.  Micah was pretty excited (he loves blueberries!).  He dutifully picked away, working on filling his bucket.
 
After a while I let him in on the secret - it's okay to taste the berries while you pick.  After getting confirmation from Gramme, he started to eat them off the bushes.  I'm not sure any more reached his bucket. 

the "fruit" of our labor

eating berries by the handful

We also did more swimming and kayaking.  Micah and Hannah enjoyed playing with Gramme and Poppa's toys.  Here they are playing the piano together.  I love Hannah's cute little feet as she stands on her tip-toes to reach.



Also on Thursday, my BFF from middle and high school came over.  Her name is Meegan, which sounds a lot like "Meghan" to Micah's ears.  I had to explain multiple times that Meghan was still in Ohio, and that Carter was not coming over to play at Gramme's house.  :)

Here's Meegan and I in 1997

We finished up the day with burgers and dogs on the grill, and Micah got to have an ice cream cone.  Ah, summer.  :)

NH Trip - the first installment

Wow.  Our trip to New Hampshire was jam-packed with fun activities!  Our trip began Wednesday morning.  While it was Hannah's first time on an airplane, Micah is an old pro.  As we swiftly made it through security, I heard another mother say to her child about Micah, "See how good he is being!"  And it was true - he was being good.  Hannah, on the other hand, was....active.  I can't complain, because all I asked was that there would be no poopy diapers or screaming.  She let out a yell now and then, but no unhappy screaming.  She just wants to move constantly and grab everything.  Thank goodness it's a short flight! (Kara, I don't know how you do it!)

playing at the Akron airport before our flight

Gramme and Sue A. picked us up from the airport and drove us up to the house.  We spent the rest of that day hanging out, swimming, and kayaking.  Then we went out for a seafood dinner - SO delicious!  Even Micah likes shrimp!  Hannah didn't get to have any seafood this time (maybe that's why she screamed so much at the restaurant!).
Micah was super-excited to go out in a boat.  There's several types to choose from, but we decided to start with a kayak.  He loved it, and so did I.  It was such a fun, sweet, peaceful time out on the water with my boy.  Sometime we (I) paddled around looking at things, and sometimes we just floated, talked, and looked at the clouds.


We also did some swimming.  It was no surprise that Hannah loved tooling around in her float, but Micah was much braver than I expected.  Don't get me wrong, he's still quite opposed to the idea of getting water on his face.  But even when he lost his footing, he still wanted to keep playing.  I'm hoping that with a little more confidence he might be ready for swimming lessons this year.

Wow.  That's a long post, and that was just Wednesday!  More to come!

Pit Stop

Life is moving fast around here.  Today is just a quick pit stop between adventures to do laundry and repack.  On Friday, we met Nana and Grandpapa in Cincinnati to have lunch and pass off the kids.  Shockingly, Micah had no problem with us leaving him for two nights!  The kid cries when I go to the store and for 25 other ridiculous reasons, but he happily climbed in his grandparents' car and was ready to go.  Hooray! 

Meanwhile, Scott and I continued on to Kentucky Speedway.  Scott had a business meeting with a man who owns a Nascar team, so he invited us to join him at a race.  (Insert Kentucky, Nascar, and redneck jokes here.)  It was a long afternoon, but it was pretty cool to be "behind the scenes".  We got to hang out with the drivers and their crews, then watch the race sitting right behind pit road!  How close were we?  Well, here's a video of a pit stop during the race.  I stood next to the team's gas cans to film it.  (Oh, and for those of you who actually watch Nascar, the reason this stop took so long was that one of the gas canisters malfunctioned.)

We left about halfway through the race to continue on to Lexington, Kentucky.  We had a glorious night of sleep, waking up to the sun instead of an alarm or a crying baby.  We spent the day just enjoying the freedom, then went to a friend's wedding that night.  I'm not going to make any hill-billy jokes, but I will say that someone there was wearing bib overalls.

The next morning we drove to Indy to spend a little time with the family and collect our children.  Micah had done really well all weekend.  Hannah was a bit more challenging, but we'll blame it on teething, travel making her tired, and a distaste for formula.   Here's a clip from Aunt Laurie's blog and a few pictures from Nana's camera.

Monday morning we stopped at Tom Raper RV for another business meeting, then continued to the Columbus Zoo.  Sadly, as we pulled into the parking lot of the zoo, the skies were growing dark.  We waited for a few minutes in the van to see what would happen.  A huge thunderstorm is what happened.  :(  After consulting the weather map, we decided that this storm was not going to end anytime soon.  We broke the news to Micah, who woke up Hannah with his sobs.  He was easily consoled with a movie, and the endless rain on the highway lulled Hannah back to sleep.

Where's Micah?



Like I said, today is all about laundry and repacking.  Tomorrow morning the kids and I head to New Hampshire.  If you like to pray for miracles, it would be a huge blessing for Hannah to sleep on my lap during the flight tomorrow.  But I'd settle for no screaming and no poopy diapers.  :)