Watercountry USA 2012

We are heading to Florida tomorrow! Unfortunately, George isn't able to come with us because he's working almost every day this coming week. Bummer.

Since he had a day off Monday, we decided to take a day trip to our favorite water park!

We went last year and had a great, great time! It was awesome Jude got to ride most of the rides with us. I know Cole is only 6 months old, but I was hopeful he'd get to have a little fun, too. When we got there, we asked the lifeguards if Cole would be allowed to ride in the family raft rides with us. They said as long as he wore a life jacket and could sit next to us, he was good to go. Sweet!

Here is the video of our very first ride of the day!

(Okay...tried to upload, but Blogger must be having a bad day. I'll post it as soon as I can!)

I love that Cole just took it all in. He wasn't upset by the water, but it wasn't necessarily smile-worthy either. Love having a chill baby.

It was a perfect day for it. Not too hot, but hot enough that the water felt wonderful. It was threatening to rain for part of the day which worked in our favor. The lines, even at the hottest part of the day, were fairly short. 

Waiting in line.

This was the look on Cole's face most of the day. 

I love looking down at Cole and seeing this. It's just precious to me. Cute little cheeks with his long eye lashes. Love it!

Waiting is hard to do.

On another raft ride. Poor baby. He was such a good sport!

While Cole did this...

...George took the older boys on a couple rides. 

 George came and relieved me, so I went back and took a video of them riding this ride. I think this was Jude's favorite ride because at the end he kept asking to go again.

 

Watercountry USA has an awesome lazy river. It flows pretty fast and with a life jacket on, you can float away half your day.

Lance is learning that age does in fact bring privileges and was able to float around the river by himself while I waited with the little boys for George to bring us back some lunch. 

 Jude loved floating on his little "boat" we made him out of a huge life vest.

Cole loves the water. You can't really tell in this picture, but when he's in the water, he kicks and splashes and is just beside himself with glee.

Lance and I went on a couple rides, just the two of us. This one with the green inner tubes was one of his favorites. While we were walking back to the family, he said, "this was nice, Mom, to just be with you." It was nice, Lance. I love being with you.

Love it!

Ready for take-off!

We parked our stroller at a little kiddy pool and while I was off with Lance and Jude doing rides, George played with Cole.

Like I said, Cole LOVES the water.

George and Lance making the last run of the day before we called it quits.

Lance is hitting the water on the left.

It was a great day! The boys got some candy from the store and we hit up Sonic on our way out of town for dinner. It was so fun to be there together as a family. I'm glad we got to do something fun with George. We'll miss you in Florida!

Mud, planking, and friends

 During the summer, Lance gets to spend four weeks with his dad (broken up and taken here and there). Last week was one of them. Jude and Cole and I tried to stay busy while George was at work.

One day we went to Michaels and did their daily craft with some friends. Jude was much more interested in washing his hands multiple times than gluing feathers on a mask, but when he saw the glitter paint, he put the soap down.

Squeeze!

Nice!

It rained one day and of course Jude managed to find the puddles at the park.

It wasn't a big deal, but I was sad he got his brand new Spiderman shoes wet and dirty. He had picked them out himself at the store and now always requests to wear them wherever we go.

Such a boy!

Jude's noise level personality has skyrocketed and he is simply hysterical. He is constantly bouncing off the walls and yelling happily while saying the funniest things. Here is just a glimpse of the little imp that lives inside our sweet Jude:

I think my favorite thing he says now is "you're better than that!" He'll say that to me when I do something he doesn't like. Ha! 

He's also started to do the "but why, Mom? But why?" whenever I ask him to do something. When he's about to be in trouble, he'll often counter and say, "No, I a good boy!" or "But I love you!"

 One night we were trying to get Jude to go to sleep and George laid down next to him. It was too much for Jude and he promptly took his pillow and put it on top of George's head, laughed, told George he was a "sandwich" and pretended to eat him. We couldn't stop laughing.

One of my all-time favorite things he does right now is he's always always super excited when George or I have been gone for even a few minutes and we come home. He'll run up to us yelling "you came back! you came back! I love you!" and give us a big hug. This can go on for a few minutes. He'll start playing with something and then turn around, realize we were gone but are back and give us a hug and yell again, "you came back!" I'm going to be sad when this phase ends. It's good to be loved loud and often!

I love this picture. It's so Jude. Bare feet and muddy, trotting back to our house after playing outside, looking for a snack.

Popsicles. Jude's all-time favorite snack, night or day. Well, maybe it's tied with fruit snacks. Maybe. 

How can you tell a baby is mobile?

Probably when he has to take a nap like this. (Don't worry, he was breathing!)

Cole has started scooting! He's been trying to crawl for a couple weeks now and hasn't quite figured it out, but he's got the right idea.

Baby push-ups!

He gets his knees under him and starts rocking back and forth, trying to figure out where to go from there. He's figured out that if he falls forward, he moves an inch or two. That's where we are now. He's not fast, but he can roll and inch his way across the floor before you realize it.

Good job, Cole! It's a bit nice that he's a little more mobile because it is much more entertaining for him and he's content to spend a while on the floor exploring everything he can reach.

This past Saturday we met up with some old friends from George's undergrad years at Short Pump for dinner.

Matt and Lindsey with Eric, Elliott and Trygve. It was great to see them again and catch up a bit on their lives. They live so close--Richmond--but with everyone busy in school and work it's rare that we are able to get together. I'm so glad it worked out!

Jude's favorite part of the trip? 

Probably the ice cream, rivaled only by the girl washing windows at Cold Stone. She had a little shadow for a solid 5 minutes. 

(Keep scrolling down to see more updates!)

Summer--every single moment is worth it's weight in gold

I feel like the summer is flying past. It's August already. Where did the summer go? Now that Lance is in school, I'm starting to feel the crunch time and there seems to be this sense of urgency to pack in as much "summer" as we can.

Most days when we're in Charlottesville are spent at home. Lance and Jude love the show Phineas and Ferb and thanks to Netflix, there is a seemingly endless supply of episodes to help bridge the gaps between activities or to just relax a bit on a hot day. We do try to stay busy and enjoy the down time. Here are a few things we've done in the past few weeks:

Killian and Kendall turned 7! They had a fun Birthday party in their backyard that we got to attend.

The boys got to paint wooden animals. Lance picked a snake and Jude picked an alligator.

The girls decorated fairy wings.

I think Jude spent 30 seconds painting his alligator (which surprised me) and put down the brush to admire...

...the Birthday cakes! He and Bennett could not leave the cakes alone and kept coming back to drool over those tasty-looking cupcakes. Good thing they were covered or there might not have been any left for anyone else!

I love that the moms end up taking over for the kids after a while.

Working hard.

Jamie and Allison finishing their boys' snakes.

Lance checking out the girls' project.

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Oh my goodness. Do you know about these? Lance saw a Slushi Magic on an infomercial a few months ago and has been begging to get one ever since! He was so jealous that Killian and Kendall both got one for their Birthday. I think I know what Lance will be getting come September. Infomercials--you win again!


Our hammock continues to be a magnet for the kids and most days it isn't empty for long before little bodies cram inside and beg for someone to swing them. I have on occasion gotten a few peaceful minutes to myself swinging in the shade or cuddling with my boys. It's no wonder the kids love it.

Jude with his buddies.

I have been wanting to see the new movie Brave with the boys ever since it came out, and we even went as a family with our neighbors one day to catch a matinee, but as luck would have it, they were sold out. We got tickets to the new Spiderman movie which would have been okay except Cole kept making noise, all Jude wanted to do was play with the little lights in the aisles and, to top it all off, when the Lizard monster appeared for the first time, Lance was so scared he literally ran out of the theater and yelled he was not going back in. So there I was with three boys in the foyer. George got our bags and we were about to leave when the manager approached us. After hearing about our movie flop, he generously refunded our tickets! Whoo!

George has been working a lot lately, so one day I took the boys by myself to see the matinee.

It was an adventure, but we made it through and even enjoyed it. The boys were as good as could be expected and while I don't think I will shoulder all three by myself in a theater again for a while, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.


They repaved most of our parking lot in front of our building and since most of the cars had to be parked about a block away, we took out our bikes and made the most of the empty parking lot.

Bennett was getting the hang of his trike.

Killian--he and Lance are speed demons on their bikes and literally rode circles around everyone else.

Short cut!

Jude has learned how to pedal and steer at the same time! He was quite proud to show off his new-found skills.

Lance, you're so fast you're just a blur!

I don't know how he manages to do it, but Jude often comes home with the world stuck to his face.

Even with a face like this, he's still stinkin' cute!


Jude has really started to try to imitate Lance in all the little things he does. Lance will say something, Jude repeats it. Lance jumps off the chair, Jude has to do it, too. I guess it's the "big brother can do no wrong" idolization. I think it's sweet, but Lance isn't a huge fan. Here is just one example of the two of them:

Lance always strips down to his skinnies inside the house and then runs around with his blanket. Jude has started doing the same thing. Lance rolls up like a hot dog in his blanket to watch TV, Jude tries really hard to roll up, too. Jude wants to be just like Lance. He's even started taking his shirt off at ever opportunity, just like Lance. I'm always worried people will see my shirtless boys and think I'm neglecting them. They had shirts on when they got up, okay! Crazy boys.

Since Lance missed the 4th of July with us, we saved some of our sparklers and Roman candles to do with him when he got home. We waited for a night when we were all together to light them.

Lance was in pyro heaven with the Roman Candles.

Jude thought the sparklers were neat.

See what I mean about no clothes?

Love it!

(Remember to keep scrolling down to see pictures from George's Birthday!)

Congratulations Der and Sarah!

The day after we celebrated George's Birthday, we got to celebrate Der's marriage! Yay! Der married a nice girl named Sarah last month and to celebrate the newlyweds took us all out to dinner at a sushi restaurant.

It was so good! I think fresh, well-made sushi may be my all-time favorite food.

Congratulations, Der and Sarah! Marriage is the best!

Afterwards, we walked to the ice cream shop a couple stores down to treat the kids to some dessert.

Jude and Bryce had a good time playing together while they waited. These guys are buddies. Bryce does such a good job with Jude--always patient and kind.

Pure joy. One of these days Jude will figure out how to actually eat his food instead of wearing it, but until then, I'm going to enjoy this. I can't think of many things sweeter than this happy face.