Flowers and ice cream cakes

July 12th saw us up in Ashburn to celebrate Grandmom and George's Birthdays. We had spent the day before at Water Country with the Glass family, something Allen had been wanting to do before he left for his 9-week program he's attending this summer. It rained almost the whole time we were there! It made for short lines, but it got cold pretty quick. Callie and Bryce came with Jen and Eric too! It was fun to be there with them and for the kids to ride some slides together.

I know this day is supposed to be about George and Grandmom, but I couldn't resist taking these pictures of Lily while we waited to do dinner and cake.

Love love love that sweet smile.

This girl loves flowers. We spent a good 30 minutes in the backyard looking at all of Grandmom's different flowers.

After a delicious dinner at Nagoya's, it was cake time! As per George's request, we got them ice cream cakes.

"Happy Birthday to you!"

Jude--always willing to step in and help out.

My videographer. Thanks, Lance!

Later that night before heading back to Charlottesville, we stopped by to see my Mom, Glenn, Jason and Amy. Lance is still loving his newfound Cribbage skills and Grandma was more than happy to play him a game.

What are the odds? Lance and Grandma got the exact same hand. 

Nice!

On the 14th back in Charlottesville, we all went to dinner at ZinBurger to celebrate George's Birthday

Restaurants are always interesting with kids. See the look on George's face? You can tell we've just about had it. :)

Happy, happy Birthday Mom and George!

Cub Scout River Regatta

July 10th was the Annual Cub Scout River Regatta. It was held at the Schill's beautiful home and was so fun! George was working (of course) so I ventured out with all four kiddos.

They all thought the river was awesome.

Lily was convinced she didn't need help on the slippery rocks and insisted on walking in the water all by herself. She is spunky, this one!

The coolest part was the bridge that went over the river. Cole decided it was the perfect place to watch the race!

Before the race started, they had extra blocks they were letting the siblings decorate to race. Jude dubbed his "Animal". 

They ran a series of heats. I think each boat got to race 3 or 4 times.

Walking behind his boat...

I can see Jude's!

Grandpa Bob came out! I wanted to get a better picture of them all together, but forgot to ask, so all I have his this creeper shot I took.

Lance won two medals! He placed first in one race and second in another! Way to go Lance!

Good thing I brought dry clothes for the kids. Next year I just need to have them wear their swimsuits!

It's Independence Day!

July 1st was George's first official day as an Attending! He was scheduled to work the night shift of the 4th up in Culpeper, a small city about a hour north of us, so we decided to watch the fireworks in Culpeper so we could all be together.

Walking to the park:

It was a cute little park with food trucks and a pretty fountain. After being at Ida Lee in Leesburg for the past couple years, it was nice to be somewhere a little less crowded.

We grabbed some dinner and waited for the fireworks to start.

George told the kids the history of the 4th of July and why it's important. Cole wasn't too interested, but Jude thought it was pretty neat.

Silly Jude.

Smile, Lily! Nice.

Watching a balloon fly away.

The kids had a fun time running around the field. Jude thought it was great fun to run up and shove Cole and Lily down. I wasn't convinced it was such a great game, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

It's about to start!

Loving on Daddy. So glad he was able to be there with us.

This looks familiar...

Flashback: Jude is about 5 months old. :)

Love it!

Fireworks!

After the fireworks ended, we walked back to our car and said good-bye to George who went straight to work to care for all the people who would party a little too hard that night. The kiddos and I went home to bed.

Lance spent the holiday with his Dad, Abbey and some other family members that came into town. They were blessing Madison that weekend, so Bob and Kari flew out while Scott's brother Pete drove up from Norfolk with his cute, very pregnant wife Jessica and their two boys Parker and Austin.

They had their own fireworks at home.

I stole a couple pictures from Jessica's facebook feed of their time that weekend. They went to Sakura, the local Hibachi grill...

...and had snuggle time with the newest cousin. 

Jessica gave birth to her third son a little over a week later!

Happy 4th of July!

Lily--18 months old

At 18 months:
Height: 29.5 inches (2%)
Weight: 19 lbs, 7.5 oz. (10%)
Head is around 50%

She is tiny. To put it in perspective, she's gained three inches and less than three pounds since she was 9 months old. She is tiny and I love it. We get comments all the time about how small she is, especially when people see her running around. “Isn’t she too young for that?” Nope, she’s just a peanut.

Lily is finally some molars! After spending about 6 months with four teeth, she’s finally filling in her mouth.  (At the time of posting, she officially has 6 teeth—4 on top, two on bottom—with a couple molars cutting through. Woo!) Not that having mostly gums has stopped her from eating. She can eat most anything, her favorite foods being crackers, fruit snacks, blueberries, strawberries, cheese and meat. She really likes meat.

She has a large vocabulary. Some of my favorite words she says are dog, hot, Da Da, Ma Ma, thank you, cracker (“craka”) , banana (“nana”), gorilla (“lilla”), all done, and elbow. She also knows many of her body parts (eyes, ears, mouth, nose, tongue, hair, head, toes, hands) and recently learned elbow, eyebrow and knee. Every day she surprises us with new words. I love this stage. She is even starting to string words together: "Hi Mama." She is a chatterbox at home but is fairly shy at other places. We've been attending the same gym for the last 8 months and until a few weeks ago, the people there had no idea she could talk.

Lily LOVES music. Loves it. The boys will be watching TV and she’ll walk over to the sound system, turn it to the radio (yes, she knows how to do that!) and will start jamming to the music. It. Is. Hysterical. She loves to dance and will start wiggling around whenever she hears music. Her favorite songs we sing right now are The ABC’s, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Little Bunny Foo Foo. She can do some of the motions for the spider song and anytime she has a bunny in her hands, she starts hopping it around and trying to sing the Foo Foo song. She also tries to sing the alphabet song and does a good job following the tune.

She knows what letters are. No, she doesn’t know their names, but she knows they make individual sounds. Whenever she sees a word on a shirt or letters on a box, she’ll point to them and start making sounds as she points to each letter. Floored. It must be a girl thing as my boys have never been so interested in letters. I’m seriously considering trying to teach her the actual names and sounds of each one since she’s clearly interested.

She is giggly! She cracks herself up and when she laughs really hard, she sounds like a lamb. Since she was a baby, her laughs and cries have this bleating to them that’s hard to explain, but something I don’t want to forget.

Lily loves her brothers. She wants to be right there in the thick of things—sitting next to them on the computer chair, playing with their toys, running around chasing the dog. They’re not always a fan of her constant company, but the boys love her right back and think she’s the cutest thing ever. Jude especially tries to involve her in most things and can be found carrying her around. Even Lance, who isn’t a huge fan of little kids, thinks Lily is sweet and will love on her all the time. Cole used to be the one to snuggle her and croon, “she’s so cute!”, but now that she’s older and able to get into his things, he’s not so sure. Lily will purposely pick on Cole and sneak in while he’s playing trains and ruin his carefully laid track or steal his trains, so I can see where Cole might think she’s more of a menace than a princess.

She is a firecracker. There is so much energy and personality in her tiny body. Lily is not one to be pushed around and if she thinks someone is taking her toy or doing her wrong, she will let you know. Loudly. She is squealy and squeaky and completely adorable. Except when she hits other kids. Yeah, that’s not so adorable. I’m crossing my fingers that phase passes soon.

She is such a girl. Oh, she loves to play in the mud with her brothers and roll around with Bender, but she gravitates toward pink, sparkles, stuffed animals, and shoes. Yes, shoes. She loves shoes and will bring me her favorite ones to put on all the time—cute little loafers with a large pink flower on top.

George is totally whipped by this tiny girl. I love watching them interact. Lily loves her Daddy, too, and is always so excited to see him when he comes home or in the morning when I bring her to bed to snuggle for a bit before we begin our day. She's so heartbreakingly sweet, squishy and huggable it hurts.

To say we love Lily doesn't do it justice. We adore her. We all do. From her squeal to her long eyelashes, it's hard to believe so much cute can be contained in such a small person. We are loving watching her personality unfold. She's a joker like her Dad and loves to be silly. We cannot get enough of this baby. I wish I could bottle up this time, maybe pause it for a bit and enjoy every second I can get. This age has always been my favorite with all the kids: they learn new things every day and are your little shadow. They still think you're the most amazing thing in the world and their unconditional love is a balm that heals all wounds life inflicts. A home isn't a home without a toddler running around and we are loving our fourth venture into this phase. 

Please don't grow too fast, Lily. Stay little for a bit longer...

Cole--3 1/2 years old

February (right at 3 years old):

Height: 38 inches
Weight: 34 lbs

This kiddo will probably be our tallest boy. He's growing like a weed, already gaining 2 inches since February. He's taller than both Lance and Jude at the same age and solid as a rock. Seriously. We've been trying to teach him to swim this summer and he doesn't float. I don't think he can. He jumps in and stays on the bottom. It's the craziest thing.

Cole is our thoughtful child. Most of his day is spent in his room playing quietly with toys, usually trains. I always feel like I neglect him because he entertains himself so easily and doesn't require much attention. He used to be our most laid back, happy child, but ever since he turned three, he's become much more moody. I don't know why people complain about the "terrible twos". Threes are much, much worse.

He's very sensitive to correction. If he thinks he's in trouble he falls to pieces and has a hard time regaining his composure. Even just the threat of a frown from me or George and he's instantly upset. It's made disciplining him difficult since he does need correction for occasional poor behavior, but he takes it so hard emotionally. Parenting is hard. I'm convinced that the reason older people seem so full of advice is because by the time they're experts at raising kids, their own are grown and gone and they have nothing else to do with all their wisdom except try to share it.

Cole has a smile that will light up his entire face. I LOVE it when he smiles.

He has the darkest, deepest eyes I've ever seen. They melt my heart.

Cole is a "mama's boy" to the extreme. He loves to be with me and no matter where I go, he insists on coming, even if it's running errands or just sitting in the car. I love that he's my little shadow. He is constantly trying to sit on my lap, climb on my shoulders, hold my hand, touch my face, and just be with me. Boy it makes me feel good.

If I'm upset about something, even if it's not something he did, he'll run up and say, "I'm sorry, Mama." How can you stay mad with that?

He is very good about saying "Thank you." Every time we give him something, his little voice comes back with a happy "oh, thank you!" I love it.

Cole is our only child that is attached to his things. He's been that way since he was little. He has a hard time sharing and insists on bringing his toys with him everywhere he goes. Even to bed. It used to be a pirate sword, then a blue Wonder Woman cape, then a Ninja Turtle sweatshirt. Now it's trains.

He is completely, 100%, head-over-heals in love with trains. It's all he talks about, it's all he wants to see, and it's one of the only things he points out when we're driving in the car. He is amazing at finding all the train tracks we pass and must point them out every time we pass. He loves the Thomas the Tank Engine show and knows all the characters names and numbers. He will play with his trains all day and is always pulling out all the wooden tracks and making his own paths that he'll run his trains up and down on for hours. That's not an exaggeration. He'll sit there and roll his trains for hours, changing the track here and there, maybe switching out a car or two for a different one. His attention span is incredible.

Cole is our best eater. Of course he prefers crackers, chips, fruit snacks, noodles and bread, but he also enjoys carrots, cauliflower, and corn. He'll eat bananas, grapes and other fruit, but his favorite is apples. This kid can put away an apple! Love it! He LOVES chocolate chip cookie dough and would rather eat the dough than the actually cookie. I think his favorite food right now is probably cheese. He can't get enough cheese. And water. He's not much of a milk drinker, unlike Lance and Jude.

Cole loves to color and draw. He also knows most of his letters. He may know more letters than Jude. I've never felt strongly about pre-school for kids (I always felt like it was time better spent with family at home), but Cole may be my first child that would really love and excel in a classroom at such a young age. He loves to learn and is happy to sit still for an extended period of time while he draws or paints or works on a project.

We started potty-training in February and we're almost there. He still struggles with #2 and tends to hold it for as long as possible, but there is light at the end of the tunnel and I think in another month or two I won't have to worry about accidents. I hope.

He's recently started yelling. He used to be super quiet, but in the past few months he's started this strange angry yelling, sometimes about nothing. He'll just start yelling. He balls up his little fists, makes the angriest face and yells "No!" over and over. It's happening less frequently and I'm hopeful this stage will pass quickly. Talk about toddler angst!

When he's not yelling, he's usually very quiet. He has a huge vocabulary but is and always has been conservative with his words. He enjoys quoting movies, his favorite movie right now being "The Lego Movie". He'll be heard running around saying, "Stop messing with my stuff!" (Lord Business quote) and singing "Everything is awesome!" Love it!

While he would rather play with his trains, Cole does love watching TV. His favorite shows right now are Octonauts (a family favorite with all the boys and even Lily), Wild Kratts (again, a family favorite), Thomas, and Phineas and Ferb (my personal favorite). He went through a Ninja Turtle phase and still enjoys the newest remake of the classic cartoon, but he's not as obsessed as he was. He does want to be a ninja turtle for Halloween, though, so maybe his love hasn't waned as much as I thought.

Cole brings so much joy to our family. He and Jude share a special relationship and genuinely enjoy each other's company. He and Lily are frenemies--they love each other but love to irritate each other too--and Lance does a great job being patient with Cole and helping him. I can't imagine life without our Colie Olie. I can't help but want to hug and kiss his sweet face every time I see him. He is my little buddy and I love it!