And Brooke is 4

Brooke had lots of birthday celebrations this year, one at the cottage, one at home & one at daycare! I think between them all we made her feel special.  Her stats from the doctor's office (beside a very good bill of health) 32.8 lbs (31%) and 37.5" (8%).  I guess she is still a munkin.  Wondering when Tyler will pass her in height!

Here are her "official" sign pictures from the day.

Since we already did birthday cake at the cottage she said she was ok with ice cream, sprinkles, and candles.  Tyler wanted to practice blowing out candles, so gave him two as well.  Plus since Grandma B., was up for the weekend helping to ease the pain after Nick's bike accident we had one more person to celebrate with, and Tyler got to open his new bike!

Speaking of Grandma B. (Nick's mom), we are still trying to figure out how she managed to cut the grass, clean the whole house, go shopping, and have dinner ready when we got home from work!  Talk about a nice present for Nick & I.  We are so blessed. 

Brooke & Tyler also got to try to sleep in the same room for the first time.  It worked for the first few hours, and then not sure if Tyler fell out of bed, or just woke up.  Regardless he was quickly carried out of the room before his crying woke Brooke.  We will try again another day!

Family Cottage Getaway!

The first week in July was spent celebrating the wonderful summer at the family cottage!  I tried really hard to cut down the number of pictures to post, but these kids are just too cute.  The cottage isn't huge, but has a total of 4 double bed rooms, 1 bunk bed room, a basement room with a hide-a bed, and loft.  Some how we managed between the week with people coming & going to have a total of 7 kids (4 yrs & under), and 12 adults!  It was a crazy good time.  I caugh up on my sleep a little, meaning I didn't have to get out of bed until around 9:00 a.m., but was still being woken up around 4-5 times each night.  O'well!

I will try to point out some of the fun adventures in each of the sets of pictures!  Here is a summary of everyone at the cottage. 

* Aunt Pat & Uncle Carr - Only overlapped for the first day

*Aunt Donna, Uncle Jerry 

*Cousin Beth and her two kids (Edi - 3, Thomas - 15 months)

* Cousins Breanna & Mike

* Little Sister, and her two kids (Emi - 4, Clayton - 2)

* My mom & dad

The vacation started by celebrating my Aunt Pat's birthday, with our favorite turtle ice cream cake.  The next day was then spent at the beach & park. 

The traditional bath in the kitchen sink for Nathan! Plus a camp fire to roast hotdogs and some-mores!  Got to love the "balance I had going".  Baby strapped to the front, beer cooler on the back!

Here is a good grouping of 6 out of 7 kids in the bottom pictures! (Nathan excluded of course.),

Clayton, Tyler, Brooke, Emi, Edi, Thomas

Nathan celebrated his 3 month birthday at the cottage. Boy was this little guy a rockstar all week.  No real fussy spells, and just pretty much went with the flow.  Every once in a while someone would quickly ask "where's Nathan", and there he would be just hanging out in his bouncer!  (Best thing we brough with us.)  Nathan did give up on the "sleeping all the way through the night, as he now wakes about every 3-4 hours to eat again, but quickly goes back to sleep, so it isn't that big of a deal.  Also, he started taking 6 oz bottles at daycare this month, and has accomplished the milestone of rolling from his belly to his back!  Nice work buddy.

Quick visit to the Lewis farm petting zoo!  The kids had a blast.  Unfortunately, Nathan pretty much slept through the whole thing.

A canoe trip where we got to see lots, and lots of turtles!

Fourth of July parade with matching new outfits for the kids!

And back to the beach.  It rained a few days at the cottage, and the weather wasn't crazy hot, however we still managed some great beach days.  Please draw your attention to the sleeping Tyler picture (sleeping holding his squirt gun), and the bandaged Nick picture.  Nick wiped out on his bike Thursday, so unfortunately he spent the remainder of the trip at the cottage trying to heal.  Fortunately, he walked (rode) away with only some road rash, and pulled muscles he is now working through in physical therapy.  No broken bones!

Tyler also enjoyed being carried in the B-jorn!

We finished the week off well with an early 4 year birthday party for Miss Brooke!  A homemade birthday cake with No Egg!

And finally, I think these last few pictures are a good closing on this post.  It really is this peaceful at the cottage.  (Minus the noise of 7 kids 4 yrs and younger.)

404....

404…besides just being a fun number.  It’s the number of pictures that were down loaded off the camera tonight since my last blog update June 18^th.  So I used my 30 minutes of “free” time this evening to down load pictures, sort them, and put them in grouping to be ready for a blog update today.  (Plus I stole an hour of my time I am supposed to be using for sleep. ) I am also using some of my “free” time at work, when I am making Nathan’s lunch to update the blog, since I don’t take a lunch break anymore.  I am not noting all this free time to complain, but more voice my excuse for not getting updates to the blog earlier!  I am just glad to be getting in a quick update before it’s recorded of being a month since the last one!

This post will be a quick recap / finishing of the month of June.

Tyler's fun 23 month pictures!  Tyler continues to win the prize of the best sleeper in the house.  (Outside of Shelly of course.)  Knock on wood, he goes down without much of a fight, and will normally sleep all the way through the night. (~8:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.)  Also, he is still logging a pretty solid 2 hr nap during the day.  If he does wake in the middle normally a little drink of water, and a back rub will put him back pretty quickly.  Got to love his "Auntie Lea" outfit for the pictures.

The second to last weekend in June was spent at the Toledo zoo.  The zoo had a TON of babies this visit.  Below are just a few of them, with circles to insure they aren't missed.  It was a hot visit, but still a lot of fun!

Just a few random pictures (Wordless Wednesday?) from the end of the month.  Brooke still asks all the time to hold Nathan, which continues to be priceless.  Also, I caught Tyler "fixing" Brooke princess house for her.  What a nice guy!  Also, looks like Brooke got the "fix it" bug as she was working on her car.

And the month of June was marked as complete with Nick & my 9 year anniversary!  We actually have been together since the fall of 2000, which mean in 2020 I will have spent exactly half my life with this wonderful guy :)  Tyler gets the award of being the "less than excited one" for these pictures.  Never let my boys get hungry is all I have to say!