Pool Party

I love these pictures (also stolen from Ashley!) These kids are precious. Jack calls LK "Lil' Katie" and he is very sweet to her. She was on his heels the entire visit, she LOVES him. It was so fun to see the kiddos play laugh, I only wish they saw each other more often.

Stolen

I stole these pics from my sister-in-law, Ashley. She has a new camera and some skills to go with it. My mom got the cousins some superhero PJs and they were a hit.

Breathe

I rarely post little stories but this one was too good not to share.

Yesterday was a full day, complete with my Charlotte sleeping for 30 min in place of her usual 3 hr mid-day nap. I had a Young Life meeting last night that I was scrambling to finish preparing for. Lily Kate is standing at my right hip (as usual) chattering away, "I would like-a have a diff-rint snack please, not have a 'nola bar...... I have a marsmallows?" I opened an email that I had been waiting for all day and the screen told me that it would not open because I needed to "enable macros". Maybe that makes sense to some of you, but that is Chinese to me. I sat back and said to God, "I am just so frustrated". Then I hear miss Kate, "Oh, mommy, you just have a breathe. Like this, mommy (big breathe in and out modeled by Lily Kate). She looked right at me and said "see, it's okay." It was too much for me, I was laughing and feeling tears in my eyes at the same time. Lily Kate is a child full of feelings and opinions and often struggles (as do I!) with frustration and we have been working on this slow down and breathe idea that I thought would be a better alternative than throwing her sandwich accross the room. It's hard to be 2 and have feelings and, frustrations and yet, no good words to express them. It's even hard when you do have words for the feelings! I was encouraged by my Lily Kate and I was just plain shocked that she had been listening to me all this time.

Lily Kate is stil pretty "rough & tumble". (She and her friend, Maddie were wrestling in the dirt at Parks' last softball game & laughing about it the whole time.) But, God is shaping her and developing her nurturing side. I have loved watching her with Charlotte - the way she calls her "seet baby girl" and tries to "suggle" her all the time. I am praying for her to be an encourager. Lord, thank you for that girl!

Lily Kate was begging me to let Charlotte sleep with her tonight so we settled on a 15 min cuddle time before they both went to sleep. The video below is of Charlotte's little laugh. Still, the only person she has ever laughed at is Lily Kate. Charlotte likes her best :)

My Cousin, David's Wedding in TX

David, the groom & Kathy, the mother of the groom

Charlotte with her great-grandmother (my Nana) & below cousin Scotty eating a meatball

We had a great weekend in TX. David and Heather had a beautiful & fun wedding. All of the kiddos stayed up until midnight two nights in a row and did remarkably well. Lily Kate was on Jack's heels the whole time, she thinks he hung the moon and he was incredibly patient with her. Ashley took some great pictures with her new camera so I'll need to steal some of those to document the 4 cousins playing together. Charlotte did pretty well on her first plane ride. She still doesn't sleep very well anywhere but her bed. She's a home body - too bad I'm not :) Lily Kate stuck a peanut in her nose on the plane ride home and after a couple minutes of unsuccessfully trying to remove it I was having visions of the stewardess having to ask if any one of the passengers was a doctor to remove it. No need, it came out with a few more strong blows. We made it home :)

Babies in Grass Skirts

Last night we went to the YL end of the Yr party and the theme was - you guessed it - a Luau! Charlotte wasn't too thrilled with the itchy skirt but hey, there's a price you pay for fashion. One of our leaders' mother brought her brand new puppy and Lily Kate fell in LOVE and I mean that with full emphasis. She held that puppy so many times. It was the perfect size and weight, like a little stuffed animal that licked and nuzzled - she was enamored.

Strawberry Fields

Saturday we went to pick strawberries at Lewis Farms. Ever since we have been growing vegetables in our backyard Lily Kate has been much more interested in the possibility of food growing from plants. We ran into LK's buddy, Crawford, while we were there. At first she didn't want to taste the strawberries because they "were dirty" but once she did she didn't stop. We're really trying to get a family picture where we're all looking in the same direction. Poor Charlotte, we always pick the one where she looks bad - she's too young to get a vote :)

This screaming is Charlotte's newest thing, she's found her lungs! Those of you who have spent much time with Lily Kate know that she can hit octaves so high that only dogs can hear - I'm afraid we might have another screamer :)