Some Pool Pics

Sorry if I'm overloading anyone's reader with all these posts. But seriously, I can't stop laughing at Grey's face in this picture and I had to share it. (Click on it to see it bigger.)

In spite of all appearances, both Charlotte and Grey love the pool. We have already spent oodles of time swimming this summer and look forward to a couple more months of good times this year.

Nevermind my kids. How awesome does the water look when captured by my new camera?!

Brownie

What could be more delicious than a gooey, chocolaty brownie chased by a glass of cold milk ... at 9:30 in the morning?

Not much!

(I especially love the little drop of milk hanging from her chin. Perfection!)

Growing Up

Playing with Fire

For Christmas, my mom gave Charlotte a set of colored lights. Since then, we have spent several hours in the pitch black of the master bedroom closet playing games with them. Charlotte calls this game "camping," as in "let's go camping, Mommy," while she closes the closet door and demands that I turn out the light. The other day, I took my new camera into our "campground" to see what it could do in the dark. The pics turned out blurry because of the long exposure time in the dark but are kind of fun to look at.

Charlotte the Friendly Ghost

Charlotte Lately

It is really hard to get Charlotte to look at the camera and smile nowadays because she is so busy living her little life now. She is two years and ten months old, a full head of hair (finally!), scared of dogs and most other animals, loves to read, color, swim, and sing, and can recite the entire "Three Little Pigs" book from memory, and has an astonishingly large vocabulary.

Favorite summer game: sliding down the slide into the little pool.

Viewing the ducks at the park. No chance I was going to get her to look at the camera.

Riding "Thomas." (All trains are called "Thomas" now.)

Reading. Look at that intense little face!

We're still working on this ...

We've been trying out some new 'dos.

Grey Lately

I finally downloaded the 1000+ pictures off of my new camera that I took in May. Here are some of the highlights of Grey's month. As you can see, he's quite grown up now. 22 lbs., 29 inches long, crawling everywhere, pulling up on stuff, playing peekaboo, and babbling all the time. And the best part: We can lay him in his crib, hand him his bottle, and he will put himself to sleep. Hurrah! (Videos of Grey crawling are coming soon, Grandparents.)

I think Grey looks so "Bybee" in this picture. Reminds me of my grandpa.

"Little Boy Blue"

Aren't those cheeks just edible? xoxoxo

Ashley's Luau Bridal Shower

A couple weekends ago, I threw a bridal shower for my beautiful sister Ashley with the help of our cousin Shelly and Ash's maid-of-honor Breanne. Since Ashley and Michael are headed to Hawaii for their honeymoon, we celebrated with a luau theme.

This beautiful cake was designed by the maid of honor.

Charlotte was very excited to get to party with the "big girls" that day.

Make-your-own favor stand courtesy of Breanne also. Charlotte thought she had died and gone to heaven.

M.O.H. Breanne, Ashley, and Shelly

My gift to the bride was a binder full of some of the best recipes in my collection, plus lots of spare plastic pages so that she can add her own to it in the future. (Creative and crafty, huh? Totally unlike me!)

Grey made a brief appearance for all his fans too.