Busy, Busy

Hello everyone. We've had a busy week, and it has been made even busier by our need to watch as much of the Olympics as possible! I think we're all a little sleep deprived from Michael Phelps' quest for eight medals. Meanwhile Katie has been having a blast playing with the new neighbors across the street as well as her friend Miranda. The girls are quite busy riding bikes and running from one house to the next. Friday night the girls made s'mores at the neighbors house, so Katie got to stay out until after dark.

Saturday morning we had Caroline's 2-year-old portraits taken and it was the usual adventure. She was engaged for the first part of it, but then they wanted us to switch to a different studio (for different backgrounds) and had to wait, which pretty much used up the rest of Caroline's attention span. Unfortunately, her genuine smiles came along with the "beach motif" so despite my preference for plain and simple backgrounds and a minimum of props, Caroline at age 2 will be forever documented "on the beach". The primary photo that we selected is a close up version of this, but this one was so cute and funny that I bought a sheet of this pose as well.
After the photo shoot, Jamie took Caroline with him to the gym and Katie and I went to the mall to shop for a friend's birthday gift. We also managed to find a few pairs of fall shoes for ourselves, which Caroline enjoyed trying on when we returned home

That afternoon Katie had a birthday party for her friend Chloe and I went along to help out. She had a ton of fun and got a lot of energy out. We came home and had a quick dinner and then got to work on a special art project.

My Rotary Club is hosting an exchange student from Belgium this school year and Katie and I went to the aiport to be part of the welcoming group. Before we left the house we made a big sign for her and Katie was very excited to meet her. Once we arrived Katie was kind of shy, but I think it was good to have a kid along to break the ice. The student, named Florence, will spend her first couple of months at someone's house who lives nearby, so we're figuring out if we can have her join us for any fun family activities.

When we returned from the airport Katie and the neighbors were back in action until dark once again- which is coming earlier and earlier these days. They were having so much fun that we let her stay out later than we had planned-- fall will be here soon enough.


Sunday I had my company golf outing, so the girls had a Daddy Day. They hit the grocery store and the water park-- and even managed to find my team on the golf course and watch us tee off on one hole. Thankfully Caroline's prediction of "Mommy water" did not come true. While we were waiting to tee off Caroline climbed right into my golf cart and was ready to take off like she has gotten to do at Grandma and Poppy's house. Katie asked me to grab the key and said "she's going to drive away!"

Once the golf was over, we switched over to a Mommy Night, as Jamie was invited to the Bengals game Sunday evening. Caroline finally got to play with her new Aqua Doodle toy that she received for her birthday and I am thrilled to report that it kept her interest for 20+ minutes and is not messy, loud or annoying at all. The only issue was that Lily wanted to lay on the mat. (for those of you not familiar with the toy, it is a mat that comes with a pen that you fill with water and the mat turns blue where it gets wet, so it is like coloring with a marker, but not messy. The marks disappear when it dries).


The girls helped me make dinner, which included some veggies and herbs that we picked from the garden. This sounds like it might have been fun, but while I was having the girls "help" me in the garden there were problems right and left-literally. Katie would try to grab my garden scissors, so I would go to stop her. Meanwhile, Caroline was picking tomatoes as fast as she could- red, orange, green- our crops took a bit of a hit! And then I turned back and found Lily walking in the garden sniffing along, so I got her out without trampling the plants. Then Caroline had grabbed my glass bowl and dumped the herbs out . . . and so it went!

But we finally got dinner made and then enjoyed a yummy banana split cake for dessert. Caroline was sure she didn't want any because she wants "ice cweam" every night. But once she tasted it she came around and even had seconds.

Before I sign off, Jamie just reminded me to share about Katie's movie quoting. I think I reported earlier that she was repeating a line from the Bee Movie ("it's a little gusty out there today guys"), well now she can repeat whole sections. And if you watch it with her she recites it along with the movie- in many cases repeating words that she doesn't even know. For example, there is a scene where the bees are graduating from college and she says "Welcome faculty and staff" and even mimics the characters deep voice- it's quite entertaining, at least for now!