This one's for the Grandparents

Both sets of grandparents live far away, so I thought I would post some pictures and video.

Ride'em cowgirl. I love getting the girls in the bath together. Way too cute!


Madeline is constantly smiling now. Love it!!

Family day at the Maritime Museum

Erie has a fabulous Maritime museum complete with a replica of the USS Brig Niagara. During the war of 1812 the Niagara fought alongside some other US ships against the British on Lake Erie and apparently the Brig Niagara saved the day and captured a whole fleet of British ships. Erie is pretty proud of it's naval history and about 20 years ago re-built the entire brig, just the way it would have looked in 1812. It even has some wood from the original Niagara.
A few weeks ago the museum had a family day so we all went. It was pretty cool. There were people in costumes re-enacting events that would have taken place on the brig. David was REALLY into it and said that if we lived here he would like to become a volunteer at the museum.
Here are some highlights from the day:


Fishing

Making sailor hats

That's Captain Payne to you!


Learning about sailing.


Touring the Brig


We stayed late to see a puppet show. Little did we know John McCain would be there.


Gigi even got a coupon for free fries.

The Beach

One of the great things about Erie is the beach. Lake Erie is only 10 minutes away from our house. We feel so spoiled living here. Last night we had our family pictures taken at the beach from a great local photographer. Hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures. In the meantime here are some shots from a couple of not so local photographers :)


Can't wait to get to the water!


All decked out in pink.


Gigi put me to work right away to construct a sand castle...well, sand mound anyway.


As a kid David always wanted to be buried in the sand, so Gigi and I helped him live out his childhood dream :) Madeline had fun eating sand and kicking him in the face in the process.


Gigi fed David grapes, complete with a little sand :)

Reading Time at the Maritime

This ship is sailing not just in Gigi's imagination. It is the Flagship Niagara, the ship Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry used in the War of 1812. It is the last of the large square-rig brigs, and I sailed on it last Saturday with the actual crew. I'll post about that another day. Tonight we had our Family Home Evening at the children's library that overlooks the bay.


Bethany read childrens books to the girls, while I got to do a photo shoot.


Gigi was obedient to the bunny's request.

And even Madeline loved it.

Madeline's growing up

On Saturday Madeline started rolling over and now she does it within seconds of being put down.


On Tuesday we took Madeline to her 4 month check up. She's doing really well. At her 2 month check-up she was only in the 10-20% for weight, but the zantac is obviously working well because she's now in the 49% for weight. WOO HOO!!
She's 13lbs 8 oz and 25 1/4 inches (86%).


It's been really fun seeing Gigi and Madeline playing together. Gigi loves to play night night with Maddie and Madeline tolerates it quite well :)

Niagara Falls

A few weeks ago we took advantage of our location and traveled to Canada to see Niagara Falls. When I was a little girl our family went and I still remember riding on a huge boat to see the falls. It is one of my favorite vacation memories from my childhood so I was really excited to go back as an adult. David had never been so he was pretty excited too.
We had a fun day walking around, looking at the falls and experiencing the environment. We decided to ride the boat that takes you right up to the falls to get the full experience. While we were walking out onto the boat we somehow got herded into a crowd of teenage students on a school trip. The best thing about it was that they were all speaking french. David said they reminded him a lot of the teenagers in Italy. It was pretty funny. It really made me feel old!
Gigi and David got to have the whole experience on the boat. David took Gigi right up front so the water could splash all around her. Unfortunately, Madeline decided as soon as we got onto the boat the she was hungry, so I could only experience the falls in one position :)
The day went smoothly except for 2 minor things: 1. Our GPS system didn't work in Canada, so of course we got lost a few times (hopefully one of our kids will have a good sense of direction to help us out). 2. When we left I broke the cardinal rule (don't ever put anything on the roof of our car) by putting Gigi's jacket up there, forgot about it and of course lost it.
Oh well it was all worth it to see the most spectacular falls ever!

The day started off by applying huge quantities of sunblock to everyone. I sure love having transparent skin! I had to take this picture. Isn't that so sweet- I love seeing my husband taking care of our kids.

It was so neat to be so close to the falls. It was a pretty hot day, but the mist from the falls made it perfect!

Isn't it great seeing everyone in blue plastic bags? I think it's pretty funny that they gave me a plastic bag to put over my baby. Luckily she survived.


Poor David- he has a baby in one arm and my purse in his other.

Erie

About 3 weeks ago we moved from Philly to Erie for the summer. Finding a place to live was quite a challenge and in the end the firm that David is working for had to step in to find us a place. Because of this I was a little nervous that our place would be a dump. Especially after the gas company wouldn't hook up our gas because previous tenants didn't pay their gas bill.
After driving for 7 hours we arrived at our home. We LOVE it!! It is much more spacious than our little apartment in Philadelphia. We can park right outside and walk in without going through 3 door and 2 flights of stairs. There is a big hill next to us that Gigi loves to roll down. It feels like a little paradise. When we arrived there were huge bushes full of pink flowers. It couldn't be better. We feel SO blessed to have gotten such a great place. Just another small miracle that Heavenly Father has blessed us with :)
We have space so if anyone wants to take a random trip to Erie we would love to see you!!
A few photos of our townhome:




David's job is great too. David works from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. I haven't had this much time with him since we were dating. It is fantastic!! The girls are really getting used to having him around too. David is also excited that he is able to do actual legal work instead of just random research.
We even found a gym that has babysitting so after dropping David off at work I can go and work out and have the girls watched over for a little bit.
We are enjoying our summer and can't believe that it is almost a third over.

3 months and walking

Forgot to mention

I forgot to mention a few things:

Gigi update- I took Gigi to the allergist after her little blown up face incident. She is acutally not allergic to shellfish. I'm pretty relieved, but the bad news is that they don't really know what she's allergic to. Most likely it was a hot pepper that was in a sandwich that she ate that day, but they really don't know and aren't able to do a test to find out. Hopefully we'll never have to find out, but just in case we now own an epi pen.

Madeline update- We finally started Madeline on zantac for her reflux. She is doing so much better. She usually only throws up a few times a week now and hardly ever cries from pain. She still has a sad little cough from the acid buildup, but that seems to be the worst of it. In other Maddie news- she rolled over for the first time yesterday and slept 10 hours in a row last night. HOOOORRRRAAAAYYYYY!!!!!! I am such a happy lady :)

I wanted to mention one last thing that we did in Philadelphia before we left. Last August when we first moved to Philly we went to see the historic sites downtown. Gigi really wanted to go on a carriage ride, but because they are so expensive we said no. She responded by saying, "probably for my birthday we can ride one." We figured this was fair so we said yes. To keep our promise we took her downtown to go on one. We let her pick out which one she wanted to ride on and it was pretty funny. They have a whole block of carriages all lined up with people trying to entice you to ride theirs. She walked up and down this block a few times. All of the carriage operaters were really trying to entice her to pick them. She finally picked this nice lady who kept complementing her on her beautiful dress and hair. In the end I think David and I enjoyed the ride more than Gigi, but all in all it was quite a fun little outing.

Gotta love her hair. After the carriage ride she let Gigi feed the horse a carrot. The carrot was gigantic!!

All of us on the carriage

Gigi's 3rd Birthday

While we were in Illinois Gigi turned 3 so I decided to have a little party for her. The Peterson's not only let me and my girls stay in their home, but they also hosted the party. They are pretty great I must say!
It was basically just family. Last year I went a little overboard on her party, so this year I didn't do much. I asked Gigi what kind of a party she wanted and she said "pink". It made it pretty easy. We had a pancake breakfast, complete with Pink syrup(thanks Amy, you are so creative!)and played a few games. It was all really fun.


pink syrup
The kids: Hazel, Clarissa, Asher, Daphne, Gigi and Aedan


playing some games.

Pink cake (Thanks Tiff for your help with the cake, as usual!)


opening presents. Thank you all for the fabulous presents!!

Gigi really wanted a bike for her birthday so we got her one, but she had to wait until she got home to get it. We arrived home at 1am and she was still awake (with no nap). She immediately wanted to go inside to see her bike :)

"sharing" with Madeline
Neal, Jackie and Aedan
Alex with Maddie
Alex, Candy and KatieGigi, Tiff, Hazel, Asher, Aedan and Daphne

Gigi had so much fun that she is already planning her next birthday party.

Illinois

After troubleshooting with a guy from Verizon for 3 1/2 hours on Friday we finally have our internet hooked up!! It's good to be back :) I'm going to try to get caught up with recent events quickly.

Back in April/beginning of May Candy and I took a trip out to Illinois to visit family and friends. We were gone for a week, while David had finals. The girls were troopers. We had a few 15 hour long days in the car, including stops, but it was well worth it. Madeline left her mark in a few small towns along the way, thanks acid reflux :(

I know it's gross, but come on...it's a little funny right?

We definitely could not have done it without aunt Candy. She helped us in every way and as always, I owe her big!!

First we drove to St. Louis and stayed with Candy's old friend, Agota. She has a beautiful home. It was really fun admiring everything in it. The next day we spent some time seeing a few sights in St. Louis.

Gigi with Agota

When David and I were living in Illinois we would go to St. Louis almost every month to go to the temple, but we never had time to see anything so it was really fun to just drive around the city. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with St. Louis. Right in the middle of downtown they have a great big park, complete with a giant duck pond and quite a few museums. We met up with an old friend from work and her son and spent some time in the science museum. It was so fun seeing Shannon again and it was great to meet her son Owen. The museum was pretty cool and the best part was the price...free. You've gotta love a city that makes all of their greatest attractions free. Pretty cool!!

Gigi with Shannon and her son Owen after building "the arch"

While we were at the museum we noticed that they had a build a bear shop. I never really thought I would get Gigi one, but she was so excited about it I decided to give her an early birthday present. She LOVED it!!!! Right now her favorite thing is the color pink, so naturally she chose the only pink animal- a monkey and dressed her in more pink. It is a little blinding to look at the monkey for long periods of time :)
She loved giving the monkey his bath and carried her around everywhere in her little house.


Then we drove to Champaign/Urbana and stayed there for 4 days. The night we pulled into the complex Gigi got really excited and exclaimed, "Oh I remember this place!!" Candy stayed with Eph and Amy and their kids and I stayed with some of our really good friends, the Petersons. We didn't really do a lot in Illinois,other than visit with family/friends, but the time flew by. It was SOOO great seeing friends and family. We have really missed them. Gigi and I really missed living in Winfield Village. I walked by our old townhome and just felt a little sad. Gigi loved playing on the playground again and I was amazed at how well she remembered the place. She really loved seeing her friends/cousins again. It was awesome to see that they all remembered each other.
Here are a bunch of random shots:
Maddie with Candy
Quinn and Tiffany Peterson with Madeline. Our wonderful hosts!!!
Eph with Madeline
Gigi and Asher
Bethany with my kindred spirit, Boomhauer
Amy with her 2 cute girls, Hazel and Daphne
Alex, Katie and Gigi
Gigi and Daphne
Eph holding Madeline, Gigi and Hazel at a great mexican restaurant. Man I sure miss good mexican food!!
Jackie with Madeline. Maddie sure loved Jackie.
Gigi and Clarissa. Aren't they cute?
Bethany with Madeline

Gigi with Katie and their pets, Lola, Lucy and Reuben

Thank you everyone that took time out to visit with us. We loved our trip and already miss you all terribly!!!