Family Time

Little A and I go on walks every morning, almost always with a friend. This time poor little A fell in a mud puddle. She was so excited to splash in it that she didn't notice the pile of dirt right before it. She was SO shocked! I felt so bad for her but couldn't help but laugh.

That night we had planned on playing croquet in the backyard for family night, but we got rained out. So, Allan and A cleaned up the basement, and I designed a little croquet course out of A's toys. It was so much fun! Little A especially liked crawling through the box at the end.

This is what little A does when I take a shower. We bring a bunch of toys into my room and she plays, otherwise she can't go 3 seconds without opening the shower curtain to make sure I'm still in there, lol!

Later that week little A had an ear check-up, to see if her tubes were unclogged. She did so good at the doctors, and her ears look great! No more clogged tubes! After her appointment we did a bunch of shopping. When we're in a bigger city we always stay and do any extra shopping we can. Little A was SO tired. We went to her favorite place to eat, Panda Express, but she refused to eat anything. While we were in the last store she conked out, and then slept the entire way home!

My Dad, step-mom H, Gram, and sisters got together this last week. It was so fun! It's been a while since we were able to do something like that. We are so grateful to K6's in-laws who let us use their lake cabin and boating stuff!

Dad, H, and Gram arrived Saturday night and stayed with us that night so we could all go to church the next morning. We fed everyone that night. The boys (B and J) found our room of empty boxes and used them to slide down the stairs. We got a lot of laughs out of it. K4 also slide down the stairs in the boxes because she's awesome like that! It was way too loud for our little A; all the giggling and shouting overwhelmed her, and she cried and cried. Thankfully K3 and C brought their dog with them. I took little A outside, and she forgot all about the noise as she giggled and squealed, and chased their dog. This girl sure loves dogs.

The next day we headed out to the lake to celebrate P and B's birthdays. B turned 9, and P turned 3. Little A mostly swung on the swing. I tried to get her to eat some cake, but she apparently still doesn't like cake, ha! They all stayed out at the lake that night, but we went home to get little A some rest so we could have a good day the following day.

We met everyone at the lake for breakfast, A swung on the swing again. Then we headed down to the lake to play. Little A loves the sand! She could play in it all day if I'd let her. She also loves to eat the sand. At one point I leaned down and whispered in her ear "You're not supposed to eat the sand." She then leaned over to my ear and said "Pst, pst, pst." Lol! It was darling. Between Allan and I we probably told her 50 times to not eat the sand. Poor girl had some sandy poops for a couple of days. She wasn't a fan of those. Somehow I doubt that she learned her lesson though, ha!

 Grandad and the kids had fun building castles and smashing them.

My dad and H brought their kayaks, so Allan and I took a turn on those. I loved it! I like those so much more than boats! I love the rowing, and the soft lilting of the water. Allan really liked it too. I also really like canoeing; we did a lot of that growing up.

We also took little A and cousin P out on the kayaks. They loved it!

 Everyone worked together to build a big sand castle.

The kids smashed it the next day :)

We played a game of croquet in the sand.

The daddy's took a break to be with their little girls.

 Mama got in some time with her girl too.

This handsome man went water skiing for the first time in his life! He did pretty well too. He got up, ha! He said he wasn't up long enough to really know if he enjoyed it though, lol!

What a stud!

We took little A out on the boat, and she went tubing. It's super slow of course, but she loves it! Allan and I went tubing too, but there wasn't enough people on the boat to really go fast. It was more a nice little cruise in the water. B and J also went tubing, and J tried skiing. Little A enjoyed feeding Daddy sandy cookies.

The boys and their mama's loved the 4 wheeler, especially B.

We camped out that night. It was the first time I got to try out our new cots. They were super comfy! That is the first time I've ever been camping and not woken up freezing cold and stiff as a board. I think I bundled up little A a little too much though, when I got her up the next morning she was pretty warm. She slept pretty well though, SO much better than our attempt at camping last summer.

Allan had to go to work that morning so he left around 6am. We had a nice breakfast and a little ride on the boat, A and P slept pretty much the whole time on the boat that day.

Then we got lunch, cleaned up and went home. Little A was exhausted. She slept the entire way home, including a stop at K6's house to drop off a headboard! It took her a couple of days to get back to normal after all of the fun!

They got Gram out on the boat that afternoon!

We tried to take it easy this week. Trying to get back in the potty training mode and on a normal schedule. A is doing great with potty training. She usually has one or two accidents a day if we stay close to home, if we are visiting other people she has more. She started pooping in the potty too! Yay! She is still trying to tell me, but I don't always understand until she has an accident. She's been saying more and more since her last doctor appointment, so I'm hoping she'll start saying potty soon, that would be very helpful!

We discovered our community garden this week. It was fun to show A all of the plants and let her help me pick some food. Mostly she enjoyed swinging on the swing.

We also went out to visit Nana at her store. It's such a cute store; I wish I could buy everything in it! We went out to lunch at a Crepe place with K6 and P. The crepes are HUGE! I can barely eat one, but A loves the turkey pesto crepe and ate the entire thing! Then we got a raspberry shake. A was loving it until she got a brain freeze, then she wouldn't go near it. Poor girl.

We've had some fun family wrestles and plays in the backyard this week, and Allan and I had a date night - croquet and Frisbee.

I tried to give A her first S'more this week. She hated it. She barely took a bite of it, and then just repeatedly told me that it was too sticky. I eventually just gave her a couple of marshmallows and ate her S'more myself, ha!  She has been very concerned about her hands being sticky lately.

A also clicks her tongue all day long, every day. She likes it a lot and likes to have us click our tongues. Her favorite thing to do for the "If you're happy and you know it" song is "click your tongue", ha! That song gets us through long car rides. Little A has also decided it is time to start dressing herself. One day she had a complete meltdown while I was dressing her and I finally figured out that she wanted to do it herself. She gets so mad at me if I help her at all. I think we have finally entered the 2 year old independent stage, because she has done this with several other things as well.