visit to Pennsylvania

The majority of my family lives in Pennsylvania so my mom, my sister and her kids, and my kids and I headed out to PA. We visited with my Aunt Georgia in Johnstown then moved on to Harrisburg to visit my mom's side of the family. We went to Hershey Gardens, the Hershey factory, had a 'family reunion' at a park with those who could make it, and in general just spent time with the family. It was great to see everyone and the kids had so much fun with all the activities. They were exhausted by the time we left and Zoe was especially tuckered out...she didn't get her usual naps and stayed up late every night. All the kids did great in the car. I was a little concerned how Zoe would do with this being her first long car trip but she was so tired she slept most of the time! The day we got home, she went to bed at 9:00 and slept till 11:30 the next day!

Pool time at Grandma's

A day of swimming at Grandma's with my sister and her kids, Dominic, Alex and Isabel...one of the very few days due to the strange cool weather we've been having so far this summer. As you can see, Zoe loves the water. She will put her face in the water on her own and come up laughing and she is fearless.

Grandma never misses a chance to be with her girls and of course they love it!

The boys love swimming and diving together. Alex is now jumping into the deep end this summer and is very proud of himself, as are all of us. Before, we could tell he wanted so badly to join the 'big kids' but just wasn't ready yet. I think he considers himself officially a big kid now!

We have to put sunscreen on Zoe's head now because she won't wear a hat anymore and Dave took this opportunity to give her a mohawk!

We are heading to Pennsylvania on Thursday with my mom, my sister, and her kids for a much overdue visit with family...its been 3 years. I'm sure I'll take a ton of pictures and will hopefully update the blog soon after we return.

Miscellaneous pics

Isaac and I have season passes to Kings Island and are trying to get there as much as possible but it is proving challenging with our busy schedules, trips and my babysitting a girl who does not have a pass. Here's a few pics of some of our visits including one at the water park (on that day we went with a friend of mine and her 3 girls but of course I forgot to take any pictures until they had already left and we were packing up to go so I only got this one of Isaac waiting for me to be ready to go).

I captured a couple of adorable pics of Isaac and Zoe...he was reading to her which he loves to do, I think he's the best big brother in the world!!! One of Zoe's favorite things is bath time and especially towel baby time afterward. We take turns holding her wrapped in her towel, she gets so excited! She loves to roll around on the floor with a towel, she gets so excited and laughs and screams the whole time. Then of course Isaac wanted to take his turn playing with the towel like Zoe followed by some silly faces!

Zoe is walking!

As of last Thursday, Zoe is walking! She was in my bedroom with me while I was getting dressed and she just stood up and started walking out of nowhere! She walked about 6 feet and hasn't stopped since! She has been taking 3 or 4 steps with encouragement for a few weeks but now she's got the hang of it and she's really proud of herself. When she reaches her destination, she sits down, looks around to see if anyone is watching and starts to clap and laugh! She really loves to walk and is extremely happy about seeing the world from a new perspective. She is so funny to watch and play with because she is so happy and gets a kick out of just about anything! She has also started to become more independent and is content to play by herself for longer periods of time...yeah for mommy, I can get so much more done now!

She is also getting more and more mischievous...just when I think I've got everything out of her reach, she finds something she's not supposed to have. EVERYTHING goes in her mouth. I can't take her outside very often because she'll try to eat leaves, rocks, bugs, sticks, grass, dirt and anything else on the ground. The only way I can take her out is if she's in the stroller or some other contraption and that doesn't go over well because she hates being confined. So my time spent outdoors this summer has been limited because of this and I'm feeling a little stir crazy. Thank God for naps!

4th of July

On the 4th, we celebrated our friend Rick's mom's 70th birthday. There were lots of kids, and adults and it was great to get together with everyone. We rounded out the weekend with a picnic at my parent's house on Sunday. Other than that, we didn't do a whole lot to celebrate the 4th, it was a busy weekend after a busy week and we were all exhausted.