SIX MONTHS

Happy 6 Months Marco!

Marco is an incredibly happy, happy baby and seldom cries. In fact, he only cries when he is extremely tired and wants to go to sleep, and the remedy to fix that is incredibly easy.

New facts: 

Likes to rollover to get where he wants to be

Can push himself backward instead of crawling forward

Foods: 

Bananas

Sweet Potatoes

Rice Cereal

Squash

Apples

Prunes

Green Peas

Green Beans

(in order of Favorite to least favorite)

Enjoys:

Watching Lily do anything

playing in his bouncer

playing in his johnny-jump-up

jumping in Mommy's lap

sitting in his bumbo

being sung to

playing with toys and putting them in his mouth

Teeth:

1

(came on July 22)

Downsides:

Still wakes up once a night

This little boy is the easiest, sweetest, cutest, smiliest baby and we just love him and can't imagine our family without him. He makes us so happy and complete. 

Happy 78th Birthday Krispie Kreme

July 18, Krispie Kreme celebrated their 78th Birthday! Each year they hold a celebration in Winston Salem to commemorate this event since Krispie Kreme is headquartered, and was started, here.

We were a little late heading out to the birthday party, so we didn't get to participate in all of the fun activities - but we still had lots of fun eating our fair share of free donuts.

One specific station let you hand dip your own donut and then cover it in sprinkles. Lily picked up the donut and threw it in the chocolate dipping sauce, she didn't quite grasp the concept of dipping her donut. Luckily we had some great volunteer workers there who helped retrieve the donut and helped show Lily how to cover her donut in sprinkles.

Michal was in heaven because I let him eat my donut for me. He couldn't have been happier about that situation!

Lily and I checked out all the booths while Daddy stood in line for Lily to spin the wheel. 

She won a free magnet and a free chapstick. He was such a good Daddy to stand in line for her because it made her so happy to spin the wheel!

Besides a dozen bounce houses, face-painting, photo-booths, free drinks, and lots more lines of free things to do, Krispie Kreme had lots of vintage cars parked all over.

This particular car they let Lily inside to drive! She was more interested in honking the old squeaky horn than she was smiling for the camera! And in fact, this car was the actual car that the founder of Krispie Kreme drove.

Each year we have lived here we have celebrated Krispie Kreme's Birthday and we can't wait until next Summer to celebrate with them again!

People's Day

July 17, 2015

People's Day

DHG (Dixon Hughes Goodman) is where Michal works and during the summer they have a company party titled "People's Day." On this day the company rents out many venues at Tanglewood Park and it allows for employees to bring their families and mingle with their co-workers (and their families) for a day filled with fun activities.

Michal had to work in the morning so we went in the afternoon for their little social, and then headed home for naps.  After naps we headed on back to go swimming at the Pool inside Tanglewood Park. Lily was so happy to be in her swimming suit wading through the water. When we headed to the lazy river and jumped on tubes, Lily was over it after about 90 seconds. She kept saying, "Get off. Get water." 

We did get out, and we headed over to join Michal's coworkers at the pavilion close by. But on the way we had to make a slight detour to visit the train.

The highlight of the night was watching Andrew be mischievous and try to stick his head in the ice cold water. Soon, he had a little sidekick who was trying to imitate and copy his actions. I don't think that she was expecting the water to be as cold as it was, she just wanted to be like Andrew. The whole way home she kept saying, "Andrew again. Andrew again."

It was good to get together and socialize with Michal's coworkers in a very relaxed setting. It seemed very chill and a good way to get to know people better. I like little outings like this... in fact, I like any outing where Michal gets time off to spend with me and the kids!

Making Cookies

On July 16, I thought it would be fun for Lily to make some cookies. But I thought it would be more fun for her to make them with a friend. So, we invited over her newest friend: Asher.

I debated which cookies to make and went back and forth about making chocolate chip cookies or snickerdoodle/sugar cookies. I knew the latter would involve a greater mess and more clean-up, but also the kids would have so much fun decorating. On the other hand if I made chocolate chip cookies they would just sit and watch me mix the ingredients. That would have defeated the whole purpose of making cookies in the first place. So mess snickerdoodles it was!

I let each of the kids pick out which sprinkles they wanted to put on top of their cookies and let them do the decorating skills. While Asher rolled his around the colored sprinkles like a boss, Lily delicately placed each sprinkle on her cookie one by one. When the cookies came out of the oven, they could have put a Minimalist or Abstract Expressionist artist (depending on which cookie you select) to shame!

When it came time to eat the cookie these two were as quiet as could be and definitely indulged in their hard work. I'm pretty sure Lily had four cookies and wanted more.

I can't wait until we can get together with Asher to make cookies again! Next time we'll pull out cookie cutters!

Forsyth Family Kids Morning Out

July 8, 2015

Forsyth Family Magazine sponsored a 'Kids Morning Out' event. I had never gone before because it seemed like an activity for older children that Lily wouldn't enjoy, but when I found a friend at Church who was willing to go check it out with me it seemed like a win-win situation.

When you arrived, you checked in and put four tickets into a drawing to win prizes. You then got to go meet Dash (the mascot for the local baseball team) and a Tennis Ball guy. Lily was afraid of both of them.

They had kid centered activities for all ages which included:

-- writing down why you liked Tennis.

-- Tennis Bowling

-- obstacle courses

and then there were lots more, but the mascot's decided to come and greet all the children and at this point, Lily was over the games. She was done and just wanted to be held. I was holding Marco, so this feat was a little tricky, but luckily we ran into a gal from the ward who was such a sweetheart and held Lily. She held her until the mascot's decided to leave, which seemed to be taking forever. It was such a kind act of service towards me.

Asher was such a good pal to Lily. They are so cute together and I love how kind, caring, and concerned he was about her the whole time!

As we left they gave these grab bags which contained all sorts of tennis themed little trinkets. I was excited to see what Lily got, but it seemed like all the things they gave away didn't fit her - they fit me instead! I got this great t-shirt that I can use exercising and a cheap pair of sunglasses I can use when going swimming. To add icing on the cake, I got a card in the mail about two weeks later indicating that I had won a gift card to one of the prizes I entered at the Kids Morning Out. It's this little General Store somewhere. I have to figure out where it is, but I'm sure that we will have a fun adventure picking out a treat once we go. Maybe if Daddy's lucky, we'll invite him to join us and share our treat with him!

Little Helper - Part 2

One thing that I love about being this girls Mommy is how much she loves to help.  It doesn't matter what is asked of her - she does it.

Lily especially loves to help out when it comes to Marco.  She wants to make sure that he is included or that he is getting enough attention.  Often times she ends up smothering him and he cries, but then there are such tender moments with these two that I can't help but want to record and remember these memories forever.

Here Lily is putting her socks on Marco because she was afraid his feet would get cold.  Lily is a child after my own heart because she loves to wear socks: with shoes, without shoes, in the rain, etc.  Since this is something she loves doing, she wanted to make sure that Marco was included and will become as passionate about socks as she currently is.

In order to keep Lily from smothering her baby brother during 'tummy time', I've been having her help me "teach" Marco things.  I've been having her help me teach him how to hold his head up real high, how to roll over, and scoot around.  When I give her an assignment, she fulfills it.  It's a win-win situation.  She feels like she is helping Marco (and me) and I'm just grateful that she's not on top of her brother - hugging him!

In addition to making sure that he's not left out and that she teaches him things - she also likes to play with him or show him how different toys work.  That's tricky because I want to enforce good sharing principles - without her just taking Marco's things away... but it's hard when she honestly feels like she is showing him how to "work" a certain toy.  So we have gotten quite creative at playing together and the bouncer is perfect for Lily not being able to "take anything away" from Marco, but rather, showing him how to play with what's in front of him.

There are countless other examples of how Lily likes to be involved and feel like she is helping out.

~ Opening Mail ~

~ Taking the trash out with Daddy ~

~ Organize and fill up the shopping cart ~

~ Packing ~

~ Picking (and shelling) peas (or raspberries, strawberries, etc.) from Grammy's garden ~

I love that this little girl loves to help.  She always cleans up after her mess (or tattles on whoever makes a mess: "Mommy made a mess.") and I've caught her singing "Clean up. Clean up. Clean up." when she picks up after herself.  I really got lucky to have such a great little helper and hope that she always has such desire to help me... even if it kinda, sorta, sometimes gets in my way.