Summer Update

Summer has flown by.  I can hardly believe that school with start in 20 days.  Still, we have had fun so far.

It has rained more times this month than all the other months since we moved here.  I love the rain.  I love the smell of it and the fact that while it's raining, the sun is not out.  Though it can get quite humid, we take advantage of the sun's absence and play outside all day.

 Dexter is big enough for the toddler swing!

 Alice and I danced in the rain for a while the other day.  She is great at moving those legs now :)

 This is a close-up of the bird cage Lucy and I made one lazy afternoon.  We used about a dozen wire hangers from Leland's dry-cleaned shirts.  (If you are missing too many hangers, Leland, we made a really cool bird cage!)  I told Lucy and Jack we had to catch a bird to go in it.  They thought really hard about some traps they could make, but I think I'll just put a fake bird in it sometime.

 This is from fun night a couple of weeks ago.  It was so fun/funny playing twister with the kids.  I realized that we hadn't played since I was eight months pregnant with Dexter.  It is a lot easier when you are not pregnant!  I think Lucy and Jack were a little disappointed I was real competition this time around.

 We like to ride bikes around the cul de sac in the mornings before the extreme heat sets in.

 Though Alice has a bike, she prefers to hang out with Dexter and me on the grass.

 One day, a neighbor girl came over and showed us her dogs.  They are so cute!  Alice was in heaven petting them.

 Hero Quest again --this time with friends!

 I was trying to shake things up one morning and made funky pancakes.  Obviously, we did a "D" for Dad, a cat, and a skeleton.

 These two pictures are from today.  I emerged from quiet time to find every stuffed animal we own in our family room.  Lucy and Jack wanted me to take this picture of them and some of the animals.  Then, Leland came home for lunch and I took a picture of him too.

 Jack loves learning time.  Here he is practicing his name.

 I thought Alice was so funny to be strolling around her water jug, so I had to take a picture.  I guess you can see what is important to Alice this summer.

Dexter has turned from a newborn to a big baby.  He can almost sit up and loves to read, talk, and laugh.  I love this new stage in his life.  If I need to get a load of laundry in or do the dishes, I can ask Lucy or Jack to talk to him for a bit and he just laughs and laughs at them.