Two weeks of adventures

I guess I am becoming an "every two week poster", mainly because it takes me so long to make a post. (I guess it wouldn't take me as long if I just did one every week...right?) We have been really busy the last few weeks, tackling projects around the house, traveling to Tennessee for the fourth of July week, and getting back into the swing of things.

The boys had a doctor's appointment on Monday of last week, and William weighs in at 10 pounds 15 ounces, and Jonathan weighs 11 pounds 2 ounces. They are both 22 inches long, and Jonathan's head is 15 1/2 inches, still half an inch bigger than William's. They are smiling and cooing at us most of the time they are awake now. It is so sweet!

We went up to Tennessee on July 2, since Aaron took the week off work. (Well, the firm let everyone off for the 3, 4, and 5, and Aaron still has some paternity leave from the firm, so he took the entire week off. ) When we go to Tennessee we divide most of our time up between the lakehouse and the nursery. The picture above is my dad, holding Jonathan while taking a break from the heat and catching a little nap. The picture below is my dad holding William. It is fun to watch him with the boys! We had a lot of fun in Tennessee. My birthday is the third, so Aaron and I went out to eat to celebrate, and I made a George Washington cake for myself. It was so good! We spent time playing in the river mostly. Emma finally got up the courage to get on the tube behind the jet ski, and once she got on, we couldn't get her off! She would stand up on it and pretend that she was wakeboarding (which made her daddy so proud). There is talk of getting her a wakeboard next summer! Russell is still living with us, which means lots of goofing around! Not really, it means some goofing around. I have a roll of velcro tape that I use to tape our tomato plants to bamboo stakes (I will have to post pictures of our tomatoes another time-they are HUGE!) and Russell thought it would make a funny hat for William! He looks like one of the munchkins in the Lollipop Guild on the Wizard of Oz. Seriously, I just You Tubed it, and he looks like the one in the green! And this is what happens when you let your daughter loose with her ballerina dress ups! My cousin, Bonnie, let Emma borrow some fun "dress ups" and Emma wanted to share with the boys! I just had to put this one in because Emma looked so pretty in the picture! Well, the Tour de France is going on, and with Russell living here, that means, it is Tour time in our house. He even changed our dish package for the month so that he could watch it. I honestly think it is about as entertaining as watching golf or sitting through an entire NASCAR race-but he likes it. When he was babysitting one day, I came home and found William parked in front of the TV. Not really, we just staged this picture. William was laying on the couch next to Russell, but he was still watching the Tour. Here are my handsome boys before church today. I love how huge their cheeks look in this picture! Emma was the same way as a baby. I remember taking her to the doctor one time when she was a few months old. It was winter and she was all bundled up in a little fleece blanket-coat type thing. I told the nurse that I was worried that Emma wasn't gaining weight, and she laughed at me and said, "Look at those cheeks! What are you worried about?" After taking off her suit, and weighing her and finding that she hadn't gained any weight, the nurse said, "Wow, those cheeks are deceiving!" Looks like the boys have the cheeks, too! Here are all the kids on my bed for their pre-church pictures! Can you tell the boys apart? William is on the left and Jonathan is on the right. Aaron has discovered a new secret in parenting. He was helping Emma pick up all her stuff from the Living Room and Kitchen while we were cleaning house yesterday. Instead of just making her pick it all up, he got her shopping cart and helped her go "shopping" in the Living Room and Kitchen. When she picked up her brown sandals, she was getting "potatoes" and her red book in the floor wound up being a steak. It was great! She cleaned her stuff up without complaining about it, put it all away in its place, and even had a little fun in the process! Here is Emma in her trash bag box. This is the box to the Costco trash bags that we bought. It holds two hundred trash bags... Or one two and a half year old girl! We have spent the last few weekends in some home improvement projects. The first one we undertook was painting Emma's room. We painted the walls light pink, and the little entry wall (to the left in this picture) light green. Then the next weekend, Aaron's dad brought down shutters and he and Aaron installed them throughout the house. They look great! While Aaron's dad was here, he and Aaron cut a hole in the floor of the bathroom closet and built me a laundry chute, which prompted a laundry room project. Here is my new and improved laundry room! Aaron's mom brought down a piece of furniture that she used as an island in her kitchen and I use as a folding table. Then, Aaron built a table (with a top that matches that folding table) to hold the laundry basket that holds the clothes that come down the chute (its the green laundry basket). Aaron also put up a shelf for me on the wall behind all the clothes in the right side of the picture. (Those are Aaron's normal clothes. His closet is full of work clothes-button up shirts and dress pants.). I am also organizing the storage shelves to the right of the folding table to hold all my crafting supplies so that the folding table can double as a crafting table. I am going to paint the walls... eventually.

Hope you enjoy our latest adventures. It was good to get to see some of you while we were up in Tennessee. We hope you are having a great summer!