Her First "Pair-pane" ride!

Julia went with me in July to my cousin Melissa's wedding in Pittsburgh...it was great to see everyone and to let everyone see Julia again (she's getting so big!). We took a plane to Pittsburgh and she was SUCH a great little traveler. In the first picture, she was still half-asleep since it was not yet 5 a.m. but I had to get a pic of her at the airport with the plane in the background. Once we got on the plane she was delighted that she got both juice and cookies during the ride (=

Visiting Friends...

My college friend, Dana, was in Tennessee visiting her parents for a bit before heading back to Wisconsin. It was great spending the day with her, her son, and her parents since I haven't seen her in such a long time. If you're reading this Dana, thank your parents again for letting us stay at their place before flying out the next morning!!

Just playing...

Julia's favorite mud puddle...

Sadly, our girls finds bugs fascinating...

and a good stick is her favorite toy (=

Julia's First Cardinals Game...

The Zoo folks has brought over a bunch of animals for the kids to see before the ballgame...Julia gets brave and pets a giant lizard. Julia's making her small screen debut (=

She has to share the spotlight with a parrot...

Couldn't fathom why the zoo brought a random dog with them...I guess kids just like dogs so they figured they'd toss him in next to the Red River Hog and the Armadillo?

She's great with the mascots, as long as they don't invade her personal space (=

Finally, the best part of the game, she says...

We spent July 4th weekend in Cincinnati with David's parents and his brother, Doug. Friday night we went to the Cardinals/Reds game and had a great time (Julia's first ball game included lots of pregame music and activities, a bald eagle flyover, a Pujols grandslam, a rookie's RBI in his first at-bat, a Cardinal's victory, some flaming paratroopers, and a great fireworks show...though her favorite things were the hot dog and ice cream in a hat). We all had a great weekend and Julia enjoyed spending some time with her Mamaw, Papaw, and Uncle Doug.

Lake Winnepasaukah...

My mother, sister and I took all of the kids to Lake Winnie (an amusement park near Chattanooga). SUCH a nice park for little ones...lots of kiddie rides, a great playground, and a big splashpad...and you can actually bring your own cooler inside of the park. All of the kids rode everything they were able to according to their height and Julia even rode the log flume and her first kiddie coaster ( = Kaitlyn was also super brave and was so disappointed when she was deemed too short to ride the roller coasters (she rode other 48" or taller rides but I guess they were just extra strict on the coasters). I took off my socks so we could stuff her sandals, but even that left her a wee bit shy of the line (= Nonetheless, we had a great day and the kids were angels...every single one of them was so good. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I meant to, but here are a few.

Camping out...

Well, this week I mustered my courage and took my 18 month old daughter and my 4 and 7 year old nieces camping...by myself. Of course, it was only for one night and we stayed in a camping cabin (a room with bunk beds and a double bed) and the next night we were joined by my sister and my mother (of course, they brought my 2 year old nephew and 1 year old niece...). It was exhausting for me (thank goodness I opted against pitching a tent...don't know how I would have done that alone while chasing around my daughter) but we ended up having a great time. The first night, I took the girls swimming in the pool and thank goodness the kiddie end was only 2 1/2 feet deep...it made the task of looking after the three of them much less daunting ( = We had some hot dogs on the grill, made the trip to the bathhouse for the night (thank goodness nobody had to pee at 3 a.m.) and (with the help of the girls' excellent kindling collecting) built a fire to roast marshmallows. It was a bit of a task keeping Julia out of the fire since she wanted to throw stuff in the fire just like the big girls were doing ( = She was finally worn out though and I was able to put her to sleep inside the cabin while the bigger girls finished their marshmallow roasting and discovered the joys of flashlights in the dark woods. Finally, we went inside where the girls hung a blanket down from the top bunk to make the bottom bunk a "tent" and they begged me tell them a spooky story (note: when a seven year old begs for a spooky story, don't do it...I ended up in a double bed with three little girls and eventually left them all in the big bed while I slept on the bottom bunk...). The girls were all extremely well behaved and enjoyed the "camp out". The next morning, I had the...ahem...pleasure of hiking us all over to the bathhouse for potties, showers, and teeth brushing, and then had to repack the car to meet the rest of the crew over at Lake Winnepasaukah for the second part of our adventure...all before 10 a.m.

Strawberry Fields...

For playgroup today, we took the munchkins to pick some strawberries at a local orchard. They were adorable wandering around the strawberry patch and surprisingly focused on filling up the bucket ( = Of course, Julia ate her fair share of strawberries in the field...

Kaitlyn and Eliza - Soccer Phenoms ( =

David, Julia and I were able to make it to Kaitlyn and Eliza's soccer games on Saturday and we all had a good time watching them (Julia had a good time practicing her walking and cheering on her cousins).