Just Keep Swimming....

We have been able to go swimming quite a few times this summer,

and boy do we LoVE it!!

We recently had a pool party with my friend's kids,

Addison and "Meffew" (aka Matthew).

We went to their house on a sweltering midafternoon

and took a dunk in their swimming pool...



Ava especially loved going down the slide!


Meanwhile, little Halle Bean just sat on the grass as happy as can be!

I always have to take pictures of her feet because they are so tiny and stinkin' cute!

(We've measured her feet next to a newborn's and they're almost the same size. Halle will turn 1 next month, but she is barely in 3-6 months shoe size.)

After swimming in the pool, Ava and Addison took turns purshing each other on the swing.




Then, we've gone to my aunt's house a few times to swim. She has a 4 ft. deep pool and we just swim for hours. We bought Ava some floaties and she loves not having us hold her every second.




Halle also loves the water. My aunts pool is pretty warm, and Halle loved being in her floatie. She kicks her legs so hard and she loves it when we pull her around.


And of course, Dad had to make sure she gets a slam dunk in once in awhile.

For those of you who don't know, Halle has super human strength. She is seriously the strongest baby ever!! My father-in-law calls her "Popeye" and always asks if she is eating her spinach. I literally have to use 2 hands and all my strenght to take something away from her. She can do full sit ups! Anyway, back to the subject... Nate put her up to the top of the hoop and she just hung there for like 15 seconds. She is sure to be a great basketball player!

Sisters

Growing up, I wish I had a sister for 2 reasons:

#1. I wanted someone to tell secrets to.
#2. I wanted someone I could wear matching clothes with.

Instead, I was blessed with brothers who:

#1. Could care less about what was going on in my life.
#2. Who would die of embarrassment if we were dressed anything alike.

So, when I found out we were expecting child #2, I prayed my guts out that it would be a little girl. Well, apparently, praying my guts out worked! Who knew?!

I absolutley love dressing two cute girlies everyday. I'm getting to live the experience I never had. I don't feel pity for myself... Now that I'm older, I'm glad I don't have a sister. I was meant to have brothers. But, I'm grateful to be blessed with two beautiful girls.....

And as you can imagine, I was ecstatic when my mother-in-law made them matching dresses. They pretty much wear them every week. :)

Every little girl has to have a twirly dress, and this past Sunday, I had to watch Ava twirl over, and over, and over, and over again... she had so much fun!


Not only do they have matching dresses, but I bought both of them jelly sandals.... and they have matching purple flip-flops too!

Their smiles absolutely melt my heart.

Barbies

Ava now loves to play with her Barbies. I don't mind, because I LOVE BARBIE!!!! I love that Ava's imagination is coming out and I love hearing the conversations that her Barbie's come up with. When we play, I am the man, and she is the "gull" (translation: girl). Here is a typical Barbie conversation... oh, and by the way, her Barbie's names are: Kevin, Linda, and Hamey.

Hamey: Haaalllloooooo Kevin.
Kevin: Hello Hamey!
H: You want to go to high schol (that's not typo, that's how she says it) wif me?
K: Ok.
H: Ok, let's cross the street!...... Do you like my hair?
K: Yes, it's very nice!
H: Yeah! Do you want to kiss me?
K: NO! You have cooties!
H: COME BACK KEVIN! MY COOTIES ARE AWAY!

She is sooooo funny with her Barbies. The picture below shows how she set them up on the couch....

Linda is the one in the pink pants, Kevin is in the middle, and Hamey (where in the world did she come up with that name?) is the one in the retro dress.

10 Months

Our little Halle turned 10 months old! I cannot believe it.... I feel like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital. She is such a delightful baby. She squeals and laughs and just brightens my day. She just started sitting up by herself, and started scooting/crawling. She'll crawl for about 3 steps and then she'll army crawl. She can also sit up from the crawling position. I'll sit her down in the living room and I'll walk in to my room to get something, and I'll turn around and there she is! It's so weird to have her moving around the house! She has 2 teeth coming in, one on top and one on bottom, but they're both on the right hand side! I can't imagine our lives with out her!

Cake

My friend, Andrea, and I, love to decorate cakes. We took the basic course a couple of years ago, but we wanted to try our hand at fondant. The Wilton class was a little expensive, so we decided to take matters in to our own hands. She came over the other night, and we experimented with making our own fondant.....

Fondant is basically made of melted marshmallows and powdered sugar. You add a couple of TBSPs of water to some marshmallows and then you melt it in the microwave. The recipe said to melt it for 2 1/2 minutes to 4 minutes, so I decided to do 3 minutes..... well, as you can see, it melted all over the place!


Then you layer some Crisco ALL over your hands and the table. You sift about 2 lbs of powdered sugar onto the table and make a crater, then you fold the melted mallows in. It took a lot of kneading!!! If you want a great arm workout, just make some freaking fondant.


This was my kitchen after we had made 2 batches of fondant. We practice rolling it out, coloring it, and cutting flowers out.

And VOILA! Here is my finished product. I did add a little vanilla to the fondant to make it taste better... but it was really fun learning to mold the balls and the stems. You just use a little water to roll the stems and to shape them to the cake.

Cabin

Every year, we go to the cabin! I didn't post any pics of last years adventure because I wasn't there due to having a baby (just a minor detail...). This year was a lot of fun. I went fishing for the first time! Well, I went fishing a couple of years ago, but that was a catch and release pond, so it doesn't really count. This year, we went to Mirror Lake and had a BLAST!

The kids fished in their undies. They were constantly in and out of the water,

and we didn't want to bother with clothes.

We bought Ava her own Barbie fishing pole. She absolutely loved it. She would cast it out and scream, "I got a fish!" and the reel it in. She did this about 376 times.

I just can't get enough of Ava's blue eyes, sun streaked blonde hair, and her tan skin. She's sooooo stinking cute!

And speaking of another cutie, Halle loved getting squirt in the mouth with the water bottle. She would close her eyes and squeal every time the water hit her mouth. A couple of times it bounced of her tongue and hit me in the face!