August Summer Fun!!

We have had an awesome August!  I had unfortunately misplaced my camera earlier in the month, so I don't have any good shots of our visit with Adele and Baba, but we had a really fun time.

In our week with Adele and Baba we went up to Hoboken and met up with my cousin Darian who was visiting from Australia, went to the Please Touch Museum and the zoo, and generally had lots of fun.  Audrey and Adele play so well together and are so close.  And we were so glad to spend some time with Baba before she started her new job!

Lillian loved chasing the big girls around and trying to imitate them.  Lillian tries to copy almost everything Audrey does, it's pretty hilarious.  If Audrey even bumps her toe, Lillian will run over and reenact it.  Lillian also tries to copy Audrey's ballet moves, which is ridiculously cute.  She can actually do an arabesque!



We had a wonderful family vacation in North Carolina and got to spend some quality time with Auntie Chrystal's family and her in-laws as well.  We had a giant beach house for 12 adults and 11 children.  It was wild, but a lot of fun.  Audrey and Adele got to play to their hearts content, and Audrey also had so much fun meeting her new "cousins."  And I enjoyed the sweet kids calling me Auntie Sandy.

Here are a few photos from our morning photo shoot in Holden Beach:

We went to an interesting garden/former rice plantation called Brook Green in South Carolina and took a pontoon ride.

Audrey and Lillian with Avo and Papa.

Audrey & Adele on the dock at the beach house:

One day we went to the little rinky dink water slides near the beach.  Audrey was a little nervous at first but then went crazy going over and over and over.  Thank goodness for the amazing swimsuits with sun protection that Baba sent for the girls!

Lillian peeking over to the big kids side:

Auntie Chrystal & Jonny:

Audrey helping us get ready to cook dinner:

The euthanizing of the crabs :(

Lillian hanging out with the cousins:

Our seafood boil!

Audrey and Adele watching the lightning from the deck.

We had a fun excursion to the aquarium in Fort Fisher NC.  We got to take a short ferry ride which the kids enjoyed, and then they had a really neat little aquarium.

Beautiful Adele!:

Lillian's favorite parts of the aquarium and the playground.  She is super active.

Michael took Audrey and Adele into the hurricane simulator.

Lillian's next favorite thing after stairs is ice cream!

Lillian and Audrey are continuing to make great progress.  Lillian can imitate almost anything we say now and is speaking very well.  Audrey is so smart and works hard on her homework with Michael.

Here is Lillian showing off her talking skills.  The two funniest things she started saying on vacation were Michael (I guess at the beach I had to shout to get his attention alot when we watching all the kids in the ocean!) and "Iwantit."  All one word, not "I want it."



Next week the girls will start going to their new school and Nana will be going back to Toronto.  We will be sad to see her go, but I'm sure we will see her again soon.  I think the girls are going to love their new school and I just hope it's an easy adjustment.

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!  It's unbelievable how quickly this summer has gone by.

Weekend adventures in July

I've been extremely busy this month, but we do our best to squeeze in as much fun as possible on the weekends (and the occasional weeknight too!)

Lillian continues to make rapid advances in her vocabulary and comprehension.  It's so exciting to hear her say new words almost every day and she definitely understands even more.  She's also continuing to be a little monkey - if we turn our back for a second she is moving things around and trying to climb as high as she can.  She can get up on the dining room table in seconds.  Lillian is mischievous too - if she knows we don't want her to do something, she will look you in the eye and do it, while saying, "No, no, no."  She also likes to throw things in the toilet, but thankfully we manage to prevent that most of the time.

Audrey is enjoying her summer and spending time with Nana.  She is also looking forward to starting pre-kindergarten in September.  And she is even more excited for our upcoming visit with Cousin Adele and Baba, and then our trip to North Carolina!

We enjoyed our Fourth of July in Philadelphia.  It was much more low key than our holiday in New York last year.  We went to a local neighborhood parade which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, and later in the weekend we watched the fireworks downtown.  I had been concerned that Lillian might be scared of the fireworks as many children are, but she was unfazed!

At the Glenside Fourth of July parade with our good friends:

Baby buddies - but not really babies anymore!

At the annex to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  They are running a wonderful program all summer, called Art Splash.  The have exhibits of interest to children, and weekly art activities.

 At the fireworks show on the Philadelphia waterfront:

Today we explored the "pop-up beach" in front of the art museum.  It was a very cool space with sandboxes, misters, ping pong, giant chess and a stage with live music.

August is going to be an action packed month with lots of visitors and vacation.  We can't wait!

Here is a video of Lilian talking a couple of weeks ago:

Summer Fun!

I forgot I had some photos from Audrey's recital and our Memorial Day picnic that I had forgotten to upload.

Audrey's recital was cute and funny as expected.  I still have the Cat in the Hat song from Seussical the Musical stuck in my head.

Our little Thing One:

Out for frozen yogurt on Father's Day.  Lillian with her buddy Ingrid:

This weekend we went to visit our friends up in NY.  Daphne and Lillian had fun after we had some yummy ice cream.

Then the girls had some backyard water fun while Daphne had a nap.  Audrey and Lillian had a blast, they loved getting soaked.

Here are the photos from our Memorial Day picnic.  We had a great time with our friends the Garcia's and were happy that Uncle Dave could join us too!

Audrey and Kira on their balance bikes:

And Uncle Dave came back to spend the week with us this week also.  I unfortunately wasn't around as much as I would have liked, but the girls were so happy to spend quality time with Uncle Dave.  So happy in fact, that Lillian couldn't remember what to do when she was really really sleepy:

Lillian is talking so much now (hard to believe from the video!) And she is also learning Portuguese while Nana is here.  Some words I don't even realize she knows until someone tells me!

I'm sure we are going to have so much fun this summer.  We can't wait for the long weekend coming up!