Henderson Community Days

This past weekend was Henderson Community Days.  We actually participated in several of the events even though it was pretty hot all weekend! On Friday night we went to the downtown barbeque.  Keely was quite upset the entire time because she was just too hot.  Finally I got her to sleep in the stroller and then everyone was much happier! We then went over to a friend's house to hang out until the fireworks show at dusk.  We ended up going to another person's house to watch the fireworks, and we were pretty close to where they were shooting them off.  Brooks was scared at first, and Keely started screaming too, but Brooks ended up really liking the ones that shot up high in the sky.  He was yelling and clapping in the middle of it! He didn't like the finale because they had ones that were closer to the ground, for some reason that scared him more.  Keely calmed down shortly after the fireworks started too, so then I was able to come back outside and watch them too! I don't have any pictures since I was holding Keely the whole time, but it was a pretty good show! The next morning we went back into town for the parade.  Brooks had a pretty good time picking up candy, but got upset a couple of times when bigger kids beat him to the candy and he came up empty handed.  All in all though he took it pretty well! We were all pretty hot after the parade, so we just decided to come home instead of doing any more of the activities in town. Here are some pictures of the weekend!
Waiting for the parade to begin

 It's hot!

 After Brooks took a nap on Saturday Blake got out Brooks' pool and splash table.  It was a great way to cool off!  But the water was so cold that when Brooks came inside, his lips stayed purple for a good 30 minutes!

 Cheyenne got to run in a sprinkler to cool off

 Keely and I before church on Sunday

 An attempt at getting a picture of me and the kids...we'll have to try again!

 Keely is doing well at sitting in a bumpo we borrowed from a friend.  She is so much happier when she can sit up!

Hot Hot Hot

I'm so tired of how hot it has been around here lately! I'm so ready for fall!! Luckily today we finally had some relief from the upper 90/100 degree weather.  On Tuesday we went down to Smith Center for the 4th of July.  Unfortunately they had a ban on fireworks due to the extremely dry conditions, but we still got together with Blake's cousins.  I don't have many pictures of the trip down, but here are a couple.  Blake's grandma Lambert got to hold Keely for a while.

And Brooks enjoyed pushing Ace Bear in an old stroller Blake's mom found at a yard sale.

 He was moving too fast, so the pictures are fuzzy!

To beat the weather, Brooks, Cody, Lane, Katy, and I went to the splash park in Aurora on Friday while my mom watched Keely at her house.  The cold water felt so good!  We all had a good time!

 Jumping!

 Gotcha!

 Where the water go??

 There it is! YAY!!

 Brooks had so much fun jumping up and down in the water, filling his little bucket, and getting wet.  Hopefully we can make it back before summer is over!

Dinosaur Camp

Last week my sister, Cody, and I did a dinosaur 'camp' for Lane, Brooks, and Katy.  I think the kids had fun with it, and maybe learned a few things? Pictures are the best way to explain what we did, so here they are! We started out the day just playing with all the toy dinosaurs Brooks and Lane had.  I don't have a picture of all of those, but there were quite a few!  Then we all sat down and Cody read some books about dinosaurs.  Yes, even Keely got in on the reading!

Then Cody had the kids make dinosaur 'fossils' out of some dough she made out of flour, water, and salt (I think).  It was pretty fun for all the kids...and maybe us too.

 Brooks had the most fun using the bone shaped cookie cutter :)

 Earlier in the week, Brooks and I had made some more jello eggs for our snack.  We called them dinosaur jello eggs.  Brooks was very excited!  We also had pretzel sticks as dinosaur bones, but Brooks wouldn't eat them...of course.

 Lane and Katy enjoyed the eggs as well!

After we finished our snack, we watched a video on dinosaurs Cody had got from the York library, but it wasn't a real great one, so the kids weren't too interested in it.  So they just ended the morning playing with the dinosaurs figurines.  Then on Saturday we had decided to take the kids to the dinosaur museum in Milford.  Cody had called earlier in the week to see how long they would be open that Saturday, and they told her 5.  We thought that would be great, we'd wait until later in the day to go so that the kids could still take a nap first.  We got there about 3:45, and they were closed!! We were all so disappointed! I can't believe they closed before the 5:00 they told her! Makes me never want to go there again!!  So we had to come up with a plan B to do with the kids.  We drove on to Lincoln and ended up going to a place Cody had heard of.  It is called Lost in Fun and it's just a big play place for kids of all ages.  Brooks was not too sure of all the screaming kids and crazy things to do, but he finally started to enjoy it when he found a train table.  Then he found the ball pit and had a blast.  He didn't want to leave it! So we just sat by the ball pit pretty much the whole time! I think Lane and Katy had way more fun exploring everything else, but we were just happy Brooks found something to enjoy since when we got there he didn't even want to be set down! (I think he maybe thought we were going to leave him there at this crazy 'daycare'!).  

Brooks thought is was hilarious when daddy jumped in!

 Brooks also really liked it when Lane joined him, but Lane didn't stay long...there were way too many other fun things for him to do!

So at least we had a fun ending to Dinosaur Camp, just not what we had intended!

Life

I haven't had much time lately to keep up on blogs, but I finally got a chance to come downstairs and load pictures from the past couple weeks so I can share them with you! Keely is continuing to grow and get stronger and bigger.  She has even started smiling now, which makes her so much more fun! Brooks still loves his sister and talks to her all the time.  He gets really concerned if she starts crying, and tells me what he thinks she needs (pacifier, music playing on her bouncy seat, a blanket, she spit up, etc.)  I can't wait until she is old enough to play with him! (I think he's ready for it too!) Brooks really needs to get better about playing with other kids, so that is something we are going to try and work on in the coming months.  He is getting a little too clingy to Mom and Dad! Brooks is still struggling with eating as well, and it's only gotten worse in the past couple weeks. I hope it's only due to him getting his 2 year molars right now, but it doesn't seem to be getting any better!

Keely has really been 'growing up' the past couple weeks and her crying fits are not nearly as terrible as they were.  We just figured out that she needs to burp A LOT, even an hour after eating we still need to burp her if she starts getting fussy.  Infant gas drops have also seemed to be working pretty well with her in those situations, so I'm thankful for that.  Keely also had a bad case of baby acne for a couple weeks, but that has also mostly cleared up.  The best thing Keely has been doing is sleeping through the night consistently now for almost 4 weeks!  She goes to bed around 10:30 or 11 and doesn't wake up until 6:30 or 7:30.  I could not ask for anything better! I keep waiting for her to revert back to waking up several times, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet! 

Now finally, pictures!!

My sister has been doing day 'camps' with her kids this summer, with each one having a different theme.  We went out to my mom's for part of 'space' camp.  My mom taped plastic tarp together and filled the inside with water to let the kids pretend they were walking on the moon.  Katy and Lane had a blast with it, but Brooks wouldn't step on it.  He did enjoy throwing 'Saturn's rings' on it though!  We are going to join Cody and her kids for a few other 'camps' this summer in hopes that Brooks will get better playing with other kids! I think this week might be dinosaurs!

My grandparents from Kansas were here this past week, so they got to finally meet Keely!

Brooks taking care of Keely....making sure the swing was on!

Playing together...

 Brooks had to lay down and show Keely how to play with the activity mat.  I'm not sure who had more fun here!

Keely still likes to just sleep wherever sometimes...this one is on the couch downstairs while Brooks and I played some basketball with his little hoop. :)

Just too cute...

My family all went over to my Grandma and Grandpa Jost's for supper the other night, and Brooks and Katy had fun with the marble ramp. 

Now for smiles! Sorry they are kinda fuzzy, I guess I couldn't hold my phone still enough as I was trying to catch the smiles before she quit!

One Month Already!

Life has been pretty mundane for the most part the past couple of weeks.  We have still been trying to figure out Keely and what she needs at what time of the day.  She is so different from Brooks already in the fact that sometimes she will cry for almost 30 min and is just inconsolable.  With Brooks I could just hold and rock him and he would quit crying after just a few minutes.  Not so with Keely! Sometimes she'll calm down just by setting her down somewhere, she doesn't always like being held! And we have also had to put her in the car seat a couple of times and drive her around for awhile to calm her down.  At least something worked! Brooks absolutely hated his car seat and screamed whenever we took him somewhere in it, but Keely seems to love it and calms down with it. So anyway, we are still just trying to figure her out, and I'm sure once we finally think we have it figured out, she'll change!  Either way, we love seeing how different our kids are and also how much they are the same! Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks.

 Stretch!!!

 We took Brooks to his first baseball game this past weekend.  We have season passes to the York Cornerstone League games (thanks to York Ace Hardware being a sponsor!), so we walked over to the ballpark in town to watch for awhile.  Brooks loved it!  He especially liked that Daddy took him to the concession stand and he got to eat some M&Ms as we watched!

Brooks and me after church one Sunday

Keely's first tub bath.  She actually did really good and didn't cry much at all.

 Brooks decided he wanted to be a baby and sit in Keely's bouncy seat with the vibrator on.  (Luckily it is actually an infant-to-toddler rocker and is designed to be able to hold a little more weight than normal bouncy seats and we have a light-weight little boy!)

 Closing our eyes to take a nap....

 Daddy trying to keep Keely happy...she didn't want to be held to be put asleep but still wanted her pacifier and someone to be close.