July Update

Hannah had the opportunity to attend a VBS put on by the church where she attends preschool. Their theme was Hometown Nazareth. They were very gracious in letting me walk around with Timmy and do some "market research." I will be using this program at our church, Fellowship EPC, this fall. Hannah LOVED the music!!

I am so thankful that Hannah continues to adore her little brother. She has learned all of his cues and helps out a lot. Over the past few weeks, she has enjoyed mothering him a bit more and is interacting with him a LOT more. She will get out some toys for him or read him a book. She also likes to push his bottom to help him crawl! I am one blessed mama!!Timmy loves his baby food!!! The boy is a bottomless pit! He is eating 2-3 Tbsp of oatmeal and an entire container of fruit for "lunch" and 2-3 Tbsp of rice cereal and a container of veggies for "dinner." I always have to cut him off or he would continue forever it seems! He's been teething a bunch so I gave him one of these little biscuits last week. He thoroughly enjoyed making a mess of it! No teeth popping through quite yet though!

Port Crescent Camping

We finally got a beautiful weekend for camping!!! We enjoyed the company of the Kerns and VanNatters. Our sites were beautiful and the Kerns had a beautiful view of Saginaw Bay from their site so we spent a lot of time hanging out over there.
Caleb was able to position the camper down in a little valley so that we could get some shade coverage from the trees. It was a very dirty site so the Escape had a hard time keeping up, but we managed!


The girls quickly discovered that they all had pillow pets. So cute!The beach was sandy and beautiful! The kids just loved spending time in the water and building sand castles. It's so fun to see their play develop as they get older!

Timmy's Six Month Pictures

Look at that stud muffin! Just lovin' his chubbies!!

Happy 6 Months, Timmy!

How can it be? Timmy is already 6 months old and he is just the sweetest little boy. I am so thankful for this little addition to our family. He fits right in and just goes with the flow. Timmy is such a happy, happy baby and never fusses anymore. I can't even imagine that first couple of months when he cried nonstop. Almost a distant memory as he has turned into such a content little guy. And his sister, Hannah, is just head-over-heels in love with her brother!

Timmy started rolling from his back to his front now and can roll in both directions; however, he likes to do so when I am not looking!! I know he can do it, though, because I have set him down and then found him in a different position. He's sneaky like that:)

He used to be a tummy sleeper (shhh, don't tell!), but now he has learned to balance himself on his side and prefers to sleep that way. For a few weeks he would try to get up on his side and then end up on his back in tears. We had to keep flipping him back to his belly so he would sleep!
I guess we can say Timmy is sleeping through the night. He normally goes to bed between 7 and 8pm. We wake him at about 11pm for a "dream feeding". I have tried several times for a few nights in a row to not do this and without a doubt he will wake up between 2 and 3am for a feeding. Thankfully, he will go right back to bed, but it's very hard to get up at that time when you went to bed at midnight. So, for now we will continue to wake him at 11 so we can get some solid sleep at night. That really makes a difference! In a few weeks I'm going to try cutting back the ounces on that "dream feed" and wean him off of it. Of course, I learned with Hannah, that I have no control so we'll see if Timmy will put up with that :)
Timmy eats like a champ. He LOVES his baby food!! In fact, he will eat and eat and eat it unless we stop. So, I'm going on amounts recommended by the pediatrician now rather than his cues because he is a bottomless pit :) If I don't keep that spoon going fast enough into his mouth he'll be sure to let me know, too. Right now he's eating 1-2 Tbsp oatmeal and 1-2 Tbsp of fruit at lunch and then 1-2 Tbs rice cereal and 1-2 Tbsp veggies at dinner. He still gets his bottle every 3 1/2 hours as well. With all he's eating you'd think he'd be off the charts for weight.
We had a well-baby checkup this morning and here are his 6 month stats:

Weight: 17 lb 6 oz
(48th percentile)
Length: 26.5 in
(54th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17.4 in
(63rd percentile)
Average little baby and I'm VERY happy with that!!! He does have a bit of eczema so we will amp up the usage of Eucerin for the little guy.

Timmy is discovering all kinds of new things. This week, even, he has started to reach out to touch our faces. He laughs hysterically when he gets his fingers in our mouths and we pretend to eat them. He has also discovered how beautiful Hannah's hair is and loves to grab hold! Here's a cute little video of Timmy in his bouncer. What a difference from a month ago when I sat him in it for the first time.

Nine Years

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! I couldn't imagine my life without you!

P.S. Caleb and I picked out nearly identical cards for each other this year. The inside of both cards read: "No matter how crazy things can get sometimes, I'll always be glad that we're together, and grateful to be sharing life with you." We had a good laugh over that one :)

Fourth of July (or Canada Day)

For the fourth of July we decided to avoid the craziness in the states and head over to a highly recommended park in Canada called Pinery Provincial Park. It was only about a 2-3 hour drive and crossing back and forth across the border turned out to be a breeze.

We have quite the system down now for packing, setting up, food, and everything that goes along with camping. This year, I'm sharing a wing with Hannah, Daddy's sleeping in another wing, and Timmy's in a mini-pack'n'play in place of where the table should be set up.

Timmy had a ball riding around in his stroller and playing with his toys.

We asked around on the 4th of July about fireworks. It turns out that it was Canada's birthday so they were having a show in Grand Bend to celebrate. Earlier in the day we tried to drive up to this little beach town, but it was SWAMPED. We turned around and headed back to the campground. We decided to take our chances and hang out on the beach until dark. We ended up having great seats for the fireworks that took place just off the shore to the north of us.We explored a few of the beaches at the park. The first one we went to (area 3) was beautiful and sandy. The second one we went to was very rocky and didn't have much of a shore (Burley). It was HOT, HOT, HOT, and if Timmy was a bit older we probably would have spent more time at the beach.He took his first dip in a lake and he didn't like it too much.So he hung out in a little tent on the beach with mommy.

On Saturday night, there was a huge thunder and lightning storm. We decided to take shelter in the car because the lighting was striking the ground quite frequently. Once the storm moved through the temperatures cooled off a bit and it was much more tolerable.

We came home one day early. Mommy had had enough camping. Three nights is about my max! LOL It was a beautiful campground, but very, very busy and spread out. Perhaps when the kids are a little older it might be fun to return. A lot of areas were accessible by bike, but Timmy is too little to ride in the trailer.