fourth {third} of july

We just had a wonderful visit from my brother and his family. {well, timing is all relative, right?} They drove 11+ hours for a very short weekend, and we had so much fun being with them! L and his cousin B played like crazy and were such good friends. All day long after they left, L just kept saying over and over again how much he missed her; and R and I simply could not fill the playmate role as well as she could. It was darling to watch them!

We of course started out the weekend with some photo booth fun on our computer. It was dang cute watching them all laugh so hard.

Playing in the water for a little bit. And riding bikes and scooters a lot.

Going for a walk around the pond and having some snacks along the way. 

R had been planning on making me a picnic table for an early birthday present. After talking with brother D about it, they decided to do it together and D brought some tools with him. R had made the saw horses before hand, and they definitely came in handy. From designing, buying the materials, cutting, and putting it all together it took them five hours. Amazing! We still have to sand and stain it, but we have to wait for the rain to stop long enough for it to dry. Someday soon. Happy early Birthday to me!! I LOVE it! 

The finished table on our deck, well loved by everyone. It has definitely been fun! 

We even had a visit from the ice cream truck! It was such a quintessential summer moment I had to take pictures {as if I ever need as excuse, right?}. Don't let that sour face on Lady-LE fool you, she loved it! 

See? I love the ice cream dripping off her chin onto the watermelon on her shirt. Perfect summer day, I tell ya!

We drove up to the US Whitewater National Center to see on fireworks on Saturday night, and we had a great time. That place is huge and we can't wait to go back and take advantage of it. It was crazy crowded, and the kids loved the fireworks. SUCH a difference from last year when L couldn't even keep his eyes open. And of course, he and cousin B had wrestling games on the grass. It just seems so perfect when your best friends' kids get along so well with your own, right? 

Sunday we had a lazy morning, enjoyed church together, and then had a big 4th of July dinner together while R slept to prepare for a night shift. After dinner we enjoyed some sparklers and playing outside a little bit more. 

I love this kid's intensity. He cracks me up. {and I love D&A's camera. It's amazing.}

So stinking fun! 

{on a side note, I love looking at this picture and seeing hand-me-down clothes from cousin J-boy and Baby-A. It's as if we were all together and it made me happy.}

Monday morning {the real 4th of July}, we all got up to say goodbye.  The A-Family had a long way to drive before D reported to work at 4am the next day.  We were so lucky to have them come visit us!! Our first year of marriage D&A lived in Provo at the same time before graduating, and we did everything with them. It is so fun to get together with them now and simply pick up right where we left off. They are the best of people, and we are constantly trying to be as good as them. Thank you so much for coming!! We can't wait till our next adventure!

party time

 The birthday girl!

We threw a little party for Lady-LE the night of her birthday. Kind of an excuse to get the neighbors together and continue getting to know them. I wanted an ice cream theme with lots of colors. I wish I could say that I was all prepared and well-thought out. But that was definitely NOT the case! Ry and I were working on things around the house up until the very last second, and I didn't get around to doing a few extra things that I wanted {read: non-essential but cute things like more pom-poms and water bottle labels, etc.}. I had them ready, just not enough time. I didn't even shower or get dressed. T-shirt and gym shorts makes a nice first impression, right?! Oh well! Lesson learned.  These pictures were taken obviously during the party - so the tables have definitely been used and bumped a couple times. :)

Either way, it was SO fun getting lots of lots of neighbors together to play and eat ice cream. There were so many kids it was insane. We took a video of Lady-L eating her cake, and R was yelling just so she could hear him. We've been having tons of crazy thunderstorms lately, so everyone was inside and it was a *little* crowded. But still fun. 

A great neighbor had invited us over for a 4th of July BBQ earlier this week, and Lady-L had eaten maybe five slices of tomatoes while there. So this friend brought over a tomato with ribbon wrapped around it, and Lady-L loved it. She was eating it like an apple the whole night. What a crack up. 

She loved the cake. Not so much eating it, but definitely smashing it and squishing the frosting in her hands. 

But she was really happy when the party was over and it was bath time. This girl loves the water. 

The next morning we opened presents and celebrated a little more. L was sure to help little sister unwrap the gifts, and they had fun together.

It was such a great birthday!! Happy Birthday Lady-LE!

twelve months

Lady-LE is a year old! I can barely believe it, the time has flown by. Where has my baby gone?!

Recent Stats: 

20lbs - 75%
30in - 30%

Recent Favorites:

-absolutely adores big brother and laughs all.the.time. at him. I think out of all of us he's the one who can make her laugh the hardest

-demands to be standing, which means that I have to hold her hands to help her. She will literally not bend in the waist whenever I try and sit her back down. She refuses to stop standing once she's up.

-loves the peek-a-boo game and covers her eyes with the back of her hands on her own

-obsessed with mirrors and goes crazy whenever she sees herself

-still not crawling forward, but getting closer. She leans all the way over while sitting so that her belly is on the floor but yet won't push herself over her legs. She has learned a new trick on her back though - she digs her heels into the floor and scoots backwards. Creative, no?

-knows how to go backwards on her belly, and is a pro at scooting in circles either on her belly or in the sitting position

-she refuses to let me hold her while feeding her a bottle and we have learned over the past couple months that it's just easier to lay her on her back and let her hold the bottle. She just hated being in any kind of reclined position - she had to be sitting straight up and seeing life. But now that she's more and more eager to move/play she won't lay still long enough to drink her milk. So feeding her through the bottle is getting more and more difficult {I guess it'll make weaning easier!}

-ever since having mangoes at a resident's party a couple weeks ago she has had such a sweet tooth and hates any vegetable {well, I guess that isn't so new}. Not quite sure how to keep veggies in her diet once we stop spoon feeding her.

-however she does love tomatoes. she's able to pound almost an entire tomato at a time if she's hungry enough - and I'm talking those big slicing tomatoes. She loves 'em.

-she loves to throw her food on the floor

-can sign: more, all done, eat, milk, rain, and snow. She LOVES to sign anything and have us say the word aloud back to her. Makes her down right giddy and she does the legs-kicking-arms-waving excited dance

-loves loves loves music and moving her body to it.

-hates to be left alone

-100% sweet and darling and completely photogenic.

-was laughing while watching fireworks at a friend's house

-continues to love crowds and lots of people. she's so sad when it's just L and me all day!

-copies what we do, but only after we stop doing it. Her clap is always five seconds late, or she'll raise her arms after we put ours down. It's really cute to watch.

-she'll clap her hands whenever anyone says "hooray!"

-with all the 4th of July festivities she has reverted back to three naps a day because night-time sleep has gone down. this girl is crazy! Slowly we'll shift her back to sleeping more at night and less during the day. I LOVE how much she loves to nap! {although I am ready to have more flexibility during the day}

-she totally loved her birthday cake!! We threw a little party for the big day, and she completely smashed it. Pictures to come.

{She is obsessed with these soft blocks. This particular morning she was adamant about holding all of them at once. It was pretty cute watching her try to pick one up if it fell}

 {Playing in the pool which she loves. Her favorite is to have me help her stand in the pool}

 {My brother took this picture. Right as he walked by she gave him a smile, as if she knows that the whole world is just waiting to take her picture. Well, technically, I guess that's true since I am her whole world still!}

{My darling sister-in-law snapped this one. I simply can't stop staring at it. I love this girl!!}

june wrap up

June found us in a new place, with no knowledge of the resources around us. The entire month was pretty much spent getting adjusted, unpacked, familiar with roads and directions, and meeting TONS of new people. I was done with introducing myself by the end of the month. Can't we just be friends without going through the pleasantries please? Just pretend that you know me already. :) 

 We have a itty-bitty kiddie pool. Just enough room to sit both kids next to one another and make a couple of monster waves just by shifting your weight. It's awesome, and the kids love it. The humidity here in far worse than OH, and we are thankful for any kind of refreshment!

 Recognize where we are? Charlottee has an Ikea!! Hooray! Ooohh I foresee many fun visits here {especially once L is potty trained and can go to the kids area!}.

 I am a rockstar and locked L and I out of our car after loading all of the groceries in it. New city, no friends, no spare key. Solid, right? We had fun counting the airplanes flying in the sky until Dad came to rescue us. So thankful that he hadn't started orientation yet and was available!

 Sharing the stroller at Taste of Charlotte in Uptown {otherwise known as Downtown to the rest of the world. But they call it Uptown here. Does this make anyone else want to break out in "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel?! I do every time I pass a sign for it}. 

 We have no garage in our house, so this shed out back is a lifesaver. It was a good team effort to organize and set up shelves and what not. 

 Enjoyed a family bike ride before orientation starts.

 Aren't these kids cute?! 

 R's class of fellow interns for Emergency Medicine. In every other year there's been even number of girls vs. guys. This year is a little male-dominated. We threw a little BBQ get together for them all the day before orientation started to get to know them. It was so fun to open our home to them all, and have those first conversations and try to place names with faces. We are excited to make new friends and to form those family-like relationships with one another since many of us are far from home. There's only one other resident with a kid - so I'm sure R and I are considered totally nuts for having two kids. But there are quite a few "significant others" in the bunch, and I'm sure we'll become good friends. And I'm hoping there will be more kids coming through our years together! 

L playing frisbee with R at the park one evening.  

 Lady-LE getting a little sassy with me while watching the boys play frisbee. 

 We tried out our neighborhood "swim club" a couple times this month, but ultimately chose to join a gym instead. The kids sure love water!

 We converted to the Mac side of life. And we love it. Bri and Em aren't you proud?! 

Enjoying some Daddy play time before intern year officially starts. Hopefully this won't be too rare! 

the new digs

Here is our new home! We have had a lot of fun getting settled into the "home-owner" status. Taking care of the yard {or learning how to}, meeting all sorts of fun neighbors, having visitors in town, playing in our yard, throwing a few parties, and getting to know our way around a new city have definitely spiced up our daily routine!

Since R drove down a week early to close on our house, we never got the classic family-in-front-of-the-sold-sign picture. And shockingly enough this is the best one I've got so far of the house plus any particular member(s) of our family. {and of course neither kid would cooperate and look at the camera} It'll be fun to take a similar picture when residency is over and see the growth in these kids.

We are incredibly blessed and are grateful for our lives here. It's not easy {at this very moment R is trying to sleep after a night shift}, and I'm sure it'll get even harder. But the bigger the challenge the more you grow, right? Bring it on.

three days

June 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. 

It all seems like a blur now - but talk about some drastic life changes! 

For the most part, these three days are when all of our family came into town for R's graduation. We had two sets of parents, and two sets of grandparents who travelled all the way across the country to be there for that special day. With the timing of our move to NC and all, we definitely had to pack in our fun where we could, and we tried to show them a tiny glimpse of our life in Ohio. It was such a fun-filled time full of celebrating what an AMAZING job R has done over the past four years. Seriously. He rocks my world! Here is a brief synopsis of those three days.

Wednesday started out as working around the house {cleaning, painting, shuffling boxes around}.

Followed by a quick dip in the pool at G & C's hotel. 

Followed by a big group dinner at R's favorite C-bus restaurant: Figlio's! A little on the not-so-kid-friendly side, but we had lots of helpers trying to keep L & LE entertained. 

Dinner was followed by bedtime, picking up the last set of visitors, and dessert by Rita's. Another C-bus favorite. 

Thursday {Graduation Day!} came, and R had a rehearsal in the morning while we stayed home and continued to lightly putter around and inch closer to having the apartment done. We met up at the College of Medicine for a personal guided tour by R.

Which was followed by a lunch catered by the College, which was too crowded for our group so we found an empty classroom to take over. An awards ceremony and nap times followed, then dinner at Noodle's & Company {quickie for the time schedule we were on!}, and off the the main event! 

WOWsers. This was a big class and it was so fun to watch them all march up together and be all fancy and formal. I came into the auditorium later than everyone due to a turn-around-we-forgot-something moment, and even just stepping into that room and knowing why we were there made me all emotional and start to cry! I am such a pansy, especially when it comes to being proud of someone I love so much. 

Oh I love this guy! Isn't he handsome?! 

 A few more while we were watching them all walk and line up outside. Then we snuck back into the theatre just in time to watch them all come in there and take their seats. Loved it.

 I am cheesy and loved listening to them all read their class oath together.

 A little out of focus, but that's as far as the zoom would let me go and I love it. R had a great mentor, Dr. Baner, place the hood on him. C & I laughed a little as the MC put a very forceful emphasis on reading every student's name followed by the letters "M.D." It was a little entertaining, and yet I swooned a little hearing R's name being read. Has this really happened? Is this real?!

 The fabulous support staff. Oh how we love every single one of these good people and are so grateful they came. What a great night!

 Almost all of the LDS friends in his class. There are a few dear friends who aren't pictured - but this is still a great group of guys!

 And the wives - or a random collection of some of them together. And of course, some of them missing. 

 Such fabulous friends - and we are all going in completely opposite directions. We now have friends all over the country that we want to visit! Oh how we miss you!

Friday started out with a trip to the Park of Roses. One of our favorites in C-bus, and a perfect spot to take lots of family. We had fun meandering through the rows of roses {say that three times fast}, and playing on the playground. 

 I could simply get lost in these flowers. I love them. And I love every single memory that I have from this park - especially because it reminds me of my sister and her family. 

 Cute PopPop and L moment.

 I think this is the "Singing in the Rain" variety. One of my favs.

L was cracking me up - just wanting to run everywhere and show me everything. He and I played a little hide and seek through the roses. And I could never quite get him to take a "real" photo. But these make me smile and I love them just the same. 

G pushing Lady-LE in the swing. Oh she adored the attention!

 L was so excited to show us how he could go down the big slide, and I was so focused on taking the picture that I completely missed actually watching him, and he fell FLAT on his face seconds after I snapped this. He was a little shocked, as was I! But he got back up and did it again - ready for the drop off the next time around. I love how C is laughing in the background. 

 Silly moment, but I love playing together so I had to include it. 

After the park we said goodbye to R's parents and to one set of grandparents. It was hard to say goodbye after such a short visit! Then we all went home and got ready to load our moving truck! 

 They ran out of the size we reserved, so they upgraded us at no cost. This thing was huge! And L loved running up and down the ramp. Crazy schedules, rushing to do last minute things, great family and friends who helped us load the truck and clean the apartment. R's grandparents grabbed pizza for everyone for dinner and stayed until it got dark helping us clean. They were fabulous, and the definition of hands-on parenting {grand-parenting?}. My parents were staying with us, so unfortunately they didn't have a choice to quit! Together we stayed up until about midnight I think doing last minute things that you simply cannot do until the house is empty. Words cannot do our gratitude justice! We are SO thankful for EVERYONE who helped!

 This is the last picture on our camera from Friday. We had great friends stop by to say goodbye to us, and we grabbed a picture of the ones we didn't have pictures with the night before. Oh we love these people and completely adored getting to know them. 

So technically those three days are over, but maybe I should really title this "four days" because Saturday was just as crazy as the rest! 

I took this photo at 5:05 in the morning, after everyone was already awake and moving. The truck was completely loaded, the van was just waiting on our bags and sleeping arrangements and we pulled out around 7:30ish after saying a few more goodbyes that just leave you empty inside.

We drove straight to Charlotte, NC, and pulled up to our house exactly ten minutes before a few guys from our new church ward were showing up to help us unload! Talk about cutting it close, right? Well ... it would have been perfect. But after doing a quick walk-through we decided that the carpets could use a cleaning. I know that the previous owners took great care of the house, but it just feels so much better to know that things are clean and to just get it done. 

 So we had everything moved into our main living/dining rooms and rented a carpet cleaning from Lowes. Not quite the arrangement we had pictured in our head for our first night in our own house, but it is what it is! 

 My sweet and amazing parents made the drive with us and worked their tails off helping us every step of the way. We finished cleaning carpets on Sunday, and by Sunday night had moved the majority of furniture and boxes upstairs that needed to be up there. It was wonderful having an extra set of hands to work along side of during this crunch time! 

This is my sweet Dad, at 8:30 at night still in his church clothes moving things upstairs. They flight left Monday morning, and I swear he and my mom were determined to have the couches set up and the kitchen functional before they left. So it took us a few more days to get things situated than we thought, but it was still great and we loved finally starting this next phase in life!