4th of July Fun

Playing some catch-up here, but I'm sure you would all like to seen how we had loads of fun over the 4th of July weekend. We went to a friend's house whose cul-de-sac was having a block party "Carnival Style". There was inflatable jumpers, cotton candy, face painting, pie-eating and lots of good food, and of course fireworks. Titus really enjoyed himself all night, but especially liked the jumpy pit.



There was a very nice fireworks display after dark and Titus and Elsa both stayed up to watch the show. Titus was completely enamored with the lights and sounds of the fireworks. I figured he might get a little scared, but he was just fascinated by them. He didn't speak or clap at them; and he didn't turn away for one second either. We really enjoyed ourselves and enjoyed staying up late as a family on the holiday.

Celebrating 5 Years

We are celebrating 5 years of marriage. Such a blessed event. We have lived in two homes, had two kids, and still have the same dog. We look forward to so many more years of blessings.

(Then)

*and kisses*

(Now)

We celebrated our 5th anniversary by going out on a special date. No fancy restaurants or fancy clothes, but a date like when we were...well...dating. This meant just having fun and going where ever our heart lead us. We first went to Hinkle Family Fun Center and played in the arcade. Skeeball and a Dance Dance Revolution were the favorites by far. (By the way, DDR is really exhausting and embarrassing when there are a bunch of 12 year olds watching you!) We then soaked in a movie, caught a Fish and Chips dinner, then went to Lowes. (Yep, you know you are married and live in a fixer-upper house when your dates take you to a home improvement store.) After all this, it was getting late, I mean really late...like 8:30pm! So we came back home just in time to put Elsa down for the night (Titus was already snoozing), said goodbye to our wonderful babysitters and spent the rest of the evening together.

And since all good baby blog posts have pictures of the babies, here is Titus being a sweetheart to his baby sister Elsa.

P.S. Jones says hi too!

Big Boy Bed

Titus has a new bed to sleep in now. It's a big boy bed. For now we are just gonna keep it on the floor so he can get in and out without problem. We haven't moved Elsa yet, but that will be soon since she has been doing well with sleeping through the night!




And just for fun here is a picture of the kids after Titus' bath.



Also, as a family we have been following the World Cup. On Saturday we had some friends over for burgers and to watch the game. We tried to go swimming after all that but we got rained out. And Titus came back in and crashed on the couch with daddy. We had a good time, too bad the US soccer team lost to Ghana again.

Visitors!

We had a house full of visitors this past week. So much fun, love and warmth filled our home. Grandad, Mim, Uncle Ethan, Great Granny and Great Papaw were all here to love on the babies. We enjoyed swimming in our pool, going to the zoo, and riding the train to Santa Fe. Titus really liked playing basketball with Uncle E and Papaw. Elsa truly enjoyed being held by Granny.

After a few days of enjoying our company they kicked us out, kept the kids and sent us on a date night. We had fun on our Father's Day date night :) The kids enjoyed spending the time with their babysitters. Titus had his babysitters wrapped around his little finger. He was able to get away with some things that Mom and Dad wouldn't allow. Like watching "Finding Nemo" again, and again!! Or just staying up later than he's supposed to. Isn't being a kid fun??? I think its great!

Unfortunately the kids got a virus, Titus first, then Elsa, and now mommy. We visited the doctor twice while our visitors were here. Sadly it was just a virus that produced a high fever, and all we could do for them is give them fever reducers and lots of cuddling.

Our visitors all went back home to Kentucky on Tuesday, but we will see them again soon on Skype! Thanks for visiting us.

Four month Check up

Elsa is growing up!! She is 25.5 inches long and 12.2 lbs! She is tall for her age, but her weight is about right. She is healthy, and the doctor LOVED how big her smiles were!!! She can be such a happy baby, and also kinda dramatic. She is continuing to roll over like a pro and starting to swim her arms like she wants to crawl. " Hey girl, slow down!" Her friend Cody, who is about 2 months older is doing the swimming thing, but he is much more steady on his tummy time. We will see how it goes. This is the earliest we can start introducing solid food, but again I am not in a hurry. I am gonna wait another few weeks and let her be closer to 6 months old.

Titus is still doing great, his next scheduled appointment isn't until his 2nd birthday. So no updates on him, except he is healthy!

New Video Camera

So we bought a new "pocket-sized" video camera. We figured we would take more videos of the kids if we had a smaller camera that we would actually take with us. We wanted one that would shoot HD video and that was really user friendly. We found something with all the above criteria plus a great bonus...waterproof to 10 feet! Meet the Kodak Playsport. (Don't worry, we didn't pay retail for it!)

It works great and is very easy to use. We have found that the 60 frames per second (fps) 720p resolution produces the best quality videos for us. The available 1080p setting is true & full HD, but requires a much steadier hand than I care to have and is only 30 fps, so it isn't a great for "action" shots. It also has a "Youtube" friendly setting, so uploading and embedding videos to share with you guys will be easy too.

The waterproof feature of the camera was a great bonus feature, since that means we can take it underwater in the pool for some fun videos. The camera sinks like a rock, so we are fortunate that our pool is only 9 feet deep and it's rated to 10 feet. We look forward to filming some pool video fun this summer!

And since I know you don't care about the camera, but DO care about the video we take with it, here is the first video I took with the camera. It's on the lowest settings (so it won't amaze you with the quality), but works great as a youtube upload. So without further ado, here is Elsa cooing and smiling at her Daddy.

Warm Weather

We enjoyed our three day weekend. Parks, Picnics and Pools! Jordan took us to the Botanical Gardens on Friday morning. Then we took Jones to the soccer fields next to us and played around and had a picnic. And on Sunday we got to dip in the pool! So much FUN!!! Enjoy our photo's