Sprinkler Time!

Just For Fun

My aunt sent this old photo with Jason's birthday card this year. That was back in May, and I've had it on the refrigerator ever since. I thought it was too great not to share with the world, well, with the little portion of the world that sees my blog. I think I might have been 19 and Jason 20 in this photo, but I'm not sure.

35 Week Appointment

Total weight gain: 27 lbs
Blood pressure: 110/70
Fundal height: 36 cm
Baby's heart rate: 140 bpm

I was supposed to have a 34 week appointment, but my doctor went on vacation, so it was rescheduled for today. Now I go every week until the baby arrives. I was 100% convinced yesterday morning that we are having another girl, then had doubts again by the afternoon. I guess we'll know for sure soon enough!

Big Family Fun at the Children's Museum

We took a family field trip to the Children's Museum on Thursday. I think that there were 23 of us, so we were quite a large group! Somehow we managed to stay together, see just about everything there is to see, and not lose anyone... And have a great time on top of all that!

Sophie, Chloe, Josh, Christian, Caleb, Luke, Nick, Nate, and Bumblebee

The whole group

Sophie was preparing to dig up some Chinese terra cotta warrior statues.

Angel and I were helping Charlotte rebuild the statue.

Charlotte with the finished product

Uncle Lincoln was helping with the dig.

Building the arch in ScienceWorks

Jason with Charlotte and Sophie (on the deer behind Charlotte's horse) on the carousel

Angel and Nick played with the Tinkertoys.

Charlotte loved riding the horse: giddy-up! (Jason and I ran into our high school Spanish teacher right after this.)

Caleb and Christian deeply involved in their game of checkers.

Sophie, Chloe and Charlotte in the tree house

Post-lunch picture

Charlotte's a natural on the runway! :-)

She really likes the slide in the Dora & Diego exhibit.

Little Noah playing in Dora & Diego

Continuing The Celebration

We were back over at Jason's parent's house on Tuesday to continue celebrating Independence Day. I guess for us it's "independence days" instead. We spent more time swimming, eating, and tonight the kids did sparklers and Grandpa let off some fireworks for us.

Cousins: (furthest back) Brad and Brandon, (next row) Luke, Christian, Nick, Nate, Caleb, Chloe, Sophie, (in the middle by himself) Joshua H., (front row) Josh N., Charlotte, Brittany, and Amanda (Noah was the only cousin not in the picture)

Grandpa was giving the kids instructions about the sparklers.

They all did a good job of being careful.

Look at all the smoke!

Sophie really liked the sparklers. She was timid about holding one at first.

Jason had a good time with the sparklers as well.

Charlotte was able to do sparklers too (with some supervision from cousin Brittany).

Me and Jay

I love Chloe's expression in this picture. She was NOT timid about doing sparklers.

Me and Sophie

Grandpa was letting off fireworks in the backyard and apparently the girls found some of them a little too close for comfort. They were seeking shelter from all the falling debris up against the house.

Some of Grandpa's fireworks...

Well done!

Independence Day!

Our annual 4th of July tradition is to celebrate at Jason's parent's house with a cookout and pool party. The great thing is that my parents and my sister's family are usually able to join us as well, so we get to be with our whole family! Jason's cousin, Angel and her husband, Fred, along with their three sons (Christian, Nicholas and Joshua) usually come up from Texas and spend the week with us. We love to have them here and always enjoy their visit! Aunt Jann (Angel's mom) comes down from Wisconsin to visit as well. It is so nice to see everyone! This year we arrived at the Nye abode around 12:30PM, and spent the day swimming, eating, and talking. Charlotte fell asleep by 7:45PM, and I was pretty beat myself, so I ended up going home to put her in bed. Jason, Chloe and Sophie joined the rest of the gang at Channel 13 to watch the fireworks downtown. I ended up getting a migraine and was very thankful I had not gone... although there was plenty of fireworks noise around our house! These are a few pictures from our day:

Uncle Rich was having "tea" with Charlotte. Notice all the little boys in the pool: when the Hernedez boys are here our girls are even more outnumbered than usual! But Chloe and Sophie love to play with all of them.

Jason jumped in with his nephews Brandon and Brad. They were trying to make a big splash, and they succeeded!

Papaw and Ruby (she only wanted the icing on the cookie)

Tom decided to get in on the canon ball/splash contest. The peer pressure was too much!

Sophie had a great time!

Noah was probably safer watching the action from his own pool.

Grammy was helping Charlotte and Audrey on the raft. Audrey kept laying her head on Charlotte's rear end like a pillow, and Charlotte was yelling, "Get off my butt!" I promise we have tried to teach her to use bottom or bum or bumper, not butt!

Sophie, Charlotte, Ruby, Chloe and Audrey... This was the best picture (and I took several). Charlotte had such a great time with Audie and Ruby, which is why I didn't take her home for a nap and therefore why she was asleep by 7:45, but it was totally worth it!!