Oh Phoenix, Here We Are Again!

Nothing like a last minute trip to see family, right? Oh the joys of being a stay-at-home mommy with no kids in school yet... You can take last minute trips to see family for a week. My brother and his wife are heading to Costa Rica to finish up some of his doctorate work until next summer so we decided to head down and spend some time with them before they left. The fun part? They moved in with my parents for the last week before they left and that's where we stayed too! Talk about a party from sun up to sun down! ;) 
Besides hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law, my mom kept me and the kids very entertained. From a shopping trip to Ikea (a definite MUST), a splash pad, mall shopping, lunches out and much more. 

Oh, and they have a pool. For Lukas, that's all he needed to do for 6 days straight. 

Daddy got to join the fun over the weekend and enjoy the pool life with Lukas for a few days.  I'm totally convinced that I have the bestest and most fun family ever. And since this is my blog, you can't really argue with me.Yep. Maybe we can adopt you every once in a while. ;) 

July- Other Happenings

Since I'm new to the blogging world I haven't really decided what to do about these in-between happenings that are just too cute to not document. So how about a month-end round up? Sure. That sounds delightful. You got posts on the bigger happenings in our life during July- here's a post on the little things that happened in July. ENJOY! 

Little Miss Addilyn is in the phase of change. Every day she wakes up with a new word, a new skill, and I'm over here like WHHAT and WHHERe is my baby girl!?! Ugh. Is she cute or what?! ;) 

She likes to try to use her "poon" for about 2 seconds until she realizes food is meant to devoured. Guess we have some basic manners to work on... ;) 

This girl is a girlie girl. She loves shoes, hats and all accessories. And dressing up is a definite necessity.

The Princess riding her noble steed... She's thrilled. 

The kids are loving the backyard. We spend at least an hour out there every single day and it is amazing! Outside= happiness. True that. 

A dear friend of mine and old roomie is about to POP any day with her little bundle of cuteness and I got the privilege to help with her shower. I got to make the favors, which consisted of a cake pop and a hand sanitizer, and read "thank you for popping by and touching Katie's life. Now you can touch her baby too." Ha! Nope, Pinterest. I wish I was that clever. 

We also had a great friend and her daughter come up to visit us for a few days! Amber and I have been friends since college and Addilyn and Harper are 2 weeks apart. So fun to see the girls play and have fun with each other! 

Amber and I were also roommates in college and our other roomie has a baby about 5 months apart from Addilyn. Look at these cuties... can't wait to watch these forever friends grow up together. 

Friends! Don't they make life so grand? 

Speaking of friends, Lukas has so many friends, which makes life fun.We spend most days during the week on play-dates with different friends. Sure makes life wonderful when you surround yourself with such sweet people. 

The kids and I get to go on lots of lunch dates which I adore. Chick-fil-A, Sams Club and the Mall seem to be our favs. And Lukas is working on the art of eating pizza with Chopsticks. Integrating cultures, I like it! 

My little biking buddies! Love mornings trucking these two around town.

My dad has been blessed with an amazing job that takes him to our town every so often which means we get to see him all the more! We love our dinners out with Grandpa! 

We live in a mountain town which of course means it could drastically change temperature at any given moment. We had an ice storm roll through a few weeks back and the kids were a little concerned with ice in huge amounts in the backyard. Say what?! 

And that's a small-ish glimpse into our everyday lives. I love this beautiful thing called life. I really don't think I could dream of it being any better. Oh, and in case you thought she only dressed in princess costumes, Addilyn has also been seen being Hulk-Iron baby from time to time... 

Swim Lessons & Sports Camp

There's just something so exciting to me about swim lessons. I think it might be that it brings back so many fun childhood memories of my swim lessons and how much I loved it! Every summer since Lukas was born we have done at least one session of swim lessons. I truly think it has paid off for Lukas; he is an incredible swimmer for just being 3! And I'm a huge fan or learning to swim at a very young age. Addilyn started our summer off with swim lessons and just loved it! We got to do our lessons with some good friends which made it even more fun. 

Addilyn learned to jump in, blow bubbles, kick her feet and of course a bunch of fun and adorable water songs.

Daddy came to swim with Addilyn several times too! Fun! 

And of course, the girls graduated (with bubble-blowing honors) and got to celebrate with their Daddys and a fun day in the kids pool. Hooray!

Lukas was next up for swim lessons and this was his first time doing "big-kid" lessons. Which means mommy watches from the side-lines instead of being in the water with him. Sigh. I'll be honest I was a little like "say what?! 4 kids and a teacher?!" But they said he was ready and after lots of prayers and telling myself he would be fine, I let him go to the first day of class and he just loved it. He listened well to his teacher and never even fell off the step despite being his crazy little self in the pool. If you know him, you know what I mean, and he survived. ;)

Lukas learned to swim on his back, hold his breath for long enough that mommy would get really nervous watching, and he even learned how to jump in from the side with a life jacket on and bobbing back up to the top! Pretty amazing for a 3-year old! 

Just like his baby sis, he also graduated and he gets to move up to the next class when we decide to do lessons again. One of the benefits of living in a mountain town is that despite getting snow 6 months out of the year, our pool does year round swim lessons! Nothing like coming to swim when its 15 degrees out and there's several feet of snow on the ground! Sweet. Anyways, check out this cute swimmer!

Lukas also got to do a Sports Camp which was so much fun! We got to see Lukas' competitive side and he got to make some new friends, burn off some extra energy running around and even learned to rock climb! He was surprisingly good at rock climbing and had no fear about falling off the wall or getting too high. Doesn't get that from me! My few rock climbing experiences were nothing I would want to repeat. If you've heard the stories, then you know just what I'm talking about. Oops. Glad my brother is still alive. hehe. 

Its is such a blessing to watch these little people that God gave me grow up and do these "big-kid" things. It's actually very bitter-sweet... watching them grow up and do new things is so exciting and fun, yet then I realize all too soon I will be sending them off to kindergarten... and beyond. Sigh. Smile. Now I'm going to go find those sweet faces and kiss them 100 times and play with them till I tuck them in tonight and kiss their little noses good-night. Ah, if you have them gracing your lives too, then make sure you give them an extra kiss today and make sure they know that they are loved and appreciated and so incredibly special.