And We're Off.......

To Iowa/Chicago that is. We'll be spending one week in Iowa at Grandpa Shippy and Amma's farm to play with all 8 cousins (the majority being boys!). Grandpa already has his tractors ready to go and the four wheeler tuned up, so we're excited about letting everyone run free and hopefully burn off some good energy while the adults get to catch up. Then, we're off to Chicago for a week to spend time with Kurt's family. We're excited to see our 3 nieces, Aunt Stef, Uncle Keith and Grandma Aichele along with some other relatives that might be home visiting. We also hope to touch base with some old friends in the area! It will be a whirlwind two week trip, but much needed and anticipated! Hopefully post pictures when things settle down when we get home!

Abby's 4 months!

We had Abby's 4 month appointment yesterday, so I wanted to update her stats and what she's up to. She weighed in at 12 lb 4 oz which is the 21%. Her height is 24 1/2 inches which is 61%. From her 2 month appointment, she leaned out but grew much taller, so although she is on the lighter side, she is still looking really good.

Other than that, Abby has proven to be our easiest baby yet! She's very predictable and by that I mean when she wakes up in the morning and when she takes her naps. Her afternoon nap already coordinates with the boy's naps, so if all goes well, I at least get a few minutes to myself before Silas is done w/ his hour quiet time. She also likes to be fed and in bed by 8 or 8:30 and then sleeps through the night! YEAH! She's overall a very happy and content baby. She doesn't mind being on the go and can sleep just about anywhere if needed. She has just started to roll over but not consistently. She does have a "stiff neck" (it has a term but I forget it already) and favors looking to one side. We are trying to force her to turn to the other side per our dr's orders. If this doesn't get better by 6 months, then we might need to go to PT for further exercises.

Abby is still very loved by her brothers and we're still working on gentleness with them. I think at this rate, she might be one tough cookie to put up with these boys! Oh well, she's protected, right! Anyways, she's such a blessing and we feel very blessed and honored for our three children.

My boys

Summer has just begun and we are already enjoying it! The weather has been overall pretty good, so as usual, most days are spent outside. We have been trying out many different parks this year, but if we don't get to a park, this is what else we do! We are usually playing trucks, riding bikes/trikes, or playing w/ our push toys in our driveway, or we can be seen in our backyard playing softball, kickball or chasing Haven! Oh, and I guess the normal bubbles on our deck and chasing the birds that come to our bird feeder (thanks boys!).

A lot of times if the boys want to play out back, they are out there by themselves since I can see them from multiple windows and since we don't have many bugs out here, the doors are kept wide open for me to hear them. Well, the boys have now found a new activity, which is picking mommy's flowers! I have a nice flower bed that I have planted flowers and a few plants this year. The boys know that they are suppose to stay out of there, but I guess that didn't stop them this time. They brought me some of my pretty marigolds that had just started blooming. After laughing/scolding them, Silas says, "Don't worry mommy, they'll grow back." I guess I'm just thankful they picked mine and not my neighbors who spends far more time on hers.

Anyways, other than that, Silas and Nathan have a love/hate relationship. They are each others best friend, but boy can they fight! There have already been some good wrestling matches. However, if one is gone, the other one doesn't know what to do! Kurt took Silas to a baseball game the other night, and Nathan cried and all he could say was "bubba, bubba", it broke his heart to go to bed w/o Silas there. All this to say, I'm so glad they have each other to play with. Somedays I can just sit back and watch them play and be thankful they have there very own playmate in their house!

Nathan with my flowers. Doesn't he look so innocent?

Here they are holding my beautiful flowers.

Here's my flower bed after the boys got to it. Not many flowers left!


Wrestling as usual. Don't be deceived....Silas is not always on top!

I thought this was such a good picture. Here they are just hanging out as buddies. After they were sitting in this same position for awhile I finally asked what they were doing. There was a spider web that they were watching and telling each other about. It was really cute listening to them explain it!

Amusement park fun

On Memorial day weekend, we took the boys to a local amusement park geered for kids 12 and under. The boys could go on all rides and even some of them by themselves. It was so much fun! The weather was perfect and the boys hung in there for a long time. Abby slept through most of it and so it was a great day. Here are some pictures.






This is actually the world's highest ferris wheel, because this amusement park is in the mountains.




Ahhhh....pooped!

More Pictures

Here is Silas w/ our minor league baseball team maskot. We attended one baseball game as a family and then Kurt took Silas to a Tuesday night game.

There's trouble!
He's such a cutie!
Abby all dressed up for church. I'm loving all of the dresses we've gotten!
Here is our goofball!

Breckenridge Pictures