VBS summer fun!

This is our first summer experiencing the fun of vacation bible schools.  Right after school got out Chase attended VBS at New Covenant Church, the church that is associated with his school.  He had a great time with their Farm theme and to end out the week they had a family get together with ice-cream and animals, OH MY...

 They brought in a petting zoo so the kids got to feed the animals...

One of my handsome young man...

He's getting so big!  Last week while Kevin was in Germany, my fantastic neighbor and friend volunteered to take the kids with her to VBS at her church.  The theme was workshop of wonders....

Both kids had a blast!  Chase even asked if he could go to VBS again. Leah thought she was hot stuff getting to go this time as well.  I don't think we will be going to anymore this summer but I know the kids will be excited to get to go to VBS again next summer!

It's a bubbly bunch of coconuts!

Chase has been begging me for months now to buy a coconut every time we have gone to the grocery store.  On my part this is a big mom fail because when your kids are asking to be adventurous and try new things it is my personal opinion that you should not crush their hearts of curiosity. In reality I just did not want to mess with a coconut.  I am not sure where he got this need for a coconut from but yesterday at the store I finally grabbed a coconut.  Chase was sooooooo excited!

A proud coconut papa!  And then let the fun begin...

A slightly scary sight...

Finally with a couple of good whacks from Chase, we had a cracked coconut! 

I wish I would have gotten pictures when Chase finally got to try his coconut but I didn't so I will just have to say that opening it was the fun part and tasting it nearly made him throw up.  Guess we have another non-coconut lover in the house.  

Henley 2 months

Well Henley is actually a couple weeks over 2 months now but better late than never I guess.

 Our sweet little pea is just that- Sweet and little.  At her two month check she weighed in at only 8 lbs 3 ozs putting her in the 1 % and she was 22 inches long putting her in the 28%.  Check out my little bit...

Now as you can imagine her lack of weight gain was not really a good thing.  Since her physical assessment seemed to be completely normal the Dr. suspected that her lack of weight gain was only a calorie issue meaning she was not getting enough to eat.  As we talked though it I began to realize that over the past month I had cut her 1 1/2 hour nursing sessions down to around 30 minutes because she seemed perfectly content. She had been sleeping though the night and was very smiley and happy following feedings.  So to test our theory we had one week to see if we could gain some weight.  In the mean time she continued to be happy and content.  After a week of extended feeding times plus an extra 6 ounces of pumped milk on top of the feedings she gained 11 ozs in one week.  She continues to be little weighing 8 lbs 14 ozs but hopefully we are on the right track to beefing up a little.  Some of her favorite things include sucking her thumb...

Looking at bright lights.....

Rolling up onto her side...

Smiling and cooing with a few small laughs at times....

She loves her brother and Sister who also love her in return.  Leah likes to help get her out of her bed in the mornings and Chase loves holding her and keeping her happy when she is upset.  We are so blessed to have Henley, she is filled with joy!  Hopefully by her 4 month checkup she will have gotten a little closer to her ideal weight.

Uncle Nick

Whew!  I am so behind on blogging.  Summer hit and you would think life would slow down some without school and other obligations going on but instead we have filled our schedule with playdates, pool parties, vacation bible school, and birthday parties.  Lots of fun but all the activity has left this momma no time for blogging.  Forgive me.  I will restart with our special visit last week from Uncle Nick.  My brother is in the Air Force and he is currently being reassigned from Las Vegas to Virginia.   We are so excited for him to be back on the east coast!  As he was hauling his stuff across country he made a detour to stop in and visit us!  We are so honored!

It was his first time meeting Henley and she smiled so sweetly at him.  I think she liked him right away.  The big kids were super excited as well and had to show Uncle Nick how they made their forts.  It brought back fond memories for Nick and I because we grew up distorting out parents couches to do the same thing.  

Nick only stayed one night at our house before moving on to Charlotte to spend a couple of nights.  Kevin was headed to Charlotte for a car show on Saturday so we all decided to tag along so we could see everyone and spend a little more time with Uncle Nick.  We stopped in at Grammie and Papaws for a little while and Henley hung out with Papaw.  

Then we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's for the rest of the afternoon of our short day trip.  Henley enjoyed some more Uncle Nick snuggles.

The big kids were dying to get outside to the pool so after Henley got a full belly we headed out for some sun bathing and swimming.

Don't mind the green pool.  The water is actually clear but since last year was such a rainy year the pool liner got stained green.  Gives it a fun swampy feel for now :).

The Kids had a wonderful time swimming and hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Nick.  Thank you everyone for allowing us to crash the day kind of last minute.  We had a ton of fun!