July iphone dump

Some of our silly, magical, mundane moments of the summer captured on my phone.

Dancing in the living room - 

One of my happy places, Amy's ice cream.  Though there's one in Houston, we consistently hit the shop when we're in Austin, this time in June for Leah's wedding.  It was Maya's first time with a shake, and she downed at least half of Cas' cookies and cream dessert!  Luckily, Cas is better at sharing ice cream than I am!

Collin had the step stool out in the kitchen to help me cook, and Maya started to climb on it over the tile.  So I moved it to the living room rug, surrounded her by couch cushions, and let her climb to her heart's content. 

If you look really closely, you can see Maya's first pedicure.  I was painting my toes and she was in the way.  When she didn't squirm as I applied clear polish on a toe, I sat her in my lap and painted her toes hot pink.  Then she immediately grabbed them (to get a delightful closer look, I'm sure) and smeared all the polish with her fingers.  So there's some room for improvement, but her little pink toes make me smile every time I see them!

Maya will walk to the high chair and say "up" the moment she feels hungry, so she often starts dinner before we get the rest of the meal and family to the table.  And she quickly shovels food in her mouth and wants down, then back up on my lap a few minutes later to try and play with the food on my plate.  It makes for the opposite of a relaxing dinner as we're trying to cajole Collin into eating, trying to eat ourselves, and trying to entertain Maya.   The other night we sat her back in the seat and handed her a bowl of yogurt and spoon.

Though it took a little extra scrubbing, this bought us a precious 10 minutes of calm at dinner time, and I felt it was well worth the yogurt facial she gave herself and her high chair tray -

Trying to keep her entertained, she'll play peek-a-boo for as long as someone has the energy to say, "Aaaaah, peek-a-boo!"

A favorite moment - Maya bringing me a book and plopping in my lap, with Collin curled up next to me -

Way back to the beginning of June, Collin completed his last gymnastics class.  He grew in confidence in the class, and picked up a few new skills as well.  Here's his Monday morning class - 

I hope to pick up one more season of gymnastics in the fall.  When Maya hits the 18-month mark, there's a parent child and 4-year-old class at the same time at a nearby gym.  Our proud boy with his medal -  

One video of his "skills" - very basic here, but he started gymnastics in January afraid to walk across the beam by himself, and 6 months later, he was hustling down the beam and doing huge jumps onto the mat.  He loved swinging on the bars and jumping on their inflatable air track.

Four generations at the Children's Museum

On Friday, I picked up my grandma Betty ("B"), and met my mom at the Children's Museum for B's first trip with Maya.  Collin's first stop is always this quiet, unpopular room that currently is designed to be a fishing village in Asia.  On our way there, we had to don capes for a few pictures in front of the superhero backdrop.
Grammy and her grandkids, Collin with a serious, crime-stopping expression -

Maya having fun stepping up and down on the stage -

We headed to the village for about 5 minutes all together, enough time for Maya to beat a few drums -

And time for them to look at the one exhibit together - one of the few that Maya could reach and not destroy.   

And then we split up, with Collin staying downstairs with Grammy, and the rest of us heading for the tot spot.  Collin had a high flying good time!

He never grows tired of being a superhero!

Maya wore herself out in tot spot, crawling through tunnels and up the steps to the slide, playing in the car and handing toys to B.

While Maya ate lunch, Collin got some time with B downstairs, as she ate his "soup" full of random food in the pretend restaurant.

We had a great time with four generations at the Children's Museum!

Sunday post-church pics

We couldn't resist snapping a few photos with our girl after church in her adorable outfit.  

She gives hugs and open mouth kisses on request.  She's cuddly when she's really tired, but most of the time she'd rather be on the ground playing.

Blowing kisses -

Spin her around, laugh, pause for a picture.

Showing off her find from our master bathroom cabinets.  When we forget to shut our bedroom door, she makes a beeline for mischief.  We've lost our wireless computer mouse, as she took it off the desk and hid it somewhere in the house.  She's lucky she's so cute that we can't be too upset with her!

Oh my sweet boy.  Later that Sunday, in front of Collin, Cas asked me to help him lift some gym equipment in the garage so he could assemble it.  Collin asked - "Daddy, do you need some might?"  Then he pointed at himself and showed his muscles of his skin-and-bones arms!

It's sweet to see them care for one another.  If Collin is crying, Maya wants to go towards him, often giving him hugs if he's hurt or in time-out.  And he advocates for her constantly - Maya wants up, Maya wants mangoes, Maya wants to go outside . . . until Maya wants something of Collin's, and then the feelings wane!

Later Sunday afternoon, as we assembled towels and bathing suits, Maya waited patiently in a pile of books to go swimming.  When she wakes up in the morning, her routine is to wiggle out of my arms and head for her bookshelf, going through a few books before we venture to the living room.  Her attention span only lasts a few pages before she'll hop out of my lap to grab a different one - unless it's Brown Bear - but we are delighted that she's a little reader-in-the-making!

Having a ball at cousin Nico's birthday

We were excited to join the party for our nephew and cousin, Nico's second birthday.  Maya wore her birthday outfit that Collin and Grandma Libia picked out one day after swimming lessons.

She had a great time both on the trampoline and in the bounce house.

Collin loved trying to dunk the ball.

Maya dunking with Daddy's help and Nico with the ball -

These silly monkeys love each other -

Pinata strikes from the birthday boy

Collin swinging with intensity after his first few baseball lessons -

Maya wasn't so sure of it, especially considering we didn't let her eat any of the candy

Candy hoarder

Grandma Libia with her youngest grandchild, Lorenzo -

This is the scene of EVERY meal with our slow-eating boy!

Cas and his youngest nephew -

We had a great time bouncing, dunking, smashing the pinata, eating, and celebrating with family!

(Collin) riding home commando

On July 5th, we had a play date with my kids and Katelyn.  Collin's favorite thing to do with kids his age is play something aggressive - superheroes vs. villains, dinosaurs, jaguars, knights having stick fights, tumble and wrestle contest, etc.  When he gets in a pool, he wants to splash or fire water guns at you.  Somehow, he managed not to make either of the younger girls - Katelyn or Maya - cry and kept water gun fire out of their face.  But neither really wanted to play with him.  So he swam around and then had water gun fights with Chris and my mom while the girls hung out in floats.

Maya lounging with stacking cups - what a life!

Collin in his element.  When his gun wouldn't work, he'd call "war over" but it would be back on without warning once his equipment was ready!

Sweet Katelyn in the swing -

After our swim, Katelyn and her family dried off and got plates of pizza.  We finally got my kids out of the pool, Collin stripped off his swim trunks, and then discovered that I had forgotten his dry clothes at the house.  What shouldn't have been a big deal - either put the bathing suit back on or at minimum wrap up in a towel - turned into four-year-old drama.  He walked around bottom-less, and so we made him go home for lunch rather than eat in their house half-naked.  As he got in the car, Collin decided he didn't want to wear his wet rashguard swim shirt either.  So off we went, with one kid naked and one dressed and reading in the backseat!