Hi Miss Ivy June Crew!!

Ivy was born yesterday when I was at work.  I couldn't wait to see her!  She's so perfect and round and healthy and sleepy and happy and girly and pretty, see for yourself! 

Corrie, who looks so pretty and relaxed and awesome, 

sent me these three pictures yesterday. 

 We stopped by to meet Ivy today.  Dylan and Isaac were so happy to meet her finally.  Steven took pictures while I helped Dylan and Isaac take turns holding her.  She makes eye contact and looks around and is so sweet.

 We couldn't stay long, of course, but after the doctor took her away then Ivy ate, I took a couple of pictures of her perfectly round little face. 

Ni' night sweet Ivy, see you soon!  I'm soooo happy that I can get my little baby girl fix with you, be ready for my camera to be in your face all day long!

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (not)

Steven was my photographer for a photo for which I've purposely been growing my tummy. 
It's nice and round now, so we went for the shot:) 

 He had the idea for me to really go under the pier and waited for the bird to be in the right location. 

 Of course we had our other babies with us.  They found two beached flopping fishies.  Our jungle man, Dylan, picked his up and threw it back,

 But Isaac only touched his then pointed at it. 

 Dylan threw them both in for us. 

Now this is probably what we should have been doing, picnicking in our Sunday best staying in the shade of umbrellas with our family and friends, just admiring the water, like the proper people in Georges Seurat's 1884 painting. 

 But what temptation!! 

 Isaac knows how to enjoy God's creations.  He punches back when the waves are rolling in with their Sabbath Day karma. 
I could go hang out at the beach every evening. I'm always in the mood for a beach picnic - and Steven had the idea to take us to the Reddington Beach Long Pier to show me where it was because I have a photo session there this evening. Of course I said yes!

Then we dug in one spot for coquina shells and watched them dig down in the sand.  We'll be back tonight:)

We're ready for you, baby Ivy Crew!

 We had one last get together before Corrie has a newborn to worry about.  We decided to have a couples diaper shower at a local Italian place downtown.  Everybody we invited came - 9 couples! 
It was a surprise for Corrie who thought she was going to Tiajuana Flats w/ her kids. 

 Here's the dipaer cake that Barbie and I made.  It kind of looked like a tornado hit it by the time I walked from my car to the restaurant carrying the gift bag too.  In the above photo you'll see the professional clean one that Stacy made.  She's a cake master!

So we're all ready for you, baby Ivy!!! Come today please:)

my jungle boys

I'd love to take my boys on photo shoots every month, but for a number of reasons, that can't happen.  Corrie's kids didn't come over, so I took the boys behind the grocery store by me.  At sunset, it has beautiful lighting.  I was going to take the kids to the park, but needed to go to the grocery store too, and thought why not try that spot instead!  The session didn't go that well because they aren't so into standing next to each other, and I was soooo hot out there!  I started feeling sick because of the humidity.  This is my favorite image from the morning.  Isaac is always picking weeds for me.  I put them behind my ears and in a tiny vase in my kitchen window. 

 Dylan sensed that I was irritated with them not wanting to sit on the dewey grass and not caring that there might be ants next to them, so he humored me with a smile.  He's so good at preventative care.  By that, I mean that once I told him to hang up his towel after the bath, he always does it!  Corrie must have trained him to put his trash in the trash and the dishes in the sink after meals, because he always does that too!  And when he sensed my begging them to give me real smiles, he did. 

 He sang to me too.  I wanted some pictures that could possibly go in the baby's nursery.  I want it to be a jungle theme with a Hawaiian twist.  I'm still looking for inspiration.  I'll paint the walls two tones of green and want to do a tiki man on one wall.  We bought a ceiling fan for the room yesterday. 

 After not too long, I let them just sit and eat watermelon. 

 Dylan wasn't going to eat any at first, so I took the first bite out of it.  Isaac, on the other hand, wanted the biggest piece and dug right in - as usual. 

 After the grocery store, they remembered that I had told them we were going to the park.  And since they were almost good sports, and I don't want them to hate photo sessions, I said we could go - but I needed something cold!  I got a frozen strawberry lemonade from McDonalds and got them ice cream cones.  I have been craving ice, ice water, frozen fruit w/ some juice poured over it, Slurpee's, anything w/ crushed ice, and popsicles.  McDonalds' lemonade isn't that great at all, but it hit the spot. 

 Yes  I had wipes to clean these cute dirt hands.  They played while I stayed in the shade, then after the swings, they were ready to go. 

So we'll see if I actually use any photos of their real Hawaii shirts in the nursery, but it's still good to have updated photos of my cuties.

Summer Stuff

We have already had our last day of having Noah and Malia over until they get to stay home w/ their mom on maternity leave since she asked off work a little before her due date:(

We checked off freezer pops from our summer to do list!

We went to my cousin's 4 year old's birthday party and I found something else that should have been added to my list.

Rylee got to have the Polar Cup truck come to her party! Keri bought Polar Ice for all of the party guests!

Don got Steven a ladder ball set, so we've been having fun with that before and after jumping in the pool.

I KNOW he's showing off his tan lines. They usually go skinny dipping after the pool then it takes a while to get them out of the pool and into a towel. They do dolphin dives w/ their white tushies surfacing and they think they're the funniest things, laughing for us to see their moon-fish. I let Steven deal with it b/c it was only funny and cute the first time.

I haven't gotten a good video of it yet, but another thing we checked off the list was getting Isaac to take a breath by himself! He started doing it a couple of days ago when prompted, and now he does it on his own! He still has beautiful arms and kicks until the breath time - and he doggie paddles. I still want him to go across the pool by himself. Now he stays close to the edge and holds on if he gets nervous or looks for me and talks instead of swimming.

Siesta Key + good friends = a perfect Friday

Last Friday, we went to Siesta Key.  It just got voted #1 beach in America and we hadn't been in a long time.  It was worth the drive, but not worth the walk from the parking lot to the water's edge.  I was pulling too much stuff.  It was hot, and sweaty Isaac wanted to be carried.  Paige dropped off her load and had to come back for him.  The way back to the car wasn't much fun either, and we didn't walk out where there are showers.  It IS a beautiful beach with powder soft sand and beautiful clear water and we met the Stevens and the Emerys there. 

The kids stayed in the shade for the majority of our first of 3 hours there. 

 This is Dylan, I love it - at one with the waves.

 It was cloudy for part of the day, which was actually really nice. 

On the way back we go 7-11 slurpies b/c of Lori's good idea.  Why don't they make white cherry at every one?  Isaac fell asleep with a red one in his lap.  Luckily, although sideways when I picked it up, it had hardly spilled and only dripped on his skin. 

and here's one from another beach day, 5/20.

We went to Indian Rocks Beach to possibly run into one of the fun families I met doing a photo session.  It was their last day though, so they had lots of things to do then went to the beach after we left.  It's always fun to have an excuse to make it to the beach though:)

SUMMER SUMMER SUMMER SUMMER SUMMER TIME!

One of Dylan's best friends, Dylan, moved further away from us when we moved further away from them.  He was in preschool in the mornings and my kids take naps in the afternoons, so we didn't get together as much this last semester.  But last Friday, we made the trip down to see him. 

 We had fun at their pool. 

 Noah looks like he caught that, but he just held on while jumping in - still fun:)
Paige threw the football to each of the kids over and over and over. 

 Isaac perfected his cannon ball-belly flops.

 Blue skies, best friends, and lots of sunshine! 

 Here's cutie brave Shaylyn.  She didn't like to be confined to this thingy,

 She wanted to get to the deep end! 

 We coaxed her back with a Yoder's strawberry cream pie.  I got it for us when buying Steven's birthday pies:) 

The kids slept on the way home - yay for summer time!

Paddling down the Weeki Wachee springs