She’s 4!!!

Elisabeth Jane! You have counted down the days for months leading up to your 4th birthday! Your joy for your birthday was so contagious! I love the 4 year old that you are. You’ve grown up in little ways over the last

Few months that have made you so lovely and helpful and grown up. You had the cutest 2 wishes for your birthday - neither of which I could fulfill but you still confidently asked for them - a real live baby in your belly and a talking unicorn. You are spunky, athletic, caring, motherly and stubborn at times - I love to be around you! 

We had your cincy cousins over for your birthday and made the 6 cutest unicorns! We

Put ice cream cones on top of cupcakes to make “unicorn cake” and both activities totally satisfied your desire for a unicorn birthday party. 

You love your family and friends with all your heart. You are a natural born leader and like to create games and ideas. You CANNOT wait to marry your brother and ask daily to babysit your sister. You still ask to nurse everyday (even though you stopped almost 8 months ago). You cannot go to bed without 10 hugs and 10 kisses from Mama and papa and without loving all over your new baby sister in mamas belly. You tell me “gosh Mama she’s going to be so cute when she comes out” You are so sweet Elisabeth Jane.

You love to teach Josie everything you are doing and you are always so proud of everything Jack does! 

You still rely heavily on your naps or you can become rather cranky. You are always hungry and you love to workout! You always ask to do the “7 minute workout” app on the iPad and most mornings you set the timer on the iPad for 10 minutes and run continuous circles around the house “for just a quick morning workout.” Your enthusiasm for life is amazing! 

You love your grandparents and have a really special bond with grandpa and grandpa and Omi and Opa.  You LOve To write letters and send mail. And make people cards.

Happy 4th Birthday Elisabeth Jane. We love you and are so proud of the beautiful girl you are growing into! 

A Week in Cleveland

Each summer I try to take the kids to Cleveland for a longer length of time and enjoy some quiet time at their grandparents! It’s such a nice time for Grandma and grandpa to get to know the kids more and spend some quality time sight seeing around town! The whole family was in town for the weekend

Before 4th of July and we enjoyed an adult night out and some bonfires! Then everyone returned to work and we enjoyed some nice quiet time for 4 more days! The kids really look forward to our week in Cleveland!!

We did lots of creeking and spent a lot of time in the woods throughout the week to help cool

Us off! It was very hot! The kids are just in their element playing in the creek and hiking! 

We played at home a lot and got to go to the zoo with one of joes cousins and her niece, Hadley! 

We got to spend some quality time with Uncle Michael who went creeking with us on Monday. We headed to Carolyn and Andrews for dinner and walk for ice cream on Tuesday. Joe returned Wednesday!

Jack could live in the woods! He gets so excited to hike and constantly asks when we can go back to the mountains. He loves to explore, look for fossils, fish, creek play! 

Jack got a special fishing morning with Charlie and joe! They had a great time and jack learned some good tips from Uncle Charlie! 

Also we spent time looking through old photos and I can’t get over this one of Joe and Alexandra! Looks like Elisabeth and Josefine!

A great and very memorable week in Cleveland! Thanks for having us Grandma and Grandpa!!!

The pool!

The kids have been taking off with their swimming this year! We did a swim lesson in June at Ziegler pool downtown for 2 weeks and it helped improve their pool confidence so much! Every time we go to the pool now they try something new! I started swimming on the swim team at age 3 so seeing them start to love the water brings me so much joy! 

Jack swims all around now! Floats on his back, swims under water, goes off the diving board and swims alone to the side, does canon balls and twist jumps off the side, does flips under water - a total fish! I love it 

Elisabeth is getting more and more confident jumping off the side and swimming all around with her head under water while still using her floatie. She even went off the diving board alone at the Meyers pool!

We’ve had ourselves in the water any chance we get this summer! We often walk up to our neighborhood pool for a swim but have also visited the Jacobs in Dayton to enjoy their pool and went with Meyers to their grandparents pool! Josefine swims all alone in her floatie and even jumps off the side! She loves her new found independence in the pool! It’s making it super easy to be at the pool since they all love it! Happy summer!