Vacation Bible School

The theme was big Apple New York so they have these cute shirts. performing with the Kindergarten and preschool classes.

Ben was there. He got a hold of my phone and sent a couple people text messages. So if you got some weird text from me it was probably Ben.

Claire was there too.

We love VBS. It is so cute. We went to the Baptist church that Siena goes to preschool at. Half of the kids there are Mormons. It's kind of funny. So I told Siena we were going there Sunday night and she told me she didn't want to go. I told her she had to go atleast once and then she could decide if she didn't want to go back. We went Monday at 9 and WWIII broke out. She was crazy mad! She really didn't want to go. She was scared for some reason but she wouldn't tell me why. She said she didn't want to go back to her preschool. It took me about 30 minutes to get her in to the school. Luckilly her teacher from this past year was her teacher for bible school. I went in and got her. I told her Siena was screaming and didn't want to come in. She told me to give her a kiss and she would take her in. The teacher called me an hour later and said everything was fine and Siena was happily playing. She had her good friend Kaylee in there and she helped Siena feel better. Thank you Kaylee. The only thing I can think of is that she graduated from that school and thought she wasn't going to ever see it again, and when she was there only 4 weeks later she freaked out. She came away from it Monday so excited to go back for the rest of the week. We haven't had any problems since. I am so glad. I was excited for it. Tonight we went to the worship rally where they sang all the songs they have been learning.

fun times

We are trying to keep busy. I am trying to keep poor Claire cool and out of the sun. We have been to the pool 2 times and almost both times she slept in the shade the whole time. That is the way to do it. The two other kids are having fun running around our yard and in our little pool. I can't see how it is already the end of June if feels like I have no proof (pictures) of what we have been doing but the time has just flown by and we are happy. Ben and Siena have learned about the Wii and love bowling and golfing with dad. They have also discovered the Cake Boss show on TLC. It's on late Monday night so the kids look forward to Tuesdays when they can watch it with daddy. It's our fun family t.v. night. It's a fun show and I want to go and visit the shop up in New Jersey. I just hope that they don't expect those kind of cakes from us. Claire is still waking up multiple times of the night which is a little frustrating but I just don't have the energy to fight it. She has slept through the night 2 nights right when we had guests in town to show off for them. If I just feed her I know that she will go back to sleep so that is what we do. So I don't have a ton of energy during the day to do fun things with the kids all day. I did find some energy the other day and we painted birdhouse wind chimes. The kids love them. I think that about sums it up for June.

Claire's blessing

Right before Nana and Papa and Grandma arrived we went to the library and got our summer reading program list. You read 15 books and you get an awesome coupon book to fun places for the summer. Siena had her 15 books read in a bout an hour. It was nice to have all those people around to read to her.

My dad and mom came out to D.C. while on tour for the Mormon tabernacle choir. We were so excited to see them even if it was only for 24 hours. It was hard to say goodbye to them as we don't have any vacation plans to see them again. The choir tour began Monday early morning. They came in to the northern Virginia area Tuesday evening so we did the blessing at our house Tuesday night. It was different to have it at our house. It was a little more relaxed because we could be on our own time but it was a little chaotic trying to keep the kids away from the toys and trying to be reverent when they didn't really understand why we were doing it in our home. It all turned out fine and it was a wonderful blessing. She wore the dress Grandma made for her and we had friends and family bless her so it was great. Daves mom stayed the night and my parents stayed the night and we spent the next day touring around D.C. I haven't done any of the Smithsonians in a long time and I had 3 adults to watch my kids while doing it. It was a great set up. We went to the Natural History musuem and the American History museum. Siena loved the jewel exhibits and seeing the hope diamond and the first lady gown exhibit. They were really cool. Papa, Nana and Grandma took them through the Dinosaur exhibit and they said they were scared. I was feeding Claire at that time but I thought that was funny. It was fun to go in to D.C. again and have all that help. The kids loved all the attention from people. Wednesday Dave and I were able to go on a real date. We even left Claire. We had tickets to the choirs concert at Wolf Trap. It was so nice to be on a date and go to the concert and see my dad perform. It was tons of fun.

Ben loves Claire

I have to be careful with Ben and Claire. There have been many times when I walk out of the room and come back and Claire is in a different spot or is falling out of her bouncy chair because Ben wanted to hold her. He doesn't understand that he just can't pick her up and walk around with her because he wants to. He is too cute. He likes to come up to her and push her nose. Poor girl she gets no personal space. She does love the attention though.

lee district spray park

we had an awesome time at this new spray park. It was perfect size for my kids. It was a little slippery and they both fell multiple times because they won't let you wear sandals in but it was a ton of fun and I didn't have to wear a bathing suit and entertain them. We got there at 1 and we were the only ones for a while. We might just go here everyday instead of joining a pool this summer. So much fun

Ben and Claire are doing exciting things too.

Everyone was taking quiet time and I went to check on Ben. I couldn't find him anywhere. I was getting a little frantic. I went downstairs in the basement and he was cuddled up in this couch. The top part of it that is folded out was on top of him so his feet were just sticking out. It was so funny but a little scary when I couldn't find him in his bed like I had expected.

Claire is good. She loves attention from her brother and sister and loves to be held. We gave her a bath and put her in the cute onesie that Siena painted for her. Life is good for her.

Dance

Siena was in a 10 week ballet/tap class at the rec center. It was such a good class. The teacher was wonderful. She was so good apprently people come from all over the county for her. We are lucky we got in. It was so cute. Siena loved this class and loved that she got to take it with her friend Sarah. The last day of class all the parents got to come in and watch them perform. It was so dang cute. Siena was quite the performer. Even her friends mom who knows Siena and how she didn't perform at any of the school programs said Siena really was a good performer. I guess Siena just likes to dance. It made my day to go and see her perform it was so cute.


I love how all the kids are always so distracted and how they have to concentrate so hard to do the simplest steps and then they fall over because they have no balance. It makes me laugh

My recordings aren't the best. Claire got hungry and fussy so I was nursing her and trying to keep Ben calm while I was recording so that is why it is shaky. I did my best I was kind of impressed with my multi tasking. The class was full. It seemed like every mom that had their daughter in that class had another kid or kids and most of them were little babies so it was really loud just with all the people watching. I took a lot of video and almost in every one Siena is yawning. I guess she needs more sleep because she wasn't bored.

A weekend in Hershey

We love Hershey park! As Dave put it, it is like Christmas morning for our kids. They really look forward to it. Siena hyped Ben up for all the rides and Siena had it all planned out as what to ride first.

Siena was really good at riding the rides that Ben wanted to ride.

Bens favorite ride was the swings!






Siena was really brave and rode some big rides. We told her at the beginning of the day that if she wore her tennis shoes she would be taller and be able to ride more rides. She didn't want to and was an inch short of riding the really big kid rides. I think she rode everything a Hershey kiss size kid could ride including the rollercoaster Trailblazer. We walked up to the Trailblazer and Siena got shy and scared a little. We finally convinced her she would be fine. I went on it with her first and I was getting nervous she was going to freak out. We sat in the middle of the ride, we buckled up and she started freaking out saying she didn't want to go, get her off. I was just about to talk to the operator when the ride started. I held on to her and she LOVED it. I am so glad she was brave and rode it. When we were done she ran right back on with Dave and sat in the front with him.

The size difference here just amazes me. Ben is so big.

Cooling off. It was so HOT. It had to be in the high 90's with humidity. Thank goodness for the waterpark part of the park. We stayed there for a couple of hours while Dave hung out with Claire in the shade. Dave finally convinced the kids to go back on the rides and leave the waterpark.

Siena loves this frog hopper ride. It is so cute to hear her laughing as it drops.

Poor Claire, she was so good but it was so hot. My first thought after the day was done was that I probably wouldn't do Hershey park again on such a hot day with a new baby. The poor girl was sweating the whole day. I feel like I missed half the day with Siena and Ben because I had to go find a place to nurse her every 3 hours. Hershey park is nice and have a nice cool nursing room but it was a pain to keep going to it and miss time with the other kids. Thank goodness for Dave and his camera on his phone. I couldn't put sunscreen on Claire so she sat covered in the stroller the whole day. She got a little pink on her chunky cheeks but other than that she was good. I was also worried about dehydration but everyone was fine. We bought a huge souvenir cup and kept refilling it. We told the kids to keep drinking all day long. Apparently Ben was really hydrated because he fell asleep in the stroller around 4 and had an accident. Atleast it's good to know he was hydrated.

We went and visited Grandpas grave and placed flags on it. I think Siena started to understand a little more about flags and the purpose of Memorial Day. War is hard to explain to a little kid.

Grandma took us to Hershey Gardens Saturday. The gardens were beautiful. We went to the butterfly exhibit and saw thousands of butterflies. Then we walked around the childrens garden. It was a beautiful place, too bad it rained and was crazy hot the whole time we were there.

as close as we got to the butterflies.

Claire was there enjoying life with Grandma