School's out!

Man, time flies. Alaina has finished THIRD grade. She had a wonderful year with a wonderful teacher. My third grade teacher called me Kathy. And once I peed my pants in her classroom during standardized testing because she wouldn't call on me when I had my hand raised and we weren't allowed to speak. It was *great* - so different than Alaina's year. :)

Adam ran a MARATHON. Yep, 26.2 miles. He ran it the first weekend in June in South Bend. It was pretty amazing. We got to chase him around South Bend to cheer him on throughout the race. We were able to see him 4 times during the race. The runners crossed the finish line inside Notre Dame's football stadium, so that was so cool (for me even just to be IN it!).

Luke turned 7 mos. old on the 10th. He's trying to crawl and cut teeth. He can sometimes get from his stomach to sitting when he tries hard enough. And he's eating like mad. The kid thinks he should eat big kid food if it's anywhere close to him, no matter if he just ate a full meal.

Cami turned FIVE on the 16th. She celebrated by having cousin Vanessa for a sleep-over the weekend before, dinner at Chick-fil-a the night before (so she could go to Kid's Night and make a craft and get a balloon hat) and then had a backyard water party on the morning of her birthday. It was fun-filled and exhausting. :)

We left the next day for our annual trip to Myrtle Beach. We had an amazing time spending time with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend and our friends the Moloney's. Luke loved the beach and pool just like his sisters. He loved kicking his legs like he was trying to swim while we pulled him through the pool water. It was like instinct took over! He did get knocked over by a wave the last day we were there while sitting in the sand at the beach near the water. The tide came in a bit harder than I expected and wiped him out flat on his back.

We took a side trip when we left Myrtle Beach to Wilmington, NC to visit Adam's cousin Curt and his family. We hadn't seen Curt and Tee for nearly 4 years and our families have changed so much since then! It really was a great reunion with them and the kids had a blast playing together. And Cami swam by herself for the first time in their pool!

The girls leave for Ft. Wayne Friday night for a week. They are looking forward to time with grandparents and we are looking forward to a little break as well! I'm already starting my to-do list, including weeding (since it rained so much while we were on vacation our yard went CRAZY!) and deep cleaning. Sounds fun huh? :)

Rocka rocka rocka.

Just wanted to share our sweet boy's newest trick. :)

Busy busy!

The last 2 weeks have been eventful, so I thought I'd get a quick update in so the next post isn't so long. :)

Luke weighed in at 15 pounds at his 6 month well-child visit.  That puts him in almost the 15th percentile. He has started talking more, making sounds as opposed to just humming and grunting. :) He started saying "ma ma" which of course has made me happy. Too bad he doesn't know what he's saying still!

Cami graduated from preschool on Wednesday last week. It was fun to see her sing "Jesus Loves Me" and do sign language with the song. She really had a great year of preschool and she loved her teachers and new friends.

Alaina's annual Spring Fling was on the following Friday. The entire school has a parade, dressing up in costumes from something they studied during the year. Alaina's class dressed up as Romans.

After the parade, we went back to Alaina's classroom for a play about Caesar's killing. The kids did a great job and Alaina was quite dramatic, taking advantage of her part to claim the spotlight.

We left the Spring Fling and drove to Pokagon State Park to go camping with three other families for the weekend. We all squeezed into our tent (blow up mattress, 2 sleeping bags and the pack-n-play!) and had a great time.

Our good friends let us borrow their back-pack for Luke and it was a lifesaver while hiking!

There's a beach on Lake James that is part of Pokagon. It was an amazing afternoon so the kids took advantage of the water!

Right when we got back from the beach, it started raining. And got cold. It was nuts. It proceeded to rain until about 8:30 that night, but then cleared up and left the adults a great night at the campfire.

Alaina's last day of school is next Thursday June 2nd. We're so excited about this summer and the plans we have - Myrtle Beach, Nana Camp, Grandma Camp and other little camps and VBS outings, as well as the pool!

I think I'll have some Baby Jedi teeth to report in a couple of weeks. We're getting close!

Luke's Half Birthday!

Somehow, it's been 6 months since Lucas was born. He's growing so quickly and is really such a happy boy.



Today Luke also woke up with his first legitimate runny nose and proceeded to run a 102 degree fever later this afternoon. Cami was also not feeling well today, with a slight fever and nauseau, so some bug must be in our house.

Luke is doing great. We've added oatmeal, sweet potatoes, pears, plums and prunes to his menu and can't wait to move on to even more now that he's 6 mos. old.  As you can see from the picture above, he drools nonstop. I'm pretty sure in the next few weeks a tooth or two will pop out.

The boy LOVES his toes.

He's sitting with a little support.

And he adores his big sisters. (This pic is from Easter.)

Luke was baptized on May 1st. Alaina's recital was also that day. She performed in ballet and tap and did a great job! (To see pictures from these events, go to http://bit.ly/lvfI8j. My mom took pics for us!)

Cami started swimming lessons for the first time too. She's getting very brave and is much more comfortable in the water now. She's not swimming alone yet, but they moved her down to a smaller float device since she's doing so well.

Adam ran the Mini Marathon this past weekend for the fourth time. We went to cheer him on near the end of the race. The girls were waiting for him to arrive.

And Luke slept.

He did a great job finishing the 13.1 miles in 1 hr 48 min (his 2nd best time).

Adam will be running a marathon in South Bend on June 4th so I'll be sure to update you on how he does!

We're enjoying the break in rain and the warm weather. The girls jumped on the trampoline with the sprinkler under it after dinner tonight and had a blast. Cami finishes preschool the end of next week and Alaina has less than 4 weeks of school left. We're looking forward to what the rest of the Spring and Summer have in store for us!

Ahhh... Spring. Finally.

I wasn't sure we'd actually make it to Spring. Being couped up with a newborn all winter was hard on me.  And therefore hard on the rest of the family. But Spring has arrived and I feel blessed by this warm weather.

We started Spring Break off by taking a trip to Evansville with my dad (sans Adam). We had a wonderful time visiting my grandma (aka "Super Grandma" to the kids) and lots of other family members as well. 

Lucas was enamored with my grandma and completely fell in love with her (it's impossible not to!).

And the girls, well, they found love in Uncle George.

The girls went back to Ft. Wayne after Evansville for a quick visit with Adam's mom. Then returned to Indianapolis to find snow on their first full day back. So we stayed inside and made crowns. :)

Adam took a couple days off at the end of the week. We went rock wall climbing, but forgot the camera. This is something Alaina loves to do so she was climbing the whole time having a blast. Cami climbed twice in a harness and a few times across some pegged walls, but that was it. She had a great time cheering for Alaina though!

We all went ice skating, which was a trip! Alaina really enjoyed herself and skated for a good 1.5 hours, finally getting the hang of it about 1/2 way in.

Cami on the other hand, skated twice. But she had a great time being there, which is all that matters I guess.

The weather was beautiful over the weekend. The girls have been asking for weeks to play outside in their bathing suits with the hose, so I finally gave in. They played for probably two hours!

Baby Jedi is now 5 months old and it seems like he's growing overnight! He has found his hands, toes and tongue, which is always sticking out. :)

Luke is very active. He's always moving his arms and legs, so we got out the Johnny Jumper for him to try out, which was a huge hit! Our doorways are too high though to use it anywhere but in the bathroom by the kitchen. When he's bigger and weighs more, we'll be able to move it so he's not stuck in the bathroom door. :)

I was planning to introduce Luke to solid foods when he turned 6 months old, since those are the new pediatric recommendations.  But he kept trying to grab food out of my hand and was intentently watching each and every bite I would put in my mouth at every meal. So I thought I'd try some cereal to see if he was ready.  Holy cow, that boy ate the cereal like it was second nature! No sour faces, no spitting it out. So he started eating some solid foods a couple weeks ago and is now enjoying brown rice cereal, smashed bananas and avocados and applesauce. The kid LOVES to eat real food! (pardon my hand in the video below) 

I'm happy we chose to have another child. Baby Jedi's pretty cool.

4 month old sucka

Lucas turned 4 months old on Thursday.  It's hard to believe that it's already been that long since he was born.  I don't know why this continues to surprise me, considering Alaina is 8 1/2 now.  Time goes by so quickly...

Luke measured in at 12 lbs. 8 oz. and 25 in.  According to my records, that's only 1 ounce heavier and the same length as Alaina at the same age, which is crazy since I considered Alaina to be so small when she was a baby and Luke doesn't seem that small to me.  Alaina didn't grow much after that though, so we'll see if Luke follows in her footsteps.  I hope not.  Being a bitty boy would be harder than a bitty girl as he gets older.

I didn't have Cameran's measurements at 4 months written down for some reason.  I did find her 2 month measurements and she weighed the same as Luke, just 2 months earlier. :)  I found this picture of her at 4 months old at Zoo Boo. (It's funny that we don't have any digital pics of Alaina because we didn't even have a digital camera until Cami was born!)

We were fortunate to be given free tickets to the Shriner's Circus last weekend.  We had a great time, though it was VERY long and we ended up leaving at intermission (almost 2 hours in!!).  As you can see, Baby Jedi wasn't very attentive and slept through about half of it.

Oh, and one other piece of Baby Jedi news: he's officially a thumb-sucker.

Super cute on a 4 month old right? Not so much when he's 2 and I can't throw his thumb away...



And there he rolls!

Luke has rolled over several times in his crib.  But we've never seen it!  So we were pretty excited to actually see him roll over on Thursday for the first time.  And now he won't stop.  Every time I put him on his stomach to play, he rolls over within minutes. 

Adam took the girls to the symphony this afternoon for a family series performance called The Classical Clown. They were really excited - we haven't taken them to the symphony since the Yuletide performance before Christmas.  It's a beautiful day today, so the girls were equally excited to not have to wear coats when they left. :)

All is going well with us.  Cami is preparing for kindergarten in the fall, having recently had her enrollment assessment and observation.  She's pretty stoked.  Nothing else big is happening right now. 

I'll take it.