Sass And Smiles

In going through my pictures from the past week, I realized one thing...my daughter is Sassy and my son is Smiley.  So when trying to figure out which pictures to use, I chose the ones that show their personalities best.

The other night after dinner we went over to our friends house.  Claire loves to play with their daughter (she is all about following older girls around and trying to be just like them).  At one point Claire went off on her own and returned like this.

When told to pose for the camera, this is what we got.

Here is my man Oliver.  He is getting so big and he is really a happy little guy.  He smiles whenever we talk to him.

Here he is just smiling at the toys hanging from his bouncey seat.

He is just happy and smiley. And adorable if I do say so myself.

Beach Bums

We have pretty much been spending any spare time that we have at the beach.  The weather has been awesome and it has been great spending time with the family while enjoying the last little bit of summer.

I think that Claire takes after her Grandma.  Grandma LOVES the beach and Claire is right there with her.  In this picture the wind was blowing sand EVERYWHERE and the water was freezing (if you look closely Claire's lips are blue) but Claire refused to leave the beach.

We all had a great time hanging out and goofing around.

Claire and Owen had a blast playing with their cousins.  We tried to get them to both sit still for a picture but this is what we got instead, it pretty much sums up the kids after a long day in the sun.

Claire and I even invited our friends up.  Claire had a blast being buried in the sand for the first time.  Notice her left hand.  She got a boo boo at the cottage and for the rest of the day, she held her hand in the air.

This is how each day pretty much ended for Claire.  This is her on the deck passed out.

This is Claire and Bella passed out after a day at the beach.

Oliver loved the beach too!  I think the sound of the water kept him happy.  I got pretty lucky and there were a few days of overcast so Oliver could hang out on the beach.  And wear his beach hat :)  I got a ton of pictures of him with his hat on and I couldn't decide which one was the cutest so I am going to post them all :)

Come on?!  Have you seen a cuter face?!?!

See what I mean?  He just gets cuter every picture :)

There was a little something for everyone to drink at the beach :)

  I swear this freezer has EVERYTHING!

**Careful Tom, only one of those is for you**

This has nothing to do with the beach but COME ON how great is this picture?!  I found this bee (or half of a bee) after my first ride out to the beach.  He has been on the front of my truck for two weeks as a warning to the other bees to GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!

The End Of Soccer And The Beginning Of The Beach

This week was Claire's last soccer practice.  She really enjoyed playing with Mark and she really did learn some great things about the game.  

Claire had fun every week playing soccer but I think that she really enjoyed playing her Daddy even more.

Even when there was downtime Claire could be found right 

next to her Daddy's side.

Here is Claire receiving her first soccer award :)  It was hard to get a good picture because there were other crazy Moms like me trying to get a picture and I had the disadvantage of having an infant to hold me back :)

It was sad that soccer has ended BUT now it is BEACH TIME!!!!!  Mark's parents get a cottage at the beach every year for two weeks.  We go up pretty much every day and we have a BLAST!!!  They "moved in" last Saturday so here is just the beginning of the party :)

The first night up there Claire made a new friend (of course).  Mr. Larry.  Mr. Larry and Claire chatted the night away around the campfire.  It was really sweet.  

Claire's big thing this year was that she really wanted to find shells on the beach.  So her and I went for a walk and searched for shells.

The only thing was, Claire was more interested in the rocks than in the shells.  

You would have thought that every rock she found was a diamond the way she reacted!

Here is Claire trying to figure out how she was going to pick up her bucket full of rocks.

 

It was the perfect day to bring Oliver to the beach because it wasn't too hot and it was cloudy.  He is getting sooo big.

Here he is again.  Look at that mug! 

Auntie Jacqie stopped up at the beach to have a little Claire time.  Claire had a blast swimming with Aunt Jacqie and taking her for walks and finding dead fish :)

Mark and I took a little walk up to the beach bar with Uncle Kevin, Aunt Sara, and Uncle Bryan last night (thanks again Grandma and Grandpa) and this was how we found Claire when we got back :)

OLIVER UPDATE!! 

Oliver has his 8 week appointment this week.  The poor baby got his shots :(  He recovered from the actual shots pretty quickly but he had a rough evening.  On a good note, he is perfect!  He weighs 

11 lbs. 2 oz.  and is 23 and 1/2 inches long!  That is a big baby!!  Claire wasn't 11 pounds until she was 4 and a half months old so for us this baby is HUGE!  Oh yeah and his head circumference is 16 inches.  Our doctor is thrilled with his progress and said he is doing great! 

Claireisms

Lately, Claire has been hilarious.  On top of being a GREAT big sister she has really been becoming her own little person.  She has been coming out with some great one liners and doing some fantastic stuff!

The other day our local police department (which Mark has made me edit) had an open house.  The chief took the kids through the whole station and showed them the different parts.  Claire and Giada thought it was great.  Jessica and I wanted to put them in a cell and get a picture but we thought they might not allow that :)  While the Chief was explaining how dispatch works, Claire let me know, "Well it's a good thing we were not bad Mom!"

Later that evening, we walked up to see our local fireworks.  Claire and Giada had a blast!

Giada brought some babies to share with Claire.  Claire decided that she needed to nurse the baby while we waited for the fireworks to start.  

Then she had to switch sides.  The best part was that she held the baby there for a while and was looking around and talking like she does this all the time :)

On Saturday we had Andrea and Briana's graduation party (congrats ladies).  Claire loved looking at all of Uncle Tom's beautiful landscaping.  She loved this statue.  She was very concerned however that this statue was nudie.  Then she told me, "Oh Mama, she must be embarrassed that she is nudie." and I asked her why she would think that.  And Claire informed me, "Because she is covering her eyes."  So of course I had to snap a picture :)

Here is Claire with Andrew/Silly Boy.  She had a blast playing with him.  Andrew took Claire for a nice walk and while they were walking he was being silly and walking backwards.  So that night while saying our prayers Claire wanted to pray for Andrew.  When I asked her why, she told me, "well Mom because he didn't know which way to walk."  

Claire had a blast playing with her cousin at the party.

Also, the other day Claire figured out how to get Dora videos on my phone.  When I told her to show Mark she kept saying, "I can get Dora videos Daddy, I swear a God I can!"  Her other big line lately is, "Did you even realize..."  For example, "Mom did you even realize that I have a Woody doll?" or "Mom did you even realize that that is a hot tub?"  She is just too much.  We laugh on a daily basis :)