In Suuuuuummer

Summer, eh?

Rennes face says it all…

is she saying her summer was an over-the-top cheesy smile?

YES! Our summer was H E A V E N. 

I cannot get over how much fun we had. 

Yup. No caption required, but since I like to blah blah on here, you know i'll give one anyway...

ECHO LAKE is where we (the girls and I and sometimes Tim) basically lived for most of the summer. Jokes, I was only there for 25 days over 2 months. There we did amazing things like:

TUBE

WAKE (belly) SURF

i have no pics of the actually surfing? which is bizarre because it's our favourite thing and we did it probably a dozen times, but I'm just lame and forget to take pictures

WATER SKI

I have probably 30 pics of Renne "skiing". Our neighbours at the lake, the Harkers, are amazing at getting children of literally any age to try water skiing, and the lent us this trainer whenever we wanted. Renne LOVED it and asked me to ski almost every day. The first time I thought she would get scared, but I guess our over-excessive cheering may have kept the fear at bay. See what I did there? If I'm being honest, I was ridiculously proud of her and love that she loves the water so much.

PLAY

 
SWIM

SOAK UP SOME RAYS

Sundays are my favourite! I love getting my family all pretty and enjoying some serious quality time together at CHURCH. Plus Renne literally BEGS me for nursery, and I'm not sure why people wouldn't love going to church just so their kids can be entertained for 2 hours? Reason enough, right there!! Plus Bigfork ward is awesome, and the spirit there is really special. Sidenote: isn't my hubby handsome? 

ENJOYING VIEWS LIKE ^^^

During the girls nap, I would just lounge outside, sometimes read, but sometimes just do nothing and it was so relaxing. I just had to keep coming back for more…

So, we did. Renne just hated being at home in comparison, and I'm pretty good about doing the whole spray park, pool, play dates, beach trips thing, but she would bring me her swimsuit literally the next morning and say "Mom, I need to go to the cabin" and start packing her bag. So we would stay for a few days and then away we would go…

Ok, I just must say (only once this time, don't worry) that I am so smitten and in love with these two munchkins

Tim has been growing out his bangs (kidding). Don't mind us, we haven't showered for days in this pic

 ok fine, we did a few other things besides the lake…

We also went to our amazing
WHIDDEN FAMILY REUNION

Games games games

sports sports sports

Tim was in heaven

Tim kicked the ground super hard on the first day and we thought he broke his toe, but then it miraculously stopped hurting one day. But being Tim, he didn't let it stop him. Not at all actually. I started nagging him to stop and rest, because he would keep playing and literally not be able to walk afterwards, but that's why i love this guy so dang much.

Chinook lake, you're alright. 

hiking

cousins cousins COUSINS!

My heart hurt having to tell Renne that it would be while before we saw her cousins. "Mom, I go see my cousins? Tomorrow? After? Later? After my nap, right Mom?" 

WHY DO WE LIVE SO FAR APART?

Yes, my bro and sis in law get to LIVE HERE. 

(insert a serious shout out and thank you to Jared and Julie for hosting such an amazing reunion)

And when we were home, we did awesome things like:

walk to church together

braid our hair?

I actually have been a little obsessed with doing Renne's hair lately, and the best part is, she lets me!

So, how do we feel about next summer?

Again, Renne's face SAYS IT ALL

Addie 6 & 7 months

 

This little monkey is growing up so fast! I can't believe how fast the summer flew by, and she will be 8 months in just a few weeks! 

At 6 months she weighed 16 lbs 8 oz and was 26'' long.

My babies are apparently long? I wonder who they get that from…

She has two front bottom teeth, and got the first one literally the morning she turned 6 months. and the next one a day later. Renne was the same.

She's been eating solid foods since 6 months, and is an awesome eater! She was a little clueless at the start and wouldn't swallow, but now she's a champ, but does have a texture preference just like her sister (and her dad). She also can't handle any lumps or small bits in her food, like Renne.  She loves bath time, and when I take her out of the bath its one of the only times she cries. She has such a sweet sensitive spirit, and breaks down into a pile of tears when someone yells too loud, or when you make a mean face at her. It's the most heart breaking cry, i'm so glad I hear it rarely because it nearly brings me to tears. Addie has been sitting lots better, and started right around 6 months. She's gradually gotten more motivated to stay sitting, but loved to throw herself backwards which made it tricky for me to leave her on her own. Addison is probably the most smiley baby I have ever seen. I'm not biased or anything, but she is the best baby in the world. I can't get over how happy she is. It doesn't matter who talks to her, she just lights up and gives them the biggest grin. She is such a ray of sunshine. We are lucky she picked our family.

This little face!! She has been more cuddly lately, and this is her expression when she just wants to stare into your eyes and talk to you. Melts me every time. 

i mean, common!!

squeeeeeeely face

goofy grin, do i see some chia-pet hair?

My girls look so different!! Mini Tim and Mini Ash. I wonder if our next one will be a blend…(no, i'm not pregnant, people go nuts for even the slightest hints of baby number 3, but yes, we will be having more. I may or may not already be baby hungry, but pregnancy hungry…that is something else entirely)

Addison does look a lot like I did as a baby, and she also looks like mom and my Grandma McConnell, who passed away last year. I like to think they were together before Addie was born, because they are two peas in a pod. My grandma was always smiling and always happy, people called her "sunshine". She was the classiest woman I've ever known, so proper, very British. Even in her final days she was so sweet and kind and polite, calling the nurses "Pet" I can still hear her perfect delicious accent. I like to think Addie and her had some heart to hearts before Addie came to us. I also think she would be thrilled we chose Jayne as Addie's middle name.

 As evident above, i'm not awesome at taking pictures of my kids. Seriously guys, it's no cake walk. It's one thing to get a picture of a person who is sitting still, and actually looking at the camera, but these two smiling together, nearly impossible. So, I decided to take the girls to Sears and get some pictures. I have some pictures of Renne at this very age in a big frame that I absolutely love, and I wanted to get similar ones of Addie for my baby wall. 

I had a hard time choosing which ones to post, so there's A MILLION of them. But since this blog is mostly for my journaling purposes, I think i'll leave it this way and if you happen to be reading this, just be rude and skip the pics. But you'll be missing out ;)

my chubalub

she can't possibly have any more pictures on this post, can she?

oh, yes, yes, i can...

sorry…almost done...

I'm such a lucky mom