Photo Catch-Up: Part 2

This spring, Sienna joined the Daisy Scouts troop (you saw her marching with them in the Memorial Day parade).  On June 13th they had their induction ceremony, which was really sweet.  Sienna was a flag bearer in the beginning of the presentation.  She looked very solemn and official while walking up the aisle with the flag, then settled into her typical demeanor.  : ) 

"On my honor, I will try, to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout law"  -- taking the Girl Scout promise for the first time (which, surprisingly, has not changed since I was in Brownie Scouts!)

My favorite shot of the day (Sienna is with me and requested I write in pink, in case you were questioning the color change).

This is Sienna in a nutshell.  : )

 

Charlie's favorite part were the treats afterwards.

 

 

This next group of pictures is from Father's Day.  We all went to my sister and brother-in-law's house and had lunch together.

My brother-in-law, Charlie, my Dad, Sienna.  This is my Dad's usual assumed expression for photos...

But some people have a talent for making him smile!

 

I remember before Charlie was born, my Dad had been so completely enamored with Sienna, that he worried he would not give as much attention to our second.  Well, as you can see, even Henry receives lots of love and attention from Gigi (pronounced "jee jee") - as the kids call him.  And all of the kids absolutely adore him back.  He was sitting here with Henry, talking to him, for more than half an hour.

The conversation went a little like this:
"Hey, Dad, what are you doing?"
"I'm sitting in a chair, relaxing."
"I'm sitting too.  Ok, bye"
And many other similar "phone calls"; between each one Charlie would get up and run across the lawn and back-

#1 Dad with two of the greatest kids in the world (I'm not proud or anything).

I guess you could just reuse the caption from the above photo...   : )
Just a little FYI - what you can't see in this lovely little shot is that my Dad is standing on his tippy toes to get a little height advantage.  Sorry, Dad, the cat's out of the bag!

My sister and I inherited my Dad's silliness...and the love Japanese people have for using bunny ears in photos?

By the way, I promise my Mom was there, she just managed to avoid all the photos - except for one I took of her when she wasn't ready, which I kindly deleted, following her request.  

Photo Catch-up: Part 1

We've been busy around here and I have not gotten around to uploading pictures from the last couple of weeks.  So I'll do a few posts to just catch you up on what's been going on.  First up is a photo shoot of Henry with Batman, which (as you can see) went downhill rather quickly!

 

 

 



 Last week Sienna had her first field day.  It had been rescheduled twice (it rained on the rain date!) and luckily it was a gorgeous day.  I brought the boys to go watch; I think Charlie wanted to join all of the big kids in their relays.  Sienna had a lot of fun!

Singing, "You're a Grand Old Flag"

Frog jump relay

Don't trip over that shoelace!

Jumping over the hurdle or doing a funky dance?

A cute relay where they had to put all of these red, white, and blue accessories on

Water break!



Here you can see Sienna in action: The first relay involved balancing a dodgeball inside of a cone while running, and Sienna did well (once she was able to get the ball and put it in the cone).  The second relay was rolling an innertube to the cone and running back with it.  She took her time just a liiiiitle bit more with this one.  I think she wanted to be extra careful that it wouldn't fall!

 



Baby Face(s)

I was planning on posting a really cute video of Henry smiling at me but it is not cooperating with blogger right now. Instead, here is a random array of "the many faces of Henry" captured in the last few weeks!






 






 

 

 

 

 And a few of the best big sister and big brother in the world:

I love these guys.  All three bring me so much joy, and fill our home with fun and laughter.  Sometimes I still can't believe that we are a family of five!  We are very, very blessed.

Our Weekend (with a little video too!)

Our weekend was pretty busy!  Sienna had her last swimming lesson and soccer game of the season.  While she will miss swimming, she was excited to see soccer come to a close.  : (    Sorry, Daddy!  Since I completely forgot to take a picture of her with her trophy, I will use the one from the fall season.  It gives the same effect.

She originally wanted to skip the last game altogether, but then remembered she would be getting a trophy haha!

Another exciting part of the weekend was my friend Raj's book launch party at a nearby cafe. She has just released her first young adult novel that is available as an e-book on Amazon.com.  Check it out here and visit her on her blog!   Raj is such a fun, genuine person to be friends with.  Her youngest daughter is friend's with Sienna and Raj and I instantly got along well and became fast friends.  I have just started her book and have to say it is very captivating and I can't wait to read more!

Although I don't have a photo to capture this, David and I had a dinner date with friends on Saturday night at a local pub.  This was the second time the two of us have left the house together alone since Henry was born!  It was really nice to go out, relax, and just have an uninterrupted meal! 

One of the highlights of the weekend was celebrating my Mom's birthday on Sunday.  My parents, sister and brother-in-law, brother and sister-in-law (does that make sense?) and three nieces all came over to eat, play, and have some cake!  We barbequed and everyone pitched in with sides and dessert.  The kids played really well together and ate their dinner picnic-style in the backyard because the weather was gorgeous.  The only snag was when my Dad threw a chicken wing at my Mom and got grease on her new shirt...but that's a long story.  : )  

This was the first time my nieces were meeting Henry, and it was so sweet to see them enjoy a little cuddle. 

This little one really loves babies!  I think she was the most excited to meet Henry and hold him.  She also held him the longest, and kept holding his little hands and feet and smiling down at him.  It was so sweet to watch.

Smiling at her Momma

 

My youngest niece just had a quick little hug and then was done!

 

Their bigger sister is the same age as Sienna.

 

She was super comfortable holding Henry, probably from her experience with having two little sisters!  It didn't take long for her to exercise the one-armed baby hold.  : )

All the grandkids with the birthday girl.  : )

Blowing out her candles on the delicious cake my sister made.  Notice the candles?  We realized the only number candles we had were a 1 and 3 so David thought it would be funny. My Mom appreciated it - you're only as old as you feel, right?

Here's a quick little video that touches upon one aspect of life as the third child.  David and the kids were having an impromptu jam session upstairs and what was Henry doing?  Watch and see: 

Sleeping like a baby.  : )