Marble Falls summer

One of my favorite things this summer was being able to watch Colt and Levi gain so much confidence swimming. At the beginning of the summer they didn't know how to swim and had much fear/hesitance when getting in the water. By summer's end, they were little fishes! 

Colt has never liked swimming in the lake, so we would swim in the pool instead. Levi liked to dive for objects at the bottom of the pool while Colt enjoyed learning to do front flips in the water. 

Nothing like a green smoothie (or purple in this case) to cool us off over the summer. 

We had a great time on the boat with friends this summer. 

Zoe's first boat trip

Little people fit in the nose of the boat just perfectly. 

Tatum always wants to get her hair cut when the boys go in for their cuts. We finally allowed her to get  one (I think this is her 3rd). She was SO excited and asked the hairdresser for a Princess Leia haircut :) We went to a Super Cuts in Marble Falls which was awesome - super affordable and NO wait. We were in and out in 20 minutes! This would never have happened in Austin. 

Beautiful girl showing off her hair cut. Tatum loved this haircut so much that she decided to try and duplicate it once we got home :( Fortunately one of the boys was with her and came to tell on her immediately. She cut off a nice chunk behind her right ear. It isn't obvious at all if her hair is down, but the hair still isn't long enough to fit into a ponytail and hangs down every time :-/

Back to school hair cuts! 

Colt was excited to see his name on the street sign next to Super Cuts. 

At the end of our time in Marble Falls, Levi got sick :( Before taking this nap on the couch, he laid this towel underneath his sweet little head as a proactive measure. Levi is so funny and quite often thoughtful like this… one of the many things we love about him! 

Zoe at almost 4 months

Sweet sisters

Zoe is one laid back baby. She is full of smiles, sleeps great, rarely fusses and is a joy to be around. 

This smile lights up our lives! 

Zoe did this funny thing this summer where she would make a fist and repeatedly hit herself in her face.  I'm still not sure if it was just a reflex or her trying to gain some coordination, but we sure did get a number of laughs over it. 

I love this full body shot with all of her precious rolls. Zoe was 100% for her weight at one point, though that has gone down to about 80% lately. She has always been 98% for her height, so we may have a tall girl on our hands.

Look who's pulling up to stand!

Zoe has gone from army crawling to real crawling and pulling up to stand this week. Such a smart girl  ;) 

6.5 months

More of July

Zoe and I just hanging out. Taking a break from packing boxes. 

She is such a sweet SWEET baby! 

We took a trip to the Scottish Rite Theater to watch a children's production of Charlotte's Web. It was a great show and fun time together as a family in the middle of moving chaos. We even ran into a family we recognized from church and went to eat lunch with them afterwards. Always fun to make new friends! 

We moved out of our Lost Creek house on July 19th. Zoe was 3 months old. Here's a picture of our living room just before we finished loading the truck. We have some great memories in this house. We moved here right after Colt turned one, announced our pregnancy with Levi to Chez and Cody while giving them the house tour ("this is going to be the baby's room"), brought both of our daughters home from the birthing center to this house and celebrated 5 wedding anniversaries here. We loved living here (minus the busy street), but had no idea when we bought the place that we would eventually have 4 kids and desire a bit more space. The Austin market was HOT this summer - we had a realtor friend approach us with a family who was wanting a one story house in our neighborhood and while they ultimately didn't choose our house, it got us on board to seriously consider selling the place. 

We spent a month looking for houses in this hot market where homes went on one day and were sold in a  few hours (or even sold without being listed in many cases)! It is neat to look back and see how God molded our preferences and desires through the process. We never would have bought at our current location in the beginning, but he changed us (well, mostly me) to be ok with our new location. And, we are loving it here! The kids are able to ride their bikes and play outside with very little worry about traffic, we have neighbor kids for mine to play with and much, much more. 

We moved all our stuff over to our new house in July, then drove out to Marble Falls where we lived for the next month while we had some work done on our new place. 

This summer was really fun while we were in Marble Falls (lots of swimming at Aunt Pam's swimming pool, feeding the deer in the evening, riding in the golf cart to the lake). However, most days, we drove an hour into Austin to live our lives that are here (school training, church stuff, birthday parties, friends, house renovation, etc). Those days were tiring, so much so that Colt fell asleep at the dinner table one night! 

Sweet Zoe hanging out poolside. She loved getting in the water and would kick and kick her chubby little legs. 

Colt went to Kinder Camp at the end of July. He was very shy the first week but also very excited. This week was the perfect way for him to work out the jitters and learn the routine before actual school started. Can't believe my baby is starting Kindergarten!! 

Colt's 6th Bday

Colt really wanted his party at Peter Pan Mini-Golf this year. This place is a must-do when you live in/visit Austin. The only problem with celebrating Colt's birthday here in July is that it was crazy hot! 

Excited to turn 6! 

All of the kids had fun putting. Here's Jonah! 

Colt putting pelican style. 

Tatum may or may not have played by the rules. 

We were excited that Brady and Jackie could join us. 

Even Miss Nickey came. She sacrificed playing a round in order to hold Zoe ;)

Colt requested a jellybean cake with blue frosting. It was so hot the frosting was all melted by the time it was time to sing Happy Birthday. 

Lots of blue mouths after cake time! 

Aiden and Nash celebrating in style. This was a fun (and did I mention hot?) party. And pretty cheap too… which is a definite bonus since we now have 4 parties to throw a year :) 

Who are your closest friends? Jake and Nash, Abbie and Will
What are some talents you have? baseball
What activities do you like to do with your family? Play games at Chuck E. Cheese
What makes you happy? To go to buy a toy
What makes you sad? I don't know
Favorite color? Every single color, except I don't like gray or white because those don't work on a white piece of paper.
Food? Macaroni and Cheese with broccoli in it and hot dogs
Sport? baseball
Book? I don't know. I like books about science and volcanoes.
What did you get for your birthday this year? Monster jeep, remote control car and motorcycle, water gun
When I grow up I want to be a train driver, I think.
My goal for this year is to learn to ride my bike.
Something new I want to learn when I am 6 is about water because I don't know how they make water.

More summer loving… JUNE

Tatum continues to be into painting her nails, my nails, anyone's nails who will let her. Rainbow is the color/design of choice. 

June is the month when we listed our house and bought a new one. It was the beginning of the craziness of the summer. One day when someone was looking at our house, we had to vacate right around snack time. I was really struggling to think of a place to go to get a healthy snack, but saw People's Pharmacy as we were driving around. I'd forgotten they had food there, much less health food! We stopped in and got green smoothies. These 3 kiddos devoured that thing like baby birds fighting for  their lunch. It was really hilarious to watch. This picture is of them sucking out of one of the 3 straws in their cup. 

One of the highlights of the summer was swim camp which led to the boys learning to swim!! They went to a one week camp at the West Austin Athletic Club. It was the best experience at a very affordable price - we will definitely be there again next summer. When I would pick them up at lunch each day, they would tell me of something new they were doing. Honestly, I thought they were kidding me/lying to me. Ty and I had been trying for a while to get them to swim but they wouldn't due to certain fears. There was no way some high school kids were going to be able to get my kids to put their faces in the water after a few short hours or to float on their backs. On the last day of the camp, the kids put on a show for the parents. Ty and I were elated as we watched our boys swim across a short segment of the pool unassisted! 

The rest of the summer was spent with many hours at the pool and they improved their skills even more. I thought it would be more difficult for me as a mom to have them swimming independently (b/c they just seemed safer in life jackets). But, it really is nice to see their skills improve so much that I can have some confidence in them to swim by themselves but to know their boundaries at the same time. 

Levi still loves holding his baby sister every day. 

Sweet sleeping baby. Zoe has a bit of baby acne (it went away after 2 weeks). She also had some congestion, so we had to prop her up while she was sleeping and suction her nose (which she wasn't a big fan of). 

Even Spiderman gets tired. 

Sisterly love

While packing up the house, I ran across this Raggedy Andy doll my Grandma Goldie had made for my brother Andrew as a kid. Tatum liked playing with him for the day (until I packed him away!) She's getting more into playing with dolls - I enjoy watching her and the things she does to play with her dolls as the boys never really did this. 

One day Levi put Zoe in the baby doll stroller. She looked a little freaked out :) 

Chubby girl

They had so much fun playing with Z in the stroller. 

Don't know who took this unflattering photo of me, but there is no better feeling than taking a nap in a recliner with a cuddly baby on your chest. 

I watched a friend's kids while they moved (they returned the favor a few weeks later). I love this pic of the kids on the couch in our old house with some of their favorite friends. It was a busy day watching 6 kids! 

Zoe at 3 months