Sunday afternoon

Sunday was a perfect sort of day!  We had lovely 72 degree weather with a nice breeze.  After nap time we all came outside to play.  Katelynn was still sleeping, so I decided to take a few pictures of our afternoon.  The boys got busy doing what they love to do....digging!

Auntie M watching the kids playing outside.

Amber checked on the garden,

Some of our tomatoes are getting big!  I knew you would enjoy seeing our tomatoes Momma.

Amber picked this funky cucumber out of the garden.  Not really sure why it turned orange.

Everyone loved to be where Auntie M was at.  :)

Our big scout camp boy wanted to check on the garden too!

Evan played in the playhouse.

I liked this one of Aaron because it is a natural picture of him.  :)

Aaron showed me his cool rocks that he dug up.

Brian loves to ride Aaron's electric scooter!  He has learned to do some fancy tricks on it.  He kind of looks like he is doing ice skating when he does his fancy footwork!

I am sad that there are only 2 more weeks left till school starts.  This summer has gone by too fast!

And little Miss Claire, she is one busy girl.  I never quite seem to be able to catch a picture of her face.  She thinks that this table is a great thing to hang over and try to scare us half to death!!  :)  I have really enjoyed her cute personality.  I will be sad when they leave tomorrow.

Matching Cousins

 We have been having such a great time with Auntie M and Claire!!  Just before they got here, I found these cute matching dresses for Claire and Katelynn at Babies R Us!  They looked so cute!  Claire wasn't too sure about smiling for the pictures.  She gets kind of jealous when her Momma holds someone else!  :)

 Katelynn was giving me a Popeye look in this one.

 Our cute little Clarie Belle!!  She is such a sweet heart!

 Claire giving me her famous Popeye look!  I call her "Popeye Palmer!"  :)

 Miss KatieLynn is starting to focus and smile on cue!!  I love it!

 Claire has a dress that matches my girls.  They wore them to church on Sunday!  We snapped these right after dinner.  They turned out cute of Amber and Claire I thought.  Not so much of Katelynn, but that is okay.  At least she wasn't screaming!!!  :)

 Claire was smiling at her Mommy.  

 Cutest little girls ever!!  :)

 And I had to snap a few of Katelynn too.  She is getting to be so big!!  I can't believe that she is now 2 months old!!!!  Her check up is tomorrow!!!

Afternoon at the park

Thursday was a beautiful day, so we headed over to the park after nap time.  Claire is very busy and had fun climbing all over.  She liked to slide down the slides.  She is quite taken with Aaron and Amber!!  

Aaron did what he loves best and climbed most everything in sight!!  He had a great time just using those muscles of his!

Evan played on just about everything!  He even made friends with a little girl who was there with her nanny.  They played dragons together for a long time!

Amber and Claire like to be by Auntie M/Mommy and liked the big kid's playground best.  Claire loved to climb and slide.  I sat in the shade for a bit while Katelynn slept and then once she woke up, I joined Melissa with the little ones out in the sun!  It was a perfect afternoon to be at the park!

I think Aaron just may be part monkey!  :)

Katelynn slept for part of the time that we were there.  

Aaron and Amber had fun climbing this slide in particular.

Brian brought a ball and spent most of his time on the basketball courts playing with another boy.  You can see him in the green shirt with the blue basketball.

We have been so blessed to have such fantastic weather while Auntie M has been here.  We did get to go swimming on Friday since it got all the way up to 83 degrees and Barth took a half day off.  He watched Katelynn so we could go to the pool and get in.  As soon as we got home from the pool,  he left with Brian and Aaron to go to family night at scout camp!  Weston had a blast at his camp this year.  I am sure that he will blog all about it soon!  Today is another beautiful day.  It only got up to 72 today and is sunny and nice.  I am waiting for Katelynn to wake up from her nap and Auntie M went outside with the kiddos to play for a little bit!  It is hard to believe that her trip is already half over!  I am really enjoying having her here!!

The arrival story

Melissa arrived on Wednesday and we had quite the adventure that day!!  She flew into the Louisville airport at 10:30 in the morning.  I was set to get there at about 11 am to pick her up.  She called to let me know that she was in.  Just as I was getting close to the airport, she called again to ask for my address.  Her luggage had not made it!!  I gave her my address, but expressed my worry about the distance from that airport to our house.  Since we live up by Cincinnati, it was kind of a hike and I wasn't sure if they would deliver her bags all the way up to my house.  I told her not to worry, we could hang out in Louisville for a while till her bags came.  I went into the airport and also spoke with the nice lady at the airline and we said we would spend a few hours in the city and come back for her bag.  It was a nice day.  So we went to McDonald's for lunch and let the kids play in the outside playplace for a little over an hour and a half.  It was a beautiful day out.  It only got to about 75 and there was a nice breeze.  :)  From there we found a mall to go and walk while we waited for the bags to come in.  While we were at the mall, Melissa got a call saying they had located her bag.  We got to the airport around 3 and Melissa ran in to get her bags while I fed Katelynn and watched the kids in the car.  Melissa came back out with no bags!!  Her bags had not been put on the flight afterall.  They gave her a flight voucher and told her that her bag would come in at 4:40.  That was just a little over an hour away, so we opted to go to Chuck E Cheese for some fun while we waited.  Melissa said that she had never been there before.  We all had a blast while we were killing time.

Claire wasn't really sure what to think of the whole thing, but she had a lot of fun before the time was done.

Brian won the jackpot on this ticket game.  He actually won it twice. :)

Everyone had fun riding the rides.  This was a huge Chuck E Cheese!!  They had tons of games and rides for the kids. 

The place was fairly empty which was nice.  Here was Aaron when  he came to get more tokens.

Brian with his jackpot of tickets.

Claire loved the little kid rides!  Thankfully Claire wasn't shy at all.  She had a grand time with all the kiddos!

We always get the sketches when we go.  I told Melissa that she should get one with Claire.  Claire wasn't too keen on the idea!  :)

We played air hockey.

Rode the rides.

And played lots of fun games.

We even danced with Chuck E.

Claire cautiously looked on.  :)  We then headed back to the airport.  We got stuck in 5 o'clock traffic.  When we got there, we found out that they STILL didn't have her bag.  Melissa got another flight voucher and they promised her that they would deliver her bag that night after it got in.  They said it should come in around 8pm.  So, we loaded back into the van and headed back home.  The kids were all hungry and we had been out all day, so once we got out of Louisville and into the suburbs, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner!  It was sure yummy!

Here we are loaded all up in the car and ready to leave after dinner.  Everyone was tired.  It had been a long day!

Here are the kids loaded and ready to go.  Right as we were leaving in the morning, I told the boys that we could bring video games.  So at least they had something to do to keep them busy!  About 45 minutes from home, Claire just wanted to love on Katelynn, and ended up waking her up.  So, we had a screaming baby and a screaming nearly 2 year old and no where to stop!!  As they were screaming, Melissa got a call that her bag had finally arrived at the airport and that they would deliver it.  I slept on the couch waiting for the bag to come.  It never did!!  Barth went to work in the morning.  At just before 10 after Melissa and Claire had gotten up, Melissa called the airlines to see where her bag was.  They said that it had been delivered.  It wasn't on the porch, so I decided to walk around the house.  I found the bag dumped in the middle of the driveway.  Barth hadn't run over it or seen it when he left for work (at about 7:45), so we know that it didn't come before then.  Thankfully it arrived finally!!!  What an ordeal it was!!!  Although it was a stressful day for Melissa and I, at the end of the day, one of my kids said, "Wow!  This was the best day EVER!!!!"  We are so glad that Melissa and Claire are here for a visit.  We are having a great time!!  Claire is as cute as a button!  And it is fun to have Melissa here to visit with!  :)

Growing

 Do you remember how when Katelynn was just a few weeks old, she was the same size as Amber's baby doll?

 Well, I had Amber get her baby today so that we could compare the 2 now that Katelynn is growing so fast!!  Look at how much Katelynn has grown!!!!

 She certainly has grown quite a few inches these last few months!!!  And I have to add in here that this cute outfit that Katelynn is wearing today was picked out by Amber.  We were at the store the other day and Amber saw this cute outfit and asked if she could get it for her sister.  It was on sale so I said yes.  :)

 Such a smiley baby girl!!  Let's just hope she is happy tomorrow morning all the way down to Louisville when we pick up Melissa and Claire!!!  I am so excited for Melissa to come visit!!!!!  :D

Brian is my big helper this week!  Weston is gone to overnight scout camp and won't be home till Saturday.  Brian has been a great helper to me!  He loves to talk to Katelynn and was a huge help with getting things cleaned up yesterday morning!!  I have such great kiddos!  I am one blessed Momma!