It's a Wolf Wonderland

But we are doing well and miss our bloggy friends!! We've also been taking good care of Mommy as she is still not feeling top-notch after her surgery, but we have lots to share with you and many pictures to document our fun in the sun.

After the 4th of July, we took our grandparents to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA for a big 40th Anniversary Celebration! We had such a wonderful time with our Grandpa and Grandma enjoying all of the fabulous water park amenities. Here we are with Violet, the wolf:Charity the little bearity (as we like to call her) was very tired everyday after our big water excursions.

Our pal good ol' Grandpa-man was great fun as we splashed the days away!

In true vacation fashion, we watched plenty of cartoons and hung out in our jammies. Such fun!

This smiley little girl always gets a good laugh:

Waterfalls, waterslides, and waves...woo hoo!

We learned how to howl at the nightly story time...hoooooooowl! We were little wolves in training.

The froggy slide was fun because the weather outside was pretty nice (shock!) and we could go down it by ourselves. We also had a special time eating at the poolside cafe because it all seemed very fancy.

Happy 40th Anniversary, Grandma and Grandpa! We love you and are so glad you could spend the week with us at the Great Wolf Lodge.

(such a cute little wolf cub)

Fireworks and a Fun Fourth

We had a low-key, fun Fourth of July with our Grandma and Grandpa. We all dressed up in patriotic attire and had fun playing and watching Daddy shoot off (legal...an important distinction!) fireworks. The deck was the perfect perch to watch the cool sparklers.

Here he goes again! Bang! Boom! Sparkle! It was about all of the excitement we could handle.

Charity: Although it looks like I'm on the verge of crying, I really loved watching the fireworks. They just made me flinch and squeeze my face like this every time. So silly!

Because we had a big trip planned to Williamsburg the next day, Mommy and Grandma stayed with Charity and we went to the BIG fireworks with Daddy and Grandpa. They were LOUD and it was a HUGE show, which was a little scary...but we were very brave and enjoyed the colors in the sky. Happy Birthday America!

Growing, growing, growing!

Can you believe it? I'm already almost 10 months old! Mommy has been a little behind the game and forgot to update all of you on my most recent growth spurt (at my 9 month check-up). I am growing big and strong everyday. I think life is way too short to stay put for long, so I am on the move, following everything my big sisters are doing!

At my most recent check-up, the doctor was very impressed with my growing abilities. I skyrocketed from the 25th percentile in weight to the 70th! In just three months! I now weigh in at 19 lbs, 9 oz.

I am a smiley, happy little lady because I have so much fun with my crazy sisters. Their 3-year old selves are enough drama for the whole world, so I mostly just watch the drama unfold, rather than contribute to it. Mommy especially appreciates it.

I also love to climb and am getting quite good at it. I can climb up our little slide and up an entire flight of stairs. I just keep on going and going and going...

(and as you can see from the above picture, it looks like I'm going to have light brown hair--different from BOTH of my sisters!)

Jumping June

We're going to jump through June in this post because it's already July! How time flies!
After returning from the Midwest, we were so lucky to be joined by our awesome babysitter Anna so Mommy could have help during her surgery recovery. We had such an amazing time while Anna was here! We cooked, painted, played outside, played inside, went to the pool...the activities were endless! Anna is like part of the family and we just love her to pieces!

Now that Charity is getting bigger, Mommy is starting to find outfits so she can dress all three of us alike. We think it's pretty awesome and love to match.
Elyse: Although I don't love it when Mommy goes a little crazy on my hair and gives me this classic 80s side-ponytail, as you can see in this picture. Of course, she realized her mistake and fixed it, but not before snagging a pic to immortalize the moment. Clearly I was thrilled:

For one big outing with Anna and Mommy, we went to the new American Girl Store. We are waiting with great anticipation for Christmas as we've been asking for an "American doll" since last year! Here are the two dolls we really want with red hair and blonde hair just like us:We loved shopping at the store and we even got a new outfit for our Bitty Baby. (Just for the record, Mommy is a total sucker for all things American Girl and we plan on capitalizing on that in the future).

Because the day was so special for us, we got dressed up in fancy outfits and wore new bows that Mommy and Anna learned how to make together. We are getting pretty grown-up:

Elyse: I just couldn't contain my excitement after all of the fun! When we got home from our big day, I made sure to thank Daddy for working so hard so we can have a great day like we did.

After the American Girl Store, we went to a fancy lunch, and then off to the theater for a showing of Cars 2. Let's just say we aren't going to exactly give it 2 thumbs up...it was a bit over our heads and we were b-o-r-e-d. Oh well! It was a fun day anyway.Even though Mommy is still not feeling top notch, June was a great month for us. We were so blessed to have Anna with us and we miss her! Thanks Anna for being so wonderful!

May Madness!

The month of May was kind of a crazy one for us while Mommy worked on recovering from her surgery. We spent most of the month in Wisconsin with family and had lots of adventures. We all had so much fun! Here are some our silly times:Countless hours of fun with our Great Grandma at the farm!

Many visits from both sets of grandparents. We were in heaven having so many wonderful people to play with.

Hugs from grandmas are the best!

Daddy was able to come to Wisconsin for a little visit also and we went to the zoo in Madison. The animals, carousel, and park were major highlights of that particular day.

Uncle Steve is always the life of the party as far as we are concerned. We had a great time celebrating a few graduations with him and our other aunts and uncles.

Silly times with Daddy are always welcome!

Charity: We also enjoyed the Madison Children's Museum. There was so much to explore, including all places that were perfect for me to learn to cruise. I'm SO CLOSE to walking.

What big eyes we have to see you with!

Grandpa fit in perfectly with us at the museum!

Such fun with our other Grandpa too!

The Greats took special care of us at the farm. Grandpa's lap was just right.

Grandma and her girls:

We had a very fancy tea party with our friend Barbara.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip and time seeing family and friends in the Midwest. Mommy is still recovering from her surgery, which is a bummer, but we were so happy to be with our family.

Just Checking In

We have been in the Midwest for almost a month now and have been without internet access for much of it (gasp!). Hence, the lack of updates from our crazy crew. We are now back in the land of the fully plugged in. The Greats were a silly bunch to hang with:
And we had many more adventures with all of our grandparents. We can't wait to share them with you,
but until then...Cheers!

On the Move!

It has been a crazy month in the Wisco for all of us, but especially me!! I am now a moving maniac! Just a few days after Mommy's surgery, I started crawling. Mom and Dad were not quite ready for me to be moving so early, but at least I was taking it slow. Or so they thought! I caught on to crawling like a real champ and then...started to pull myself up on furniture and began to cruise all around it. In fact, I am a speed-crawling, can't wait to be walking, MACHINE! It must be that fresh country air that is helping me along.

Mommy and Daddy are pretty sure in about a month or so that I will be walking and they are NOT ready for it! My sisters didn't walk this early and Mommy was really hoping I would be a sit-still kind of gal, but to her chagrin, I have no interest in it. Someone has to keep my sisters in line and I won't be able to until I can walk, so I am working on getting mobile. Watch out world, here I come!

Mother's Day!

This year on Mother's Day we are in the grand old state of Wisconsin. (which is better than where Mommy was last year...in bed!) We will be here for a while so Mommy can work on recovering from her surgery.

We love our Mommy very much and bring her lots of giggles! (Mommy in her first no-sunglasses pic post surgery...there's still swelling, but she's looking better!).We love spending time with our Grandma! Happy Mother's Day to a wonderful Grandma!

And Happy Mother's Day to our other Grandma who we love tons too!! We can't wait to see you soon!

This Mother's Day is extra-special because last year Mommy was so sick. Now, we have a wonderful little sister, a Mommy who isn't sick in bed all of the time, and so much to be thankful for!

Happy Mother's Day to all of our friends who are mommies and our great-grandmas!

A Princess Tea Party

The royal wedding has taken the world by storm and no, we were not up at 6 am to watch it. We did, however, enjoy a very fancy Princess Tea Party yesterday with our Mommy and wonderful babysitter, Anna (the tea party and details are all thanks to her!!). We had tea (really just special juice), cucumber sandwiches, finger donuts, cheese squares, and all of this on our Great-Grandma's antique "luncheon sets." We wore our fanciest dresses from when we were flower girls, used a fancy table-cloth and cloth napkins, and also dressed our babies up in fancy attire. Charity was fancy in her flower-headband and enjoyed watching us. Although she was not very quiet and demure in true tea party fashion.

Our baby dolls enjoyed sipping tea and were very well-behaved (better than Charity!). In this picture you can see them sitting next to us in their high-chairs:

One of our favorite things to do is being fancy and this fit the bill! Thanks to Anna for helping us have such a ROYAL event.