August 2011

When Daniel and I got back from our Washington, DC trip at the beginning of August, my parents were able to stay with us for a few more days before heading home. 

We spent lots of time at the pool so we could see all of the new swimming skills my mom had been teaching the kids while we were gone.  I need to go away more often – they learned so much!

Also while we were gone, they had discovered a tiny little splash park near our house (much closer than the pool).  I had been once, but forgotten all about it.  We went there a lot the rest of the summer.  It’s where the picture at the top of the blog was taken.  I was trying to get wonderful pictures of all the kids together, but of course they weren’t turning out how I was imagining them in my brain.

This is a crazy video of Oliver.  He really is a little Bear Grylls in the making.  I’m glad we live near a creek with wildlife so he can have these types of 9-year old boy experiences.  Except I think this really did hurt.

This is Henry being so sick that he fell asleep in the laundry I was folding.  He slept for a few days straight.

Rachel took over my camera to practice taking pictures.  Lizza was a very willing model.  I don’t know where she learned all these poses she does – it’s not from me, and I’m pretty sure it’s not from Daniel. 

Rachel also photographed the wedding of Lizza and Henry/Batman.

The happy couple dancing:

The runaway groom:

The wedding photographer:

The next day Lizza got married again, only this time she didn’t invite the groom for pictures. 

Also in August, I remembered how much I used to love making paper dolls when I was a kid, and I realized my girls would love them.  I found some really cute Victorian paper doll girls online and printed them out.  I was right – they loved them.  They couldn’t believe I had known about such a fabulous thing as paper dolls and never told them about it before.   Rachel said it was the best day of her life (she is both dramatic and easy to please).

Other crafts in August included these long and poky fake fingers made by Rachel out of paper.  All the better to scratch Tristan’s back with!

Henry spent most of August walking around in just his underwear, as we were working on toilet-training, and that seemed the easiest way.  He did great, and it is nice to only have one in diapers now.

His favorite thing about wearing underwear was how much better they are at storing weapons than diapers:

These beautiful princesses are Rachel and her best friend, Addie.  They are joined in one picture by King Henry, who is dressed in his favorite “cool-guy” outfit – underwear plus sandals.  Several times per day he would shout out, “wait, I have to go get my sandals so I can be cool.” 

Oliver turned 9 on August 17th.  He had chocolate pancakes for breakfast and a fun day at the pool.  I framed a picture of us up on stage with Eddie Vedder, along with his ticket and pick, since going to the concert was his birthday present.  I don’t think he regrets making that choice!

Before school started there was a fun party at our neighborhood pool.  They brought in this bouncy waterslide that the kids loved.

Then it was back to school for these three.  Rachel is in 1st grade, Oliver is in 3rd, and Tristan is in 5th. 

It’s nice to still have Lizza at home to help with Cynthia and push her around in toy buckets full of blankets.

She also rigged up this little train using nothing but duct tape.

Here she is explaining it (because nobody explains in a cuter voice than Lizza)

Cynthia tuned 10 months old in August, and started walking around while holding onto things.

She also discovered books.  She loves reading.  One of my favorite things she does is when she goes and grabs a book from the book basket and then tries to back up into my lap to get me to read to her.

Henry spent a whole day dressed in a black leotard pretending he was the Emperor.  He was walking around shooting “cool lightning” out of his hands at everyone, and talking in a really funny emperor voice.  It was mostly a growly voice, but every once in awhile he’d throw in some crazy accents, too. 

Here’s a little video clip of him in all his emperor glory.  I included subtitles on some sections where it seemed like his emperor accent was a little hard to understand. 

I love how he was such a generous emperor and gave grapes to all the people after he choked them with his lightning.  We really love him.

The end.