Goodbye July

Some friends gave us this picnic table their kids have outgrown and it's gotten a lot of use already.

Freshly bathed after a day at the beach and wearing new dresses Nana sent.

Lots of house projects means LOTS of trips to Lowes.  Good thing these girls love it there.

They have free Friday night concerts in downtown Towson.  This was our first time going and it was a great night- the girls loved dancing to the 80s revival band.

Our first anniversary of living in our house!

We found out a few months ago that Jillian has some hearing loss in her right ear.  This can be a symptom of some other health concerns so her ENT had us do a ton of testing.  Among other things she had an EKG, a CT scan, and an abdominal ultrasound.  It was many weeks filled with many doctor's appointments and through it all Jilly was happy and delightful and I tried (and didn't always succeed) to be calm.  We recently went back to the ENT to get all the results and besides the hearing loss (that hasn't affected her at all thus far so it will just be monitored) she is perfectly healthy.  Hooray!  

I'm knocking on every tree in the forest right now but lately the girls have played SO well together.  They wake up in the morning excited to go downstairs to play family or legos or doctor or princess.  They certainly have fights, but for the most part they really love playing together and can play for hours.

A fun visit to Storyville.  It's a library/mini Children's Museum that is only for kids 5 and under so this may have been Jilly's last time there!

Each week for family night Mattie runs to grab a pencil to lead us while we sing the opening song.  It's one of my favorite parts of the whole week.

This is big news.  Jilly came home from California talking about Kirra's cute outfits and asked if we could get her some shorts.  I rushed her off to the store before she could change her mind and she looks darling (and so grown up!) in her new shorts.

This has been a hot, steamy July and ice cream has been one of our favorite ways to cool off.

Another Saturday at Lowes

For Father's Day I let the girls choose a tie for Bryan.  Mattie insisted on this striped/polka dotted beauty and I thought I could get it then return it another day.  But of course she never forgot about the tie and was so excited to give it to Bry then beg him every Sunday to wear it.  It makes her SO happy when he wears it.  

We had a fun singing time on Pioneer Day and the girls had fun dressing up in bonnets at home.

Bryan being snarky after I was being lazy and asking him to look up a bunch of things for me

The girls completed their summer reading charts and were excited to go to the library to get their prizes.  Last year they got coupons for free pizza and cupcakes, a new book, and a toy.  And this year the only prize was a little squirting turtle.  I think I was probably the one that was most disappointed.  But we still got a picture with the creepy cat(?) mascot.

Another fun beach day with friends.  I love how well these kids get along- makes it easy to sit and talk to my friends while they all play.  

School supply shopping- I was dying for a fresh pack of markers and some blank notebooks of my own!  We have 3.5 weeks til school starts and I'm planning to soak as much summer fun out of those days as I possibly can!