Apparently Disney World, Ellie's birthday, and finding out baby number 3 is a boy wasn't enough excitement for a month! We had a few other things going on in July. I felt like summer was passing us by so we crammed in a lot of fun activities. Including:
-July 4th festivities
-Uncle Dave's birthday
-Claire's first treasure/scavenger hunt
-Botanical garden
-blueberry picking
-Claire's sleep over with her cousins (more on that in another post)
-birthday dinner for Grandpa
-another zoo trip
Wow! This would be why I am so behind on blogging!
So let's start at the top. July 4th. We went down to my parents' house on July 3rd to celebrate my sister's birthday a few days late. We spent the morning of the 4th with my parents and then went to Jeff's parents' house that afternoon. (Jeff was working as usual). We celebrated the 4th and Uncle Dave's birthday with Jeff's family.
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| Jamie's cake and awesome candle! |
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| Patriotic cuties |
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| A water balloon is no match for Grandpa! |
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| Bathing beauties |
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| Fun with water balloons |
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| Chilling in a chair just her size |
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| Add caption |
The next week I made a treasure hunt for Claire. I drew picture clues of things in the yard to lead her from one card to the next. There was a prize hidden at the final location. I have fond memories of similar things from when I was young so I wanted to pass it along. And Claire loved it! She was ready for more "scabbenger" hunts!
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| What's this one? |
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| That tree over there? |
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| I found it! |
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| The prize at the end! |
Here we mixed up a little sidewalk paint with cornstarch, water, and food coloring. Claire and I both enjoyed this activity!
I took the girls to the botanical garden one morning. We walked in and someone asked "Oh, are you here for the treasure hunt?" Well, we are now! So Claire got to hunt for some golden eggs and keep one treasure (a pretty rock).
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| The best I could get of them together |
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| Ready for a scavenger hunt! |
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| Golden eggs! |
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| Counting how many we have |
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| Gorgeous view |
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| Ellie says "I'm free!!" |
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| Playing in the flower shower |
Blueberry picking:
I wanted to pick blueberries last year but because Ellie was due in the prime picking month, it didn't happen. So I hoped to make it happen this year. We tried to squeeze in a trip between the rain and Ellie's naps. That didn't quite work since she apparently didn't sleep during her morning nap, didn't want to sleep in the car, and even though we were sure she would sleep in the carrier on Jeff, she didn't do that either! But she was reasonably content to hang out. She did limit Jeff's ability to pick since the berries were in deep and she just wanted to grab all the branches! The picking wasn't great so we were out for an hour or so and got a pound. But we had a good time
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| Girl on a mission |
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Once a rare occurrence, Claire falling asleep in the
car happens a little more often these days |
We rounded out the month of fun with a zoo trip:
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| Feeding parakeets |
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Claire loves taking pictures at these things,
but SO doesn't get the concept! |
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| Petting zoo |
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| Fun on the slide |
Here are some miscellaneous pictures of the girls from the month:
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| Both of them love bath time! |
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| Ellie in a box |
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| Claire and Dr. Ellie |
And finally, Claire has discovered how to work the camera feature on an iPhone. Here are a few of her pictures.
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| The couch |
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| 9 pictures that looked exactly like this |
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| Ellie getting a diaper changed |
