Packing Up

We have been very busy packing up our WHOLE house! We are closing on July 16th, but moving on the 12th. We put an offer on a house in Mt. Pleasant, but may not hear anything for a while because it is a "short sale." In the meantime, we will be staying at my parent's condo in Summerville. Grace is not quite sure what is going on and seems a little concerned with all the boxes and clutter in the house. She looks around and says "box - move." She has had a little fun getting in the boxes and climbing up on top with some help. I can't believe we have lived in this house for 5 years already, time flies. It will be sad to leave our first home, but we are looking forward to having a little more space.

Dinner with Friends

Saturday night we had our good friends Kevin, Mark and Carol over for one last dinner in our home. They live in our neighborhood and we will miss being within walking distance of them. (For those of you that don't know, we've had our house on the market for about a year and finally got an offer on it a couple weeks ago. We are supposed to close on July 16th).

Here are some pictures of the girls hanging out together.

Helping Clare drink her bottle...

(and surprisingly not trying to drink it ourself - YEAH!)

Clare - Blonde hair, Blue eyes, Beauty!

Taking a turn in the exersaucer...

Grace and her Baby

We do have clothes for her baby, but she prefers her to be naked...

Sorry, no pictures of the adults. We did have a great time and will continue to get together even though we won't live so close.

Fun with Friends

Today we met some friends at the water park for a little fun. Grace really loves playing in the water and splashing. Her favorite part was the toddler water slide which Jackie took her down several times (no pregos aloud). Here are a few pics of Grace with her friends:

Benjamin and Grace

Taylor checking out what Grace is up to...

Bella and Colin

Bye-Bye Bottle

Grace has been using a sippy cup for quite some time now, but we just couldn't seem to kick the habit of the "before bedtime" baba. It has been our night time routine to take a bath, get a bottle and then read some books. I told myself that after school was over I would take it away, but deep down I didn't want my baby to have to grow up.

On Monday night (after all our traveling) I decided to have Grace help me throw her bottles away (way, way as Grace would say). She really enjoys throwing things away (I have caught her throwing things "way" that didn't really need to be in the trash), so I thought this would be good closure for her. She has been doing great all week! She asked for her baba a couple times and I reminded her that we threw them away. To this response I get a little smirk, and she is learning the word cup.

Little does she know, I put a clean trash bag in the garbage pail

because I am saving these bottles for her little sister.

Enjoying a cup of milk before bed...bye bye bottle.

Father's Day Weekend

We had a fun weekend in the mountains with family and friends. Brooks had a chance to play golf and spend some time with his dad and brother. We hope all of you daddy's had a wonderful father's day!

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Dads and Daughters

Booker (or BooBoo as Grace says)

Grace and Ellie

Grace had lots of fun running around outside and exploring the house.

She also enjoyed our trip to the pool with Missie and Becky.

Relaxing with Missie

Somewhere over the Rainbow

Grace enjoyed eating in Ellie's Bumbo seat.

(I have a feeling she is going to want to do lots of things that our new baby does!)

Grace loves to run around and scare us with her to toy snake.

Here is a picture of a real snake that we saw in a bush right outside our front door.

Beautiful Sunset

Playing on the porch with Mimi

Moving Up Ceremony

On Wednesday, we went to watch Alli perform at her nursery school moving up ceremony. Her class sang a couple songs including The Itsy Bitsy Spider. She did a great job!

Alli and her teachers

Grace and Alli just happened to wear the same dress.

They looked so cute together!

A Trip to the Zoo

On Tuesday my mom and I took all the girls to a small zoo on Long Island. Lauren and Gregory met us there with their dad. They all had fun feeding the goats and looking at the animals.

Nana and the girls

Lauren

Snack Time

Gregory was being very sweet and feeding Grace some grapes.

Fun at Nana's Daycare

As most of you know, my mom runs a daycare at her house. So when we visit there are lots of little kids to play with and plenty of toys. Grace enjoyed playing baby dolls and driving the cars in the backyard.

Lunch with the Gang

SeeSaw with Jake and Morgan

Hanging with Aunt TaTa

NY Aquarium

On Sunday, we went to the aquarium. Here was my first attempt at a group shot of the cousins. As you can see Grace did not want to cooperate....

She is always on the go these days!

The highlight of the aquarium was the seal show:

Grace watched with wonder on Nana's lap

as Oswald the Seal performed his tricks.

Clapping to the music...

Allie the Octopus

Jake at the Touch Tank

Morgan the Mermaid

Another group shot...