Laughter!

An email note and picture from Grandma

Received this email and photo from Grandma:

I know this is such a "grandma thing", but while I was at your house today Luke puckered up his lips and Amanda gave him a kiss. It was so cute and the camera was there, so what could I do? This was totally out of the blue. They were both in the basket a few minutes later. It was definitely a fun basket day.

Closeups

Sharon, one of the kids' teachers at daycare, took these pictures - thank you Sharon!

Fun outside

Thanks again Sharon for these great pictures!

Family Vacation in Bozeman, MT

These pictures were taken during our hike at Palisades Falls in the Gallatin National Forest.

We spent a week with Julie, Craig, and Baby Carl at their house in the cowboy-chic city of Bozeman, MT. It was a first for many things including

- we met our beautiful new nephew Carl

- we saw the new Hergert home and its sweeping views - we stayed there the whole week and it was great
- first time we visited "the property"

- first time our kids took an airplane ride (actually, 6 airplanes) and they did great! It was even relaxing for Mike & I. Here are a few pictures from the week.

Here is Mike with the kids at the future site of Mom & Dad's summer home.

Below you'll find Luke sharing Cheerios with Henry:

And here we have Amanda investigating Carl!

Happy First Birthday!

The above may be my favorite picture of the batch. As you can see, Amands flipped over her cake to get to the plastic plate and Luke seems quite interested in what is inside the party hat!

Here they are right around the time we sang Happy Birthday. (You should be able to click all of these to enlarge. )

Amanda's First Recital!

We couldn't resist and opened Auntie Denise's birthday gift for the kids early! They both are having a lot of fun with it and mommy and daddy love it too!

Weekends away

Wow - last two weekends have been great! Despite my clogged eustachian tube and its related annoyances, I've been logging some miles in the MAV.

This past weekend, we visited Denise and the kids and we had a great time! Denise welcomed us to her pad by pouring a delicious rose from Les Baux de Provence and setting up a picnic blanket in the shade. We took a nice walk to Starbucks and had Thai takeout for dinner, although the kids stuck to choices from the Gerber/Similac menu. I think the highlights for the kids were 1)Denise 2)Mark 3)Charlene 4)Ash.

The wine rack was also a big hit. :)

The kids did great this weekend, even with their teeth coming in Amanda has one poking through on the top, and Luke has two coming up on the bottom. Mike went to a Mountain Bike Festival and got home before us. He did some things around the house including repair of the lamp which our little boy tore out of the nursery wall. Interestingly enough, the report card from daycare on Monday reported "Luke was very strong today and pulled the door off the fridge" Yes, he is a little boy! Amanda's report card from the same day said "Amanda helped Natalie (4 month old) play with the playmat." I thought that was very sweet! When I called mom to check in today, Amanda had been poking Luke's belly button!

Backtracking to the previous weekend. . .that was another great weekend. A road trip up north to see Ava and family. Grandma and I took the kids, and Daddy stayed at home. We stopped for lunch with my girlfriends about an hour into the drive, then continued on - feeding the kids at McDonalds along the way (again, Gerber & Similac!). We arrived on the later side, which meant it was a bit of an "off night" but great nonetheless. On Saturday Ava took us to the playground by the town hall because it has two baby swings. She is always thoughtful - and always so cute! Grammy Linda and Granpa Basil came for dinner and the kids enjoyed playing with sticky notes, Ava, and the dogs.

July already

This Picture was taken in the back yard on June 15

Wow - it's July! The twins will be ONE this month - in fact their Bday happens to be Julie's DUE DATE! This year has whizzed on by. Denise is on her way out to spend some vaca with Julie now, and it sounds like Julie is amazingly still in party mode!

Mom took her first business trip in June, away for two nights and almost three days. The excitement they showed me when I walked in the door after being away was amazing. I didn't expect such jubilation and it was an amazing feeling. The kids are both crawling very fast and are good with their balance, although we still have the occasional topple. They've been eating bkfst, lunch, & dinner (baby food) and just like we adults their appetites are not the same every day. Among other amusements, Amanda has taken a liking to books and Luke likes to play ball! Amanda also points at things and says "da" when she's interested in something, and Luke is set on getting to certain things in the house; lamps, power cords, and blind pulls to name a few. They were at grandma and grandpas on Sunday and Amanda was apparently talking up a storm and Luke was pushing the dollhouse around the room (yes, on his feet!)

What a great weekend

What a great weekend! We took the kids to a really cool playground a few miles form us where they went on the swings, mini-carrousel, and the see-saw. I think Mike and I would agree that the swings were the favorite! Amanda started clapping yesterday late afternoon. She woke up at 2:20 AM last night and bounded into a sitting up position and clapped! It was very cute. Luke has started to point which Amanda has been doing for a couple of weeks now, It's almost as if Amanda's waving turned into pointing into things she wants to see/touch or places she wants to go.

Saturday we had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Kmetzo after they babysat for a few hours. We gave the kids "puffs" for the first time. Luke took them fairly seriously and seemed to stockpile them in his fists. Neither of them ate them, but they did a great job with their "pincer grasp".

Sleepy babies

Thought Ava would like this one