Nostalgia Collection

There are countless, random memories from this last summer. I thought the only way to truly chronicle each one was to put them in a collection. A "nostalgia collection," if you will.

This summer, Madeline has become OBSESSED with dresses.

(Just a *few* pictures (with her in a dress, of course) that haven't been showcased on the blog yet.)

She has asked to wear a dress more or less every day (unless she's already wearing a costume!). The only times you see her in a shirt and shorts are when, 1. we told her she HAD to wear that outfit, or 2. we convinced her that the long shirt was really a dress. I didn't realize this would happen when I bought her summer wardrobe, so now there are still several shirts she hasn't worn yet! Fortunately I've been smarter as I stock her winter wardrobe.

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Olivia's vocabulary has bloomed lately. Most of it requires translation still, but we LOVE to hear her chatter with us! AND she's putting multiple words together, or adding descriptives (e.g. "Other Elmo"). Some favorite "Olivia" words:
     "Ya-ya" = Madeline
     "Sih-sess" = princess
     "See-sess" = Jesus
     "Eye-keem" = ice cream
     "Heh-woah" = Hello (what she calls a phone)
     Animals are called by the sound they make - like a cow is called "moo." She knows a LOT of animals, and in particular her frog and tiger impressions are adorable!

She also will grab my cell phone and pretend to talk. 9 times out of 10 she says she's talking to her Daddy. Often she'll start laughing, or "talk" while laughing (as if she's making a joke).

Oh, and if you tell her "no" to something, sometimes she'll say, "Awww!" As in, "aw, shucks!" It's so hard not to laugh when she says it!

The many faces of Olivia! She's still just as sweet and goofy as ever, possibly even more-so than before!

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Madeline's handwriting has become down-right legible! Any efforts to get better are 100% her own. She writes "notes" to us occasionally, too! So sweet.

Her drawings/coloring creations are becoming more detailed, too, and definitely more numerous. She's so proud of what she does, she tapes it all over her room (and ours).

 

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Olivia has always been rather musically-inclined, but she sings for us regularly now. Sometimes just to keep herself entertained, other times to put on a show. Usually it's "Let it Go," from Frozen, which sounds like "Ahh GOOO! Ahh GOOO! ...Heee ahh stahh! Heee ahh stahhh! [repeat]" (which means "let it go" and "here I stand"). For at least a month before that it was the Alphabet Sounds song. "Apple, apple, ah ah ah." Sometime she'd interject her own word, and use a different letter sound! A growing favorite at the moment is also "You Are My Sunshine." So sweet.

 

 (Please look past the long bangs in this video - they were trimmed a few days later, but the video is still cute! Caleb came and stood behind me near the beginning of the video, which is why her behavior changed. He tried to get her to keep singing the rest, but she was too distracted!)

Her face when she sings is PRICELESS! (I'm still trying to get a picture of it) She scrunches up her nose, closes her eyes, and puts so much emotion into it! (And let's not forget the hand motions - flinging her arms out with each "let it go," just like Elsa does in the movie). If she finds anything that MIGHT resemble a microphone (like the handle of a jump rope), she immediately does a performance whether you want one or not. And yeah, you usually want one. :)
Sometimes we hear it through the baby monitor, after we've put her down for bed! It's hilarious!

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Madeline was begging to go camping, so one Friday evening, when the weather forecast said it would stay clear and warm, Caleb and Madeline set up the tent and put out their sleeping bags.

 We were SURE that the novelty would wear off in an hour or so, or she would miss the soft comfort of her bed, and that by 9pm she would be "done" with camping. NOPE!

 She lasted ALL NIGHT!! (Well, until 6 am)

What a summer "highlight" for her, though! (And, in case you're wondering, Caleb was soooo stiff the next day! What a great Dad!)

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Early in the summer we bought a swing set, and once we installed a more-suitable slide onto it the girls have gone crazy for it. They both try their hardest to climb up the slide (only Madeline is successful all the way to the top), and shriek with laughter on the way down. Because of the swing set, they've spent so much more time outside, more than ever before! It's especially handy whenever Caleb or I want to get things done in the backyard. Both kids run around outside in bare feet, something that was too challenging for our sweet, sensory-defensive kiddo (she almost panicked at the feel of grass). Now she prefers bare feet over sandals (better traction on the slide).

The swing set came with some pretend binoculars attached near the top (sort of a look-out accessory).
One day Madeline looked into the binoculars and suddenly exclaimed, "Daddy, there's a FROG in here! And he thinks it's a POTTY!!" Lo and behold, there WAS a frog. She was so excited! (And why she thought he believed it to be a potty is beyond us...)

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Much to our dismay, this has been a summer filled with illnesses, too. Our girls caught more bugs during the summer than they did last winter - and that's even when Madeline was in preschool!

 

At times I felt like I'd just turn around and another kid would be complaining that the room was spinning, or would be suddenly limp with a fever.

 Fever of 102.9! Poor little one! (Sadly, this wasn't the highest fever for her this summer - one evening it got to 104.3 WITH medicine. :( I was one concerned Mama!)

Madeline landed funny on her ankle one afternoon. No worries though - a few minutes after being wrapped, it felt 100% better and she was back to playing. However, she caught various illnesses at least as often as her little sister. :(

The worst part, though, has been Caleb's pneumonia. We figure he first came down with it at the end of April, and now (five months later) it's still there. And every time the girls got sick, he'd catch what they had, too! Ugh, I seriously wanted to bomb the house for germs (like you can bomb for bugs). We are so thankful, though - he just had a CT scan a few weeks and it showed improvement! Technically we still don't have a definitive diagnosis (the drs ruled out everything but fungal pneumonia, but we don't know which fungus is the culprit), but he's fighting it off on his own. Praise God for that!!