Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone! We had the family over for a cookout today and had a great time. The kids had their fill of hamburgers, chips, potatoe salad,and cupcakes. And had a lot of fun with all the famly as you can see from the pictures. It rained today on and off so the kids only played outside for a little bit and spent the rest of the time inside playing with all the "big" kids. And it also means that we may not get to see any fireworks. Doubtful that we'd be able to see any from our house anyway and the kids are already asleep. So if we decide to have a look; we'll just see what we can see from our balcony. We all had a good time today and hope everyone else did too.

We've been keeping busy here otherwise. The latest problems we've incountered are with sharing toys,getting easily frustrated with toys or each other, and learning about limitations. Most days Henry and Emma do really well with playing with each other and sharing toys. Both of them are crazy about books and reading! Jason and I have almost memorized some of their books from reading them so much. This is a good thing. It hopefully means that they will continue to love reading. They are also enjoying looking at pictures(family photos,pictures in books,magazines). So we've been saying hello to family in friends in the pictures that we have around the house trying to get them to remember and recognize family and friends that we don't get to see as often as we would like. We're still working on our "please" and "thank yous" and other manners. And we have almost completely graduated to sippy cups-still get bottles at bedtime. And we are going to graduate to tablefood within the month. The kids are now enjoying juice and snacktime in the afternoon and are starting to "help" with little things-picking up toys, picking out which books they want to read, turning on music for naptime and bedtime, etc. And the latest words are wow, cool, car, truck, duck, quack quack, drink, juice. They have both almost mastered getting up and down the two small steps into the back living room and are now stepping over and around thngs instead of plowing through things. And the wonderful adventures of climbing on furniture have begun. No major injuries so far! And they have started giving kisses and hugs to a few select people. I'm trying to remember all the changes, but I'm sure I've missed some. We're getting ready to take another trip in a couple of weeks. We're off to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for some rest and relaxation with my family. We're renting a large cabin for a week. This should prove to be interesting-it's about a 7 hour car ride. We aren't driving straight through, but we're a little worried about keeping the kids entertained for the time that we are in the car. I'm sure we'll have a great time. Hope everyone is well. More soon.