Summer Vacation, Part 4

Whew, I didn't expect this to take so many posts. But rest assured, I think I took fewer photos towards the end.

We had some cheeseburgers and watermelon with my parents on the 4th of July. I had matching 4th of July outfits for them and hair clips and everything, but I completely forgot about them. The girls each ate a complete cheeseburger ... Becca actually ate one and a half. I don't know where she puts it.


After lunch we got back in the car for our trip up to Vermont to see Grandma and Grandpa S. The trip wasn't bad, just long.


We did get to take a ferry from New York into Vermont.


We kept telling the girls we were going to take a boat, and they were all excited. The ferry ride was so short, though, that we didn't have time to get out of the car. (It takes us forever to get everybody in and out of car seats.) Emma was extremely upset with us. The entire rest of the ride up through Vermont, she kept saying "I wanna go on boat!" over and over and over.

We got to Grandma and Grandpa's without any major issues. The girls really enjoyed playing in the screened-in porch while we were there. It was an obsession, going up and down the steps, in and out the doors. Which means that we spent our time trying to distract them from those things.

Collapsable laundry baksets worked for a little while. Who knew they had so many uses?

(there's a sky light creating that light)

On Tuesday, Greg's Aunt Mary and Uncle Pete stopped in to meet the girls and have lunch with us. The girls were reclusive at first - they all left the family room we were all sitting in to go play in the living room. (Part of that had to be the kid-size rocking chair that they were constantly fighting over.) Eventually though, we were able to sneak up on them.

The nap that afternoon was a no-go, although the girls were tired. We put them in the car with the intent of going to the beach to completely wear them out. Of course, Julie and Emma fell right to sleep. Becca stayed up for a while, and kept asking about our 'venture. Oops. Eventually, she did go to sleep. We drove a while longer until we came up with a quick and easy 'venture - waterfalls in downtown Winooski.

We had a little snack first.

By this point, I decided that I wanted to commit to ice cream once a day while on vacation. Emma and Becca decided they'd be willing to help me out in my pursuit after dinner on Tuesday. Julie freaked out when we were headed out ... she really didn't want to get in the car. She started yelling "I wanna stay here!" I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but Grandma and Julie stayed at home (and had some ice cream there). It turns out that Julie is afraid of the DVDs. She had been intermittently crying on the ride up, and she had made us turn it off on another trip. But I didn't realize how much it was tormenting her. (I didn't figure this out, of course, until the end of our trip. But on the ride back home, we did put her in a row without a screen. We had to keep assuring her "no movies, no movies.")

But back to ice cream, and another vanilla soft serve dipped in cherry for me. Becca and Emma? Chocolate with sprinkles, of course. (By the way, I'm having a terrible time getting chocolate ice cream out of knits. It's coming out of woven fabrics with oxy clean, but the knits always come out stained. Any recommendations?)

These pictures just make me smile. Emma in orange, and Becca and pink. (Becca's ice cream philosophy is "no sprinkle left behind!")



Wednesday, we woke up to what looked like a decent morning. We hit a few raindrops on our way out on another promised 'venture, but luckily we were on the very very southern tip of the rain that moved through in the morning. We were going to the park to see this treehouse. We went and saw the treehouse, and the girls didn't seem terribly impressed.

Grandma with Emma

Determined to come up with an acceptable 'venture, we walked along the path (with a lesson on what poison ivy looks like) to the playground. We got all sunscreened up to play, but ended up kind of being run off by some sort of day camp. The girls were just too little to keep up with those kids. So we watched the boats in the lake, which the girls loved just as much.

We did manage to get some swinging in, though.

R

J

E

There was some sort of party going on at the picnic shelter where we had planned to eat, so we improvised, and went back to the treehouse for lunch. We told the girls we were going to have a party in the treehouse, and from then on, they kept (and still) calling it "the party house."

Picnic, triplet style.

And then the running started. Running to daddy, running to Papa.

And I'm a sucker for running pictures. J. And if you've ever seen her run, you know that this picture does no justice to the way she wiggles her hips and swings her arms when she runs. It's too funny.

E

R

Summer Vacation, Part 3

At some point on our trip, the girls became obsessed with the potty. At first, they started pretending like they were using the potty. (I'm not sure why they all seemed to think that you had to hold on to the toilet paper holder like that...).

And then it was their stuffed animals. "Bear go potty." "Mo Mo go potty." Great. I'm just relieved that no stuffed animals actually got put in the toilet...

On Sunday the 3rd, we woke up to pretty steady rain. We (I) needed to get out of the house, so we went over to the mall to the Build a Bear Workshop. We had never been there before, and the girls were clearly overwhelmed. (Us adults were, too.)

Oh, the choices!

Becca chose a bear.

Julie chose a pink bear.

Emma chose an bunny rabbit. Here, she's watching the other animals being stuffed, and she's not quite sure she wants to hand the bunny over to get filled.

Becca with her newly stuffed bear.

If you're not familiar with the whole Build a Bear scam, I mean store. Next you have to choose your bear's new clothes. This took forever. And what did our three new animals all come out with? Why, cowboy boots of course. A little background: the girls just found some of the pink cowboy boots from Target that my parents bought them in the spring. They've been hiding, waiting for fall, but the girls found them and pulled them out a week or two ago, and walked around the house for half an hour saying "I have boots!"


We also walked out of there with two princess shirts (the "p" word is for a whole other post), and one pink shirt. Pink shirts and cowboy boots. Those are my ladies.

The next step in the whole process is to give your bear a name and get a birth certificate. So, we have Becca's bear, Teddy Bear, Emma's bunny named Easter Bunny (of course), and Julie's pink bear's name is Pink Nose. She calls him Pink for short.

We got lunch at the mall, and on the way out, we found this interactive panel on the floor. The girls were skeptical at first (as usual), but then loved it (as usual).

Jumpin' Julie

Next, we headed to a family picnic with some relatives from my dad's side. When my dad was little, he lived in the same neighborhood with all of his cousins, and they pretty much grew up together. I'm not good with figuring out the whole second-cousin-once-removed thing, but suffice it to say that, for my generation, our parents were brothers/sisters or cousins. Whatever that makes us. So my "cousin" Kirsten wasn't going to be able to make it to the party my parents were planning the following weekend, so we got together on the 3rd instead. We had lots of good food, celebrated my "nephew" Jeff's birthday, and even got a break in the rain for a few moments to get outside to play.

Kirsten did the girls' hair, and when they started fighting over the diaper bag, she also gave them 2 new purses. Becca has not put hers down since.

They discovered Thomas the Train and snuck the toys away from the boys for a few minutes.

Julie and Papa playing with the bubble gun.

Summer Vacation, Part 2

After our nap last Saturday, we pulled out (and subsequently broke) Grandma and Grandpa's new snow cone machine.




And then Grandpa decided that we hadn't had quite enough ice cream, so we had bomb pops.


Em would not give the snow cone up, though.


Sometimes you just have to set one down.


And then, in addition to the snow cone and bomb pop, we sampled Grandpa's ice pop.


And then we found out that all those ice pops temporarily stained their faces, hands, legs...
Before cleanup...


Can you see it all down her leg?


After cleanup, she doesn't look much better. Just more naked. And awfully cute.

Summer Vacation, Part 1

We've been having way too much fun lately to blog! We've been on summer vacation for the last week and a half, taking lots of pictures and spending lots of time with family and friends.

We left the Thursday before the 4th of July, and spent a good 15 hours on the road.


The girls did great in the car. I was pleasantly surprised. We left the house at 4 am, and they slept until 6 or 7. We even made it until after lunch before we broke out the DVDs. We broke the drive up into 3 hour stretches, which seemed to work for all of us. The other good thing was that one of our breaks brought us right to my friend Beth's part of town. Well, part of the state at least. It was so great to see her in person again, since we met online. Of course I forgot to get pictures with her... since we ended up doing 6 diaper changes in the McDonald's parking lot, but Julie made a new best friend. She was attached to Beth nearly immediately. We had a nice play (and ice cream break), and then it was back on the road.

Our main goal on Friday was to get into the pool. We got everyone lotioned up and out there to test out our new life jacket swimmy things. A co-worker of my mom's came by while we were in the pool and brought us some cakes. We attempted lunch after that, but you probably know how lunch after cake goes.

Greg and I got a date night out on Friday night, thanks to Victoria and my parents. Apparently Victoria promised them ice cream if they finished their dinner, so they all went out for ice cream. Greg and I didn't do anything fancy - Qdoba (since we don't have those by us), shopping at Target, some ice cream from Cliff's, and some browsing at Border's.


Have I mentioned my love of the vanilla soft serve dipped in cherry? Because it is absolute ice cream heaven. I haven't been able to find the cherry dip near where we live, so I must fill my quota while I'm here.

The pool was at the top of our agenda on Saturday, too. We had snacks out by the pool, and the girls were introduced to (and fell in love with) cheese balls.

R eating a cheese ball...


and then trying to figure out how to double fist it.


Another cheese ball.


Emma cheese ball, covered in cheese ball.


The girls were really starting to get more comfortable in the water. and were "swimming."

Shortest Walk Ever

I was out shopping a few weeks ago, when I got two text messages from Greg:

10:51 am Going for a walk.

11:02 am All the way to the end of the driveway before E said "wanna go home." Which was picked up by everyone. So we are back at home. :)

But they did get a cute picture on the way out to the end of the driveway.

Happy 4th of July!

Cheeseburgers and watermelon were enjoyed by all (except Julie, who will only lick watermelon, not eat it.)


Yes, I'm back dating this.

Personality and Developmental Notes 7/1/11

"Do not touch" is one of their favorite phrases right now, particularly Becca, usually referring to whatever she is playing with at the moment. She cab sound pretty fierce, too.

When we pick them up at daycare and ooh and ahh over their latest art projects, they've started telling us "Miss Coco made that.". At least they're honest.

I heard either Emma or Julie say, "You hear me?".

They have all started saying "Leave (Emma, Julie, Becca) lone!" (speaking in the 3rd person).

They are starting to want to intervene when they see something that's not fair. If someone steals a toy, it's often the third sister who will return it to its rightful owner (using as much force as is necessary). What's bad, though, is that Becca took something from Emma and Emma said, "Julie, get it!"

Washcloths are "coff coffs.". Backpacks are "pack packs."