Julia is 1 month old

Julia was one month old on October 16.  She is a pretty amazing little girl.  In her first month, she went through a surgery and spent 22 nights in the NICU.  She also went to New York for a weekend- pretty quick turnaround :)  Here are some of the things Julia does at 1 month old:
-sleeps a lot
-is a pretty good eater
-likes to cuddle with mom and dad
-likes to watch her big brothers
-is starting to have a little longer awake periods
-follows with her eyes when we talk to her
-lost her stump from her umbilical cord/surgery on her 1 month birthday

Look-a-likes

We have thought Julia looked a lot like Parker since she was born, but as I was flipping through some pictures, I saw one of Julia and felt like I had seen that picture before.  It just happened that the picture I had seen was actually Parker.  Here are pictures of our two look-a-likes.

Julia after her first bath at home

Parker after his first bath at home

Oliver's First Day of Preschool

 Oliver with his backpack in our living room

Oliver all ready for preschool

Oliver in front of the school

A close up of Oliver in front of the school

Oliver with his nametag waiting to go to his classroom

Oliver started preschool today.  It is at the Urbana High School and done through the child development class.  The program is 8 weeks long and he goes Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00-10:30.  He did really well today.  He was a little nervous, but walked in with me and Eric.  He had his Thomas backpack packed with his snack for the day.  I was pretty impressed that when the teacher asked him his name, he actually answered her.  He has been going through a shy phase.  

Eric and I walked along with him to his classroom.  He definitely seemed anxious while waiting to go and walking down the hallway, but the second he saw the classroom, he was good to go.  He had to hang his backpack up in his cubby and then he was ready to play.  There were lots of fun things to do- he went straight to the water table where there was green and red water.  He told us good-bye without any problem and we headed out the door.  

I was back to pick him up and he was happy to see me, but definitely didn't seem like he had a hard time.  I asked him what he did and he told me lots of fun stuff.  He said he painted an apple, played a game where you had to find pretend apples, and read a story about apples.  He also told me he only ate the marshmallows from his snack.  :)  It sounded like he had a fun day and when I said he would go back on Thursday, he said "is that tomorrow?"  

Swimming Fun

Indianapolis Children's Museum

This past weekend Eric's parents came to visit and we went to visit the children's museum in Indianapolis.  It is a huge museum and the kids can touch pretty much everything.  Oliver and I had gone when Oliver was 9 months old with my parents, Randy and Kara and kids, and some of Kara's family.  So basically I was the only one who remembered anything about the museum.  I think everyone was impressed with it and had a great time.
Oliver had fun everywhere, but he told us his favorite part was the dinosaurs.  They have dinosaur skeletons that you can look at, some bones you can touch, and an area where you can dig for dinosaur bones.
Parker's favorite part would have to be the trains.  He loved watching the trains and got so excited to see the trains zoom by.  He would wave to them.

Michigan Vacation

 It was impossible to keeps the boys clean this week.  They would be filthy within a few minutes after their baths and always found new places to play.

Parker and Timmy stayed cool with the cooler ice.

Both Henry & Oliver got haircuts from Aunt Donna while on vacation.  They were rewarded with ice cream bars and Dora on the Kindle Fire.

Parker's turn for a haircut- he actually loves getting them and was asking for one when he say the others getting them.

Beach time!  The boys loved playing at the beach- it was a wonderful beach, calm water, shallow and lots of sand to play in.

Out in the water.  Oliver loved the water on this trip.  He kept asking Eric to take him out further and further.  He swam out to the swimming dock with Eric.

Late nights and some skipped naps made it so Parker feel asleep while Aunt Kathy was holding him in the lake.  He actually napped for quite awhile in the water.

Uncle Chris, Henry & Oliver building sand castles.

Superman boys!

One of the really hot days, a big crew went rafting.  Parker and myself, Kara, Henry & Timmy, Renee & George and my mom all went to a local children's museum instead.  It had air conditioning :)  Here are the three older boys in the truck.

Parker on the pretend ship.

George & Parker had lots of fun opening up cages and getting stuffed animals out.  They spent lots of time playing there.

Parker picking vegetables at the garden.

Coco & Chris' cabin had air conditioning so we spent some time over there.  Oliver, Parker, and Timmy spent some time in Bella's kennel.  They went in there on their own and had lots of fun.

A view from our first lighthouse visit.

Sophia, Henry, & Oliver climbing the lighthouse

Parker wanted to join in on the fun and Aunt Donna helped him.

Oliver with a life saver outside of the lighthouse.

Celebrating George's first birthday- he had a Curious George cake and his smash cake was the yellow hat.

George got a few new books for his birthday and Oliver, Henry, and Timmy loved having Uncle Joe read them- George was crawling in and checking out his loot.

Oliver went fishing with Eric and caught a blue gill.  He was pretty exciting about it.

Eric and Parker kayaking and Alex canoeing in the background.  I was hoping to go out to, but the rain came shortly after so I didn't make it out. 

Kara, Randy, Parker, Oliver and Sophia out in the canoe.

Eric and Henry kayaking.

We left on Friday morning to head out and made a few stops.  We went to the sand dunes and did a dune ride and then we went to another lighthouse and Oliver and Eric climbed up.

Parker was a little unsure of the dune ride once we got going.  He loved it on the road, but through the sand, he was pretty nervous.

Oliver was very similar to Parker and was pretty nervous and holding on very tight while on the ride.  Since getting home though, he has been talking about it every day so I am pretty sure he has had a good time.

We stopped while on the ride and were able to get out and snap a few pictures.  The boys had lots of fun playing in the endless amounts of sand.

Eric and the boys in front of our dune scooter.

Our last lighthouse visit.  Oliver was very excited to climb up.

A dark picture of Oliver in the lighthouse. 

Parker was too short to climb the lighthouse so we played in the sand while Eric and Oliver climbed.  Eric took this picture from the top of the lighthouse.

We had a great time on vacation with lots of family.  We spent some of our time talking about where we might go next year.  I definitely didn't get pictures of everything we did, but we stayed busy and had lots of fun!