What We Did on our Summer Vacation Part I The Dells

It has been a wonderful and fun-filled summer for the Davies four. Things have settled down a bit, and I thought I'd catch up on blogging with a series of summer posts. In Mid-July we took our annual family vacation to Wisconsin Dells with my parents, my siblings, and Brian's parents. We stayed at the Wilderness on the Lake and enjoyed the pools, visiting, and our favorite restaurants. It's very fun to take the girls to the places we went as kids, and so nice to have the time with everyone. It is one of my favorite weeks of the whole year!

CLICK HERE for Wisconsin Dells Vacation Pictures 2010!

6 Months and 2 1/2 Year Pictures

We went to get the girls' professional pictures taken again. The nice thing about having the girls 2 years apart is their picture milestones line-up nicely. I love the photographer we use and love to have these great keepsakes.

Exciting News!

Katie and Ben are having a baby!

They are due December 24th and we couldn't be happier. To top it all off they just put in a contract and had their offer accepted on a beautiful house in Grayslake! We are so excited to have Katie, Ben, and Baby B so close, and for all of our friends who are also due around Christmas. It seems to be a mini baby boom for us.

Megan at 6 Months

CLICK HERE for all of Megan's Pictures at 6 Months!

CLICK HERE for Video of Megan from 3-6 Months!

Our dear little Megan is now 6 months old, and I think as you can see from the pics above proving to be one of the smiliest babies ever. Meg or Meggie as we sometimes call her is generally very content, very smiley, very happy, and very joyful. She has a great squeal and is quite the babbler. For being the second sister she makes sure her presence is well known. Megan is a good sleeper and a great roller. She is pretty much mobile via consecutive rolls, and is quite cunning at scooting to her sister's toys. One of Megan's favorite toys at the moment are her own adorable toes and feet. Sitting is something we've just about mastered at 6 months, and I think crawling won't be far off. Kate LOVES Megan and asks to hold her on the couch every morning. Kate always says, "Come here, Come here little Megs. Come here for Kate." Kate kisses her, sometimes licks her, and declares, "Oh, so cute. Such a cute baby. She likes me!"

Megan has a great belly laugh and uses it all the time when she is playing with her sister. Megan's hair is getting a little lighter, but still has a brownish tint. Her eyes appear as though they are going to stay their gorgeous blue, and her rolls are just delicious. We've introduced solid foods and have found Meg to be a little discriminating in her tastes. The more flavorful, the better. She absolutely detested the plain rice cereal and much more prefers the oatmeal pear cinnamon blend. She is a smart cookie! I can't believe its been half of a year already, but its been quite the half of a year. We are so thankful for you little Megan, for the fact that you are such a good baby, and for all you bring to our family.

Pictures That Make Me Smile

There are way too many great pics of the girls for me to even keep up on blogging. We are too busy making wonderful memories to officially document them, but that is certainly a blessing. We are having tons of fun together and enjoying the beautiful weather. Kate is our adventurous, talkative, waterbug and Megan is a rolling, babbling, smiling sweetheart. I'm sure during our Midwest winter I'll be able to blog a little better, but the pictures can capture quite a bit.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day Brian, from your three favorite girls! We love you so much and are so thankful that you are our Daddy. No one in the world could be more fun, more patient, or more loving to us than you. Thanks for all the outings, all the laughs, all the care, all the late night assistance, and especially sharing in all the smiles. Your girls and I all love you so much and celebrate you always! And to our Pa and Pop-Pop... You are simply both the best! We are the luckiest family ever. Happy Father's Day to our guys!

The Little Dipper Fun and Friends

Fearlessness, we are finding, is one of Kate's many attributes. For a little two year old she is very adventurous. We took her to Great America last week and she rode the famous three story wooden roller coaster, The Little Dipper, and loved it.
I was a little nervous it might be two much for her, but when it was done she looked at me and said, "Mommy, One more time!"

Megan also enjoyed the day's adventures from the Snugli with Aunt KKs help.
The rest of the park especially the kiddie areas were a success.

It was great to see that they salvaged some of the famous Kiddieland rides.

We also had a great visit from our Michigan friends the Starks. It was so wonderful to see them and catch up.

And what kind of post of mine would this be, if it didn't feature a matching outfit picture of the girls.

If you are wondering we have probably about 20 matching outfits for the girls, and I am in love with each and every one. One section of Megan's closet is dedicated solely to matching outfits. We generally wear them to church on Sundays and special outings. Considering there are 52 weeks in the year, I might have to do some more shopping!

More Memorial Day Pictures

I missed these pictures when I was looking at my Memorial Day pics, and since the dresses were such a hit I figured I'd share the one of both girls.

I also have another of Meg, and a picture of my Parents' Lake from the weekend below.

I just love the one above of both girls because it just really captures their personalities.

I can't believe I almost deleted it!

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Happy Memorial Day!

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We've had a fabulous few days here in Chicago filled with lots of sunshine, lake swimming, pool swimming, and one of the best parts a day of swimming and golfing at the Grand Geneva. Now all we have to do is recuperate from our weekend of fun.

Lake Fun

With the warmer weather the last few days the girls and I have been taking full advantage of the lake! Kate absolutely loves the lake. She has quite the imagination and can play for hours on the beach, and I mean hours. I think she was in the water for about 8 hours on Sunday. She plays with the sand, the water, the toys, and pretty much has a blast. My parents have a small wooded area on the side of their house which Kate has named the Hundred Acre Woods. She goes in to look for "woozles". She and her sister are just so cute. Megan also likes the lake and enjoys her excer-saucer in the sand. She kicks and smiles as long as her feet are touching. Once she has kicked the sand away she gets sad and we have to put it back for her. It is wonderful for me to watch the girls enjoy the lake sooo much.

Gammy and Pop Pop

Gammy and Pop Pop just came for a fabulous visist! The girls got to spend so much quality time with their NY grandparents. Kate was especially sad to see them go and was asking for them this morning. It is such fun to have a retired Pop Pop and now hopefully they can come for even more visits. We also get tons of work done when they're here and really appreciate the help. We edged and mulched all of our beds this week and can now enjoy our beautiful backyard. Thanks for the wonderful time! All of us are looking forward to your next trip out.

Milestones

This picture above is my favorite yet of the two girls as they are wearing outfits that were mine and my sister's! How neat that I now have two little girls, two years apart, that can look that cute in those pink rompers.

We've had a lot of big milestones as of late in the Davies house.

The one I'm most excited about is that Kate is potty-trained!

We've been guiding her towards this goal the last few months. Prior to about four weeks ago any time she would pee even just a little, she would strip off her clothes and diaper, run to the bathroom, put her potty seat on the toilet, climb up, sit down, pretend to pee, wipe (really throwing way too much paper into the toilet), flush, wash hands, and declare she went potty. Not quite, she had a lot of steps down but was missing one really important one. We knew she was close. Then about four weeks ago she was walking around without a diaper, which she tended to do whenever I was nursing Megan. A little pee started trickling out and I told her to put it in the potty, fully expecting an entire accident on the floor as has happened before. This time she ran to the bathroom and actually went. Later that night we got a lot more pee and even a #2 and it has been pretty much smooth sailing from there. We have a little more work to do at night time and when we are out for a long period of time, but considering I haven't changed a poopy diaper in about four weeks I would declare her potty trained. The other day Kate even informed me that if I went potty I would get a special treat. I asked her what kind and she proudly declared, "Ice Cream!"

Other excitement in our household is that our little Megan has begun rolling over!

She has made it from tummy to back and is very close to going from back to tummy. Megan has found her voice and "talks" to us all regularly. She has picked out a favorite snuggly pink bear blanket toy and loves to touch it, eat it, and rub it against her face. Whenever Kate takes it from her, Megan gives the saddest little cry. Meg is becoming a very interactive and somewhat mobile member of the family much to our delight.

On Saturday we purchased a new van, a huge milestone for us. We bought a 2010 silver Toyota Sienna Minivan. To say that Brian and I are not car people is an understatement, but we might be getting there. Our new van is beautiful. With this latest purchased we skipped an entire decade in car ownership. Previously our "newest" vehicle was a 1997 minivan. We can see that cars have come along way in the last 10 years or so and are enjoying among other amenities a working CD player. When we used it for the first time Kate looked around in amazement! Our new van is slightly used with 2,000 miles, so we got a great deal, and we realized just before we purchased it there was a DVD player, automatic sliding doors, blue tooth, and MP3 input. Its quite the step up for us, but bottom line we are happy to have a dependable car that can safely drive around our little angels.