July 2020

What do you do when things are closed down and the world has gone a little crazy? Make your own fun! This July we decorated Jefferson's bike and had our own little parade and fireworks. We played lots with family and ate lots of treats. Carter especially discovered his sweet tooth this summer. We had a fun sleepover with Jane and Jefferson found a new favorite game with Forrest- "Pie Face."  We did some camping in our back yard and experimented with dutch oven cooking. Carter thought the tent was a bounce house and needed to be in his crib by 1 AM. We decided partial camping is the way to go for now. Jefferson finished swim lessons for the year and can now swim across the pool once or twice without getting too tired. We have been swimming each week and hiking each week. We completed our longest family hike- 3 miles with Carter on our back to beautiful Gloria falls. And in the hot afternoons we escape to our basement where Dada is teaching Jefferson chess. Jefferson really wants to teach mama- but mama keeps avoiding it.  Our big accomplishment for July was putting together Jefferson's new bed and now his room is ready for Carter to move in. We celebrated the 24th with a mask party. Dixie and Liam and the boys had so much fun playing after months of physical distancing. We just sat in our back yard and we were surrounded by huge fireworks. Looking forward to the rest of our summer.

 

June 2020

"Summertime and the Living is Easy..." is our theme. Our basement is pretty much put back together since the flood and we are now starting to feel that ahhh- it's summer relaxed feeling. We discovered the fun of racing boats down the creek,  eating ice cream cones in the hammocks, beach days, water table afternoons, "box car" racing, back yard pool days, getting cozy on those random cold days, and lazy afternoons with a book. We are so grateful for so many cousins close by so we can play so much. Carter & Inez are toe head twins and Jefferson and Conner are "mask" twins. We made dada waffles for fathers day, and made a family tree to celebrate our family heritage. We even had a family heritage bbq where everyone brought some food representing our heritage. We made Fiambre (a Guatamalan famous dish) and it was a hit! Jefferson marked the countries of origin for our heritage on the map and colored the flags for each country. This was so great to do before the 4th of July to help us remember that at one point all of our heritage is connected to immigrants and that to be an American is like a potluck- so many delicious dishes/cultures make the best meal and people.  Our Carterbug celebrated his 2nd birthday with birthday pancakes and bubbles, a walk to "quack quacks," and some birthday boat racing. He is growing up but still very much "the baby." After trying 10 different types of sippy cups we admit defeat, for now, to the bottle unless we are with grandparents who seem to get Carter to do everything. Carter has started spontaneously saying words in Spanish and even started counting in Spanish- "una, dos, tres. taco... and for diez he says "Dixie." Our favorite Jeffersonism's for the month were "See Mama, kids can go to space now." and "If you see fish and eat it, it will make you smarter." And our favorite while playing croquet "dada I took down you." So grateful for a lazy summer.