July

We started the month with a fun morning at the Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary with the McDonnells .... So much fun!

 Evan said the big turtles were his favorite thing....

 Our  bears roaring! Hah!  

  Ellie cruising in the stroller...

 The boys did great feeding the animals! Sometimes they get nervous, but they had a lot of fun today!

 A quick selfie of the whole group! Love!

 We got to have Cody McDonnell come and stay with us for a few days while the rest of his family went on vacation. We all LOVED having him around so much! I think Bella has been especially lonely so she really loved having a friend here!

 Poor Ellie had a fever on and off for a few days, so I finally gave in and took her to the doctor. She was her usual precious self despite having to get a blood draw right when we got there. Turned out she had a virus - just fluids and rest for our girl....

Forth of July!!

 Ellie wasn't 24 hours fever free until post-naps, so we just hung out around the house all morning, went for a walk, swam, etc! LJ is officially a dog walker now! He held Bella's leash, Barrett got to walk Cody, and I pushed Evan and Ellie- beautiful morning!

  

 Trying to get a picture of the kids... not easy! Haha!

  If I had to pick my favorites... 

 That afternoon, since Ellie was 24 hours fever free, we decided to try out the Fourth of July Festival at the Hill Country Galleria. It was fun... but also very crowded and pretty hot!

 Evan wasn't in the mood to do the water slide... but it was pretty cool! The line was so long though, we only let LJ do it once!  

Ellie and Cody have really bonded! You can always find them next to each other! He is such an awesome, patient dog!!!  Thanks for letting him hang with us McDonnells!

  

Crawling!! She's crawling!!

My HEB buddies- these boys love going to the store with me!

 I have no say in what they wear anymore! They pick out their own clothes and barely ever let me match them :(  But it is fun and interesting to see what they pick! Evan only wears Batman shirts or jerseys, and if he has the choice, his cowboy boots. LJ is much less picky!!

Fun with play dough...

 Just under 8.5 months and this girl is really crawling!!! Wow!!!!

 A quick visit from Gigi- and of course new legos for LJ! He built this one in about 1.5 hours flat! He is so good with his legos!!

Crawling on her Gigi!

 Capi popped in for a night too... Short but wonderful to have them!!!

Evan decided he wanted to be in a picture after all!

  Ellie got new headbands from Gigi! Love them!!! 

 And Evan got new shades... Haha!

July 9

Ellie loves playing with balls! One of her favorite things to do is play fetch with Bella! She will follow Bella around the house grabbing her ball and attempting to throw it (which usually ends up a small roll!). 

 Met some friends at Hat Creek for dinner one night... we had enough kids/ parents that we had to do a real 'kids table'! They did surprisingly well- and we got to enjoy a much quieter conversation! Yay!! 

 Had our friends the Cookes over for dinner.... Ellie was crawling all over poor James! 

 We have not mastered that 'personal space' thing at all!! But in her defense, she gets none from her brothers so comes by it naturally! 

 My other shopping partner- I am a lucky mama!

A quick visit with Aunt Patsy, Tio Sergio and Lori!!! Too short but so much fun!! Barrett was out of town so didn't get to see them, but we had a wonderful night hanging out at the house and catching up! 

Saying goodbye the next morning!

We ran into Trader Joe's one day after Champions, and the boys (especially LJ) were so excited to push their own carts and pick their own products... it was serious business!

Aunt Bean was there helping us too... so we had to stop for a quick picture. Getting better at the head placement!

A fun night with Aryn and Eve over for dinner!!!  Love them! Had to get a selfie with the group (We had been swimming so excuse all our wet hair!).

Big hugs good-bye!!

Busy little Ellie all over the kitchen- she is ALWAYS on the move now!

July 16

Celebrating another fun week of Champions Gymnastic camp at Amy's Ice Cream!  The boys are really loving camp this summer!

Good morning from Evan!!

Gigi came in town to help us with house stuff, and got the kids lots of precious new clothes... can't thank you enough Gigi!! Love Ellie's new shorts... just too cute!

Ran errands with the boys and got this from Barrett... those two!!

Out to dinner with Gigi! 

July 23... Ellie is 39 weeks (and 9 months!)

Gigi making Ellie laugh!

Gigi helped us SO much, and then had to leave.... but she left the boys cake! 

Evan has requested a Batman party for his birthday, and he wants it at Chuck E Cheese! I told him if he wanted this, I would need a picture of him in his Batman gear! Luckily, he wears this most days so it was not hard to take a few minutes one day to get a picture for his invitation! 

 LJ was happy to join in as Robin! Hah!!

 LJ was showing Evan how to pose!

 Too cute... I needed Ellie in the mix!

Shopping again! Ellie loves ripping apart paper towels, napkins, etc! So I give her wipes that don't easily rip apart for several minutes of entertainment! 

Headed to the park for a little while, and Ellie got to swing for the first time... she LOVED it!!! Her mouth was in a huge open smile the entire time she was swinging! 

And Evan became my big helper and took over pushing her for me! Haha! 

He was very into it, and Ellie loved it!

Boys' turn to swing! LJ can do all the swinging by himself now using his legs (I didn't push him at all!) This may seem small, but every develop counts to me (I am out numbered here! Hah!)

LJ's getting so high, all by himself! And Ellie is on a blanket in the back ground! 

 The boys and I have been swimming during Ellie's morning nap... it's been so fun!

July 30...

 And she ended the month with a late night ... she barely ever has a hard time getting to sleep, but she did NOT want to sleep on July 31! She was crying so hard, until I got her out of her crib! Happy and laughing and playing! Silly girl! I played with her and read her some books for about 30 minutes, and then she went to sleep without a problem! (The next night, however, she tried it again so we had to toughen up!!)