Holy cow! It is way too hot in this stinkin' place!!!! Summers in the south, I've decided, are like winters in Colorado, except instead of it being too cold to do anything, it's too hot to do anything. In Colorado, however, very cold days are infrequent and contrary to popular opinion, the winters are very mild. So you actually can do a lot of things! Here, there is no break from the heat! it does not cool down, rain or shine, it is hot! The only variable is humidity, which adds a whole other element of misery. It's either very humid, or extremely, disgustingly humid. That's it. Hot and humid, all day, every day. It doesn't cool down at night, the shade provides no sanctity, just pure, unbearable heat... Oh, and then there are the bugs! Let me tell you about the bugs... Well actually, I'll stop ranting, there's just an unbelievable amount of bugs of every variety. And everywhere! At any given time I have at least 10 bug bites on my body. Anyway, I sure have talked up Birmingham since we've been here, I absolutely LOVE it. However, as I've raved about this place to just about everyone I meet, they all seem to have the same response: "Just wait until summer..." Now I see. All I can say is, the summer can't be over fast enough! Except, oh wait, here it's hot until November! Darn : (
Moving on. Here's our month of July:
Christmas in July! One day when Kyah was really sick and couldn't do much besides sleep, Eli and I became extremely bored. it was too hot to play outside or do much of anything... suddenly, at the absolute peak of our boredom, the UPS guy knocked on our door. Eli received his birthday present a few days early and I received my new diaper bag! We were both pretty excited. We spent the rest of the day playing "shoop." In fact, this basketball hoop cures many boring days!
4th of July:
I wanted to take a cute pictures of the kids together on 4th of July, but Kyah had such a massive ear infection, plus she was getting teeth and had a fever of 103... basically, if she wasn't sleeping (which she did most of the day), then she was crying. That lasted for 3 days! It was kind of scary. Poor little bug :(
So that's the best I could get! Ha. As for celebrating, we didn't do much. We went to the pool for a little while, but Kyah wasn't having it. Plus it felt like bath water! So we just hung out at home and got Five Guys for dinner, no fire works for us. Five Guys is so delicious, by the way!
After about a week, Kyah was back to her normal self. We were only home for a few weeks between our Florida trip and our Myrtle Beach trip, during which, as mentioned, it was WAY too hot to do anything, so here's some pictures of the kids just hangin' out at the house.
Kyah's pretty photogenic, she smiles so easily. I wish Eli would do the same!
Hi! Kyah learned how to wave.
Eli dug these boots out of the closet... haven't needed those since leaving Colorado!
Kyah started crawling back in June but really mastered it in July. Look at her go!
Well, after a summer full of illness (Walking Pneumonia, upper respiratory virus, pink eye and one severe ear infection), in addition to 8 teeth between both kids, and Jason at work and school from 6 AM to 10PM EVERY day... we were all in dire need of a vacation! And preferably one in which we weren't on house arrest due to a tropical storm (like what happened in Florida)! This trip to Jason's parents' house was lovely. We went to the beach practically every day, played at the park and in the back yard (oh how I long for a back yard), saw some movies, ate a LOT of food (seriously, I gained 8 pounds), watched the olympics every night, played games and basically had a great time. It was the ideal vacation... which made our return home somewhat depressing. BUT, we are half-way through this wonderful journey called grad school! And by wonderful, I mean not so much.
Thankfully, we are already on our way out, Jason has begun his application process for residencies. He'll hopefully be accepted to one within the next couple of months and we'll be planning another move! Which will most likely take place in May... yay! 2 years seemed like an eternity when we embarked on this little adventure, now it seems more like a whirlwind! I love Birmingham, but I'm ready for Jason to begin his careen and have my husband back! He says his residency will most likely involve 14-hour days, but compared to his current schedule, that's 3 more hours a day that we'll actually see him! And he won't be preoccupied with school work in his spare time. I can't wait! And with that in mind, no matter how much I love it here, I'm so ready to kiss it goodbye!
Anyway, moving on to vacation, I went there a couple weeks before Jason because my sister-in-law, Erin, had come all the way from Belgium! I wanted to see her since it's pretty rare, plus, I thought Eli would love getting to play with his cousins every day! He definitely did! As usual, here's quite an abundance of pictures:
hand-holding train into church with Kherington and Uncle Ryan.
Kherington had a purse and the boys decided they wanted one too. So grandma gave them some of hers and the three of them carried their little purses everywhere! Eli even wanted to bring his when we left to go places!
Ah yes, blackmail! Eli actually put this ensemble together himself. Minus the bow, I had to add that for the picture of course! What a pretty little Ellie :)
I bought this sucker for Eli to keep him happy during the final stretch of our drive to Myrtle beach. It kind of worked, except then he was stuck in the car seat with a sugar rush.
Isaac and Cassie came down from Charlotte to see Adam since he just got home from his mission.
Movie time!
The cutest sight that I've woken up to almost every morning for the past 10 months! Yes, we're bad parents who have let Kyah sleep in our bed in order for us to get sleep.
The morning ritual was for all the kids to pile into Grandma's bed and watch cartoons.
I'm fortunate these two are great playmates! They crack each other up all day long. Even when Eli rough-houses Kyah, she just laughs! She's a tough cookie : )
Eli enjoyed Grandma's dinner bell.
Ice cream cones.
Eli certainly got in touch with his feminine side on this trip.
The BEST chocolate chip cookies ever! They had sea salt on top, I decided this makes a big difference! I ate almost all of them! Thanks Erin for baking delicious treats the whole time we were there! Oh, and contributing to my 8-pound wieght gain : (
Making cookies! These were white chocolate chip, chocolate chip and peanut butter chip with pretzel crumb cookies! And of course, some sea salt to top them off! Seriously, try it next time you make cookies!
This is her "FEED ME!" look. Kyah sure does like to eat, a lot! Another trait I wish Eli shared...
"Hangin' out" in 2012. Notice every single person is using either their Ipad, Iphone or MacBook!
Bubble bath! I had to blur out Eli's "wee wee."
At the park:
And, at the park on a different day:
Eli and Kevin. Our little terrors!
This is kind of a funny video. I'm freaking out about the geese getting so close to my kids!
Feeding the geese. It was kind of scary, these geese were aggressive!
I love this picture!
At the beach:
We repurposed the boogie boards to pull the kids around, it was quite a hit!
Fail!
Kyah loved the beach. She loves everything, actually. She is the happiest baby I have ever met! She truly is such a joy all day everyday! And then the sun goes down... She sprouts horns, screams her head off all night and refuses to sleep! It would bother me a lot more if she weren't so perfect during the daylight hours.
One more failed attempt at a decent family picture!
One of my favorite pictures ever! I'm a little jealous of my children's ability to tan so well despite having SPF 50 on all the time.
Eli sharing his fruit snacks.
Holding hands. How cute! Maybe I told them to do that for the sake of the picture...
Jason and his brother Ryan are Irish twins (born less than a year apart), Eli and Kevin are less than a year apart too and both look identical to their fathers! Having them together was like a glimpse into the past life of Jason's mom... and bless her heart!!! lol These two were crazy! On a seperate note, can you believe 2 kids that look exactly like this could come from the same parents?!
Nap time on the beach!
Uncle "Taco" playing with the kiddos.
Peek-a-boo! She was napping and all of a sudden decided to join the party!
LOL. The beach was like an endless buffet for Kyah. She ate so much sand! Gross.
Eating. Something we did too much of!
Playing with Uncle "Co Co."
Where ya goin?
Kevin took quite a liking to Kyah. He wanted to know what she was up to at all times... including first thing in the morning and when she was napping! Sometimes I'd wake up to him in my room just staring at her asleep in the pack n' play! Ha ha.
The kids sure do love their grandpa!
As usual, Eli refuses to smile.
Probably up to no good.
Back yard splash pad. It got a hole in it after about 30 minutes! Kind of sad because they sure did love it!
Yummy homemade granola, peaches and blueberris! Such a deliecious breakfast. Except, plain greek yogurt is kind of gross. I started buying vanilla instead.
Our last night. So sad.
Kyah has taken a liking to bathroom scales. She plays with ours while I get ready in the morning. I think because it lights up when she crawls on it. Kind of funny.
After approximately 500 pictures taken in a row, this is the ONLY one that we are all looking and semi-smiling. Yay for our first and only decent family picture!
Everyone says that Eli looks just like a mini Jason and Kevin looks just like a mini Ryan, so we wanted to get a picture of them all to compare.
Grandparents with ALL their grandkids... for now.
Fed up with all the picture taking.
The Ginger Glovers :)
