A peek into the weekend...

Weekends go by so quickly at our house. Does that happen to you too? It seems like, when we reach this point in the summer, we're in this grand rush to squeeze as much stuff into the few remaining days as we can. I always think that we won't make that same mistake next year, but I'm betting we probably will.

Friday evening we decided to make a final summer trip to Knoebel's. Joshua has been wanting to go, and we had promised him that we would go again before school started. Unfortunately, everyone else on the planet, it seemed, had the same idea. With Little League World Series families looking for something to do, people doing the same "last trip before the summer ends" stuff that we were, and a cheap hand stamp night ($7 for Josh to ride all night) things were a little....crowded. I really am thankful for the experiences we've had there to this point because truly it was the first time Joshua has really had to wait in any lines to ride rides at Knoebel's. But that made for a good bit of standing around time, which was not to Lauren's satisfaction. She wanted to be down walking around, and made it clear to everyone within a 3 mile radius how awful of a mother she had for not allowing her to roam the park freely. Aren't I a meanie? It was a late night Friday, but the mission was accomplished. Joshua had a blast. He awoke on Saturday morning still talking about it and declaring that we were going back to Knoebel's that evening too. Um................no. But here are a few pictures.

Joshua's maiden voyage on the Frog Hopper (he LOVED it!).

And here he is "shooting Captain Hook". He left home with a pocket full of quarters for this water game and honestly would have stayed there all evening if we would let him. With all the things there are to do at Knoebel's, it's amazing to me that he loves this so much. But, he's definitely into all things pirate these days.....thanks a lot Peter Pan.

Other weekend highlights:

Lauren is now walking more than she's doing anything else. She can walk the entire length of the house without stumbling and can even change direction and start/stop multiple times en route. It's so much fun to watch. The climbing continues to escalate into a problem, although she is getting a little more steady. I found her on the top of the couch (as in, standing on the top of the back of it) looking out the window the other day. After I caught my breath and started my heart beating again, I got her down, only to have her scale right back up again. She's unstoppable. Here are a few pictures of her from Saturday morning while she was still playing in her pajamas. I don't know what the fascination was with the Mickey Mouse ears, but she was cracking me up. She insisted on having them on for most of Saturday morning. Seeing her in them makes me want to book a trip to Disney World right now.

In eating news, Lauren is showing major interest in table foods. She downed an entire pancake on Saturday morning along with about 1/4 of a banana. Sunday morning she ate an entire piece of toast with banana pieces. She's less and less enthused about baby food by the day, but seems to love getting her hands on anything that she can chew up on her own. She's showing no signs of slowing down on the nursing, as I would have expected her to. We're still doing that at least 5-6 times a day (down to once through the night). It'll be interesting to see how/when she decides she's had enough of that. I honestly have no idea how that's supposed to work.

And, although I don't have any pictures of it, Joshua came home from the toy store on Saturday evening with a SWAT team play set. Yep....handcuffs, night stick, walkie talkies and a whistle. And a nice helmet. It's funny. We had gone in search of some more substantial toys for Lauren. She spends her time playing with Joshua's things because the rattles and baby toys just aren't cutting it with her. So we came home with a phone, one of those pop-up boxes with the 5 different knobs/latches on it and a Little People Noah's ark for her. I had to laugh yesterday afternoon because Joshua had all of the animals lined up to march onto the ark and Lauren was sitting with his night stick. What can I do besides just go with it, right?

I am absolutely LOVING where we are right now. Lauren is so fun to be with and it's increasingly amazing what she's learning how to do. And if I could just bottle Joshua and freeze him just how he is, I would love to. He amazes me daily with his sense of humor and the things he says. And he melts my heart when he cuddles up in my lap to tell me he loves me. I know a day will come when he won't do that anymore. I am blessed in abundance beyond what I deserve.