Hanging in the Sac

Our neighbours refer to our cul de sac as "The Sac". They said they were going to get tshirts for their July 4th party. I thought they were kidding but here's the sac and assorted friends and relatives on the 4th in their tshirts. I think the kids and I are the only ones from the sac that were not there.

Emerson Update

Emerson is 19 months. She is such a sweet girl most of the time, when not pinching, biting, hitting, throwing, or yelling mine at the other two. Wonder who she learned that from? She talks so much which is a new thing for us since the other two talked much later. She says lots of words and a few phrases like help me and I'm hungry. She still loves to sing and dance with Kennedy. She loves to do everything that K and P are doing. In the past two days she's decided she doesn't like to go to sleep though. She has some teeth coming in so hopefully it's just that again.

Having fun at church.

Enjoying a cupcake.

Keeping us busy at Pops in the Park.

Parker Update

Parker will 4 in a few short weeks. His speech has improved a lot. I was reading back through our blog and saw that in November I was happy that he was starting to speak in 3 word phrases. On most days I understand everything he says and he often speaks in complete sentences. There are some days that I can't seem to understand much of what he says. I feel like something must be triggering that but I'm frustrated because I can't figure out what.

Him and Kennedy are the best of friends most of the time. Parker goes along with whatever Kennedy wants to do. The other day he disappeared at 5:15 and Kennedy went to look for him after a few minutes and he had fallen asleep underneath her bed. He later told me he was looking for me and couldn't find me and went under there and cried. I had gone out to our garden to get basil for a minute but I felt so sad that he thought I'd left him. He woke up around 7:30 and Chad and I played just with him for awhile. Parker and I were on his bed aka boat and Chad was a shark. He had so much fun. I need to spend more time just with him. He really does get lost in the middle and doesn't demand much attention.

On the train from Boston to the beach. He just loved the train. The other 4 kids were playing and moving all over but P just looked out the window the whole trip.

At the beach in May

Pictures in April

Kennedy Update

Our baby is growing up. We've entered a new phase of life with Kennedy. While we were in Canada she started saying "I don't have to listen to you. I'm never going to listen to you." And many other variations of that. We've used timeout as our method of discipline and all of a sudden it doesn't work anymore. She just refuses to go. How did she all of a sudden realize that she doesn't have to listen to anyone? We do also take privileges away but we go through her few privileges rather quickly and I'm left wondering what method of discipline works for a child who is about to turn 6? I need to figure it out rather quickly! I actually used to think parenting got easier as kids got older :) I now realize that a newborn baby is sooooooooo much easier than any other stage. At least in my opinion.

For her 6th birthday party she would like a pirate princess mermaid party. Not too sure how to make that happen.

Kennedy in timeout at Lara's condo (before her revelation). Emerson decided she need company so went to sit with her.

At Discovery Place this week.

In the Boston Common. It was so hot!

We spent 5 hours in the very small Buffalo airport last week. We passed a little bit of time posing for pics.

Just found this picture of our family with my grandma this past Christmas. We don't get to see Grandma very often and I think this is probably the only picture of all of us with her.

On Sunday we went to my dad's house with our neighbours. If you've talked to Kennedy for 5 minutes at any point in time I'm sure you've heard her mention Nicky. That's her in the middle and her brother Jax. Everyone's enjoying our favourite allergy friendly treat, our free of anything the kids can't eat chocolate cupcakes.

Our neighbour Jason was throwing the kids. It was scaring me but they were enjoying it.

This is our fearless water baby Emerson. She just steps in to the pool regardless of whether or not anyone is there to catch her. She has to be watched every second. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures or video of it but on the boat at the cottage last week she was (wearing a life jacket) just jumping off the back of the boat with everyone else, swimming to the ladder, climbing back up and doing it again. I didn't even have to catch her!

We got back last week from our big trip to Boston and Canada. We flew to Boston and spent two days there with Lara and Jana and my niece Hannah and nephew Charlie. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera but you can look at Jana's blog for a few pictures of our time in Boston pjcrisp.blogspot.com.

From Boston we drove 8 hours to Ottawa. The drive was through Vermont which is such a beautiful place. I think I'd really like living there (except that it's so far from everything). We were in Ottawa for Canada Day. Hopefully my sister will send me some pictures shortly and I can post those. We went to my cousin's wedding and then drove up to the cottage outside of Peterborough that my dad rented for the month. I was soooo looking forward to cool weather and cold water but it was in the high 90s!! And there was no air conditioning. After 12 days away we drove to Buffalo, NY because the flights are so much cheaper than from Toronto and flew home. It was a good trip but we were so glad to be home.