In other news...

We've had a lot going on lately!  After our trip to California we were home for a week before heading to the beach.  It was an all girls trip and we went with Mimi and Heather for 5 days.  We had a great time but we really missed Daddy (and his hands to help carry everything down to the beach)!  At times it seemed like more work than vacation-2 young kids at the beach means LOTS of stuff!  :)  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures to document Josie's first beach vacation (I know I'm a bad mom) but see my previous sentence for an explanation.  :) 

After our return, I hosted a baby shower for my friend Merrilee.  She was pregnant with her second girl-her first daughter, Kendri, is Juliann's bff.  For her gift I made her a diaper cake which doubled as a center piece on the dessert table. 

We had the shower on Saturday and Rylin was born on Monday (her birthday is 8-9-10, how cool is that?!?)  We went to visit them a few days after they returned home and the big sisters had a ball playing!  Here are a few pictures from our visit:

holding Jules and baby Rylin

the girls playing

Joselynn has been growing like a weed and it seems like she's always doing something new.  She loves sitting in her bumbo while Juliann's eating lunch.  I swear she is always smiling and is one of the happiest babies EVER!

happy girl

bath time!

After all our traveling this summer, we've been trying to get back into a routine with the girls.  All was going well until early Saturday morning when Jules woke up at 3am.  She was burning up and had a fever of 102.7.  We gave her a fever reducer and attempted to cool her down.  The next morning she was still burning up so we took her to her pediatrician and found out she had strep.  :(  Poor little girl felt miserable and spent the whole weekend taking medicine and napping twice a day.  By Monday she was feeling more like her old self and was finally hungry again.  She wanted a hot dog so we let her eat it like a "big kid" and she loved it!

poor sick little girl

yum!

We're very glad she's feeling better.  I missed hearing her laugh and watching her love on everyone when she was sick!  Yesterday she did the sweetest thing-I was vacuuming and she came over, shut the vacuum off, looked up at me and said, "I love you very, very much.  Kiss please?"  I almost cried because it was so cute!  I'm such a lucky mom! 

5 months

Really?!?  Didn't I just post about her being 4 months?  I swear she's growing up entirely too quickly!  She enjoys sitting up in her Bumbo, is ADDICTED to her paci and is now rolling on a daily basis.  At first she would scream when she rolled onto her tummy (she really started doing this last week with some regularity) but today I guess she decided it wasn't so bad!  This is what I found when I went in to check on her during her nap this morning:

Here are some pictures I took of the girls on Monday.

All smiles at 5 months old!

Sisters

They are too cute!

Cali

For our second big trip this summer (yes-we are crazy for flying twice in one month with 2 young kids) we headed out to California.  David's dad had a conference at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Beach so we tagged along!  :)  This was our first (and probably our last) time staying in a Ritz and it was awesome!  I told David I wanted him to continue the nightly turn down service when we got home but since we hardly ever make our bed he doesn't really have to do any work!  Our flight out on Monday was great with the exception that our plane didn't get in until 12:30am West Coast time so it was 3:30am our time.  The word exhausted doesn't even come close.  We'd been traveling for over 12 hours (we had to drive up to Regan) so we all slept in on Tuesday.

I totally expected the weather in Southern California to be sunny and warm so we packed shorts and t-shirts. I mean, everyone on the reality show Laguna Beach had tans and skimpy shorts so I figured that's the weather we'd experience.  Too bad it was rainy and barely 70.   We had to buy Jules a a sweatshirt because it was so cold!  The weather kept us from laying out on the beach so we spent our time hanging out at the Ritz and shopping in downtown Laguna.  David's dad had all of Thursday off so we visited the mission at San Juan Capistrano.  They had an audio tour so we listened to the history of the mission as we walked around.  There were beautiful gardens and Jules really enjoyed the Koi ponds!

We had a GREAT time exploring the city and we did finally see the sun on Friday.  It was still too cool to be on the beach, so we spent the day at the pool. Jules had a great time and we were able to see an amazing sunset over the Pacific before having a wonderful dinner at the Ritz.  Leaving on Saturday morning was very sad, but the flight home was even worse. Josie slept almost the whole way home and Jules was also exhausted but we had lots of turbulence so she had to sit in her car seat for most of the flight-not a happy camper.  We didn't get home until after 2am!  Needless to say we all slept in the next morning until almost 11am!

 waiting for our plane

 overlooking the Pacific

 The surfers looked like ants!

it was so cold we had to buy Jules a sweatshirt

 Jules and Opa as Zorro and Elena at San Juan Capistrano

 Koi fish at the mission

 gorgeous views!

 another pretty view

 sunset!

 so beautiful!

 night scene

family photo

 Ellington Family

 David and his girls

 Mommy and her girls!

 Flowers in the Ritz

 Reception area-more beautiful flowers

No one was happy about leaving.  :(