Our Girls

Brigitte flew all the way from California to meet and greet our newest child (and see us and Ba too!!) She read stories... And even let us have a water balloon fight with her! We can't wait for the next Brigitte visit!!!!

Here is our youngest firecracker! Aunt Mary, Aunt Kathy, mommy, daddy, and California Brigitte celebrated at Ba and Papa's:) Molly enjoying quality Aunt Mary time. Mommy getting a festive red,white, and blue pedicure. Brigitte cuddles... And finally fireworks! Best buds!

Katie's longest word she can spell:) YouTube Video And the 12 Disciples (because we just can't get enough of this song!) YouTube Video

This girl has moves! YouTube Video The blue blanket was the dance stage and I was suppose to attempt the same moves she did. I attempted:) But there is no video to prove it! Thank goodness!

YouTube Video

Emily is absolutely loving tball. She is getting better each game! She bends low to catch grounders. Is ready to tag a runner out on first. And watches where the ball was hit. Go Gray Team!

Who is this adorable baby? It's Molly Anne and she is 6 1/2 months old. She rolls freely from front to back and back to front. She gets up on "all 4's" but prefers to lay flat and play with toys. She does not like to stay where we lay her... She is the Happiest Baby EVER!

Our girls had never been to a real symphony performance before. Until today! The Columbia symphony was performing Peter and the Wolf and Mommy thought this was the perfect first concert! And once we got there we learned that kids (any and all kids) got to conduct the orchestra!!! How cool! Here is Katie going on stage for her 10 seconds of guest conducting. YouTube Video And then Emily:) YouTube Video So sorry for the lack of good video. I did the best I could. Both girls had a blast and acted as though they knew what to do:) And to top it off (as if they weren't already floating on cloud nine) Ronald McDonald was there doing magic tricks. Happy McGirls! We will be back! Awesome experience! Perhaps Ms. Amy will be conducting Peter and the Wolf soon???? It is a new favorite at our house!

Katie wasn't too sure about feeding the goats a bottle... But Emily was all about it! Baby cousin enjoyed watching the show:) The carousel was a big hit (of course). As were the snow cones! Mmmmmm! So delicious on a hot day! And then we saw the ever famous camels. Why are they famous? Because when Emily was a wee little one, Aunt Chaela tried to feed her to the camels. True story. We have pictures to prove it. This visit the girls didn't even get out of the stroller. But aunt Chaela was up to her usual tricks...luckily the camels weren't hungry! What a fun family day!

We traveled to St. Louis to see Aunt Chaela and Uncle Nate's new house. Their new house is awesome! We got to see our new cousins too! Molly (making one of my favorite Molly faces), Meghan and Brian's baby (5 weeks), and Nate and Chaela's baby boy. Picture taking wore Molly out! She took a snooze on a blanket in the shade. When she woke up, she found little toes by her head. She decided to taste them:) The kids all ate at the kids picnic table and then paused for a picture- or rather 15 pictures:) Realizing we were not going to get all kids (at one time) smiling for the camera, we gave up. What a fun picnic! Thanks aunt Chaela and Uncle Nate!

Ms. Pat always chooses a theme for her sleepovers. This summer's theme...Captain Underpants! We were asked to dress as a character in the book. Our girls chose the Lunch Ladies. Emily told me they had purple hair, wore aprons, dresses, and glasses. Here are our 3 "Lunch Ladies" all ready for a fun night at Pat's!

Last Wednesday some friends and cousins went to Walk-About-Acres. It was a ton of fun!!! Katie fed the pigs some bread. Katie and her cousin looking very seriously at the goats. Emily let the goats eat out of her hand. One goat started to nibble on her skirt and she thought that was hilarious! We went into their classroom to learn how bees make honey. They also had baby chicks hatching! Then we had a picnic lunch with honey ice cream for dessert! Yum!!! I didn't get any pictures of Molly on this adventure. She slept through the tour part. When we ate our lunch she woke up to have her lunch too:) What a good baby!

The other night as I went down to read both girls stories before bed, I heard loud arguing. When I entered the room, Emily clapped her hand over Katie's mouth and began telling me what Katie did to her. Emily was talking 100 words a minute (tattling) and I could tell Katie was smiling under Emily's hand. When Emily stopped to take a breath, she let go of Katie's mouth. Katie blurted out: HA HA! Now you are the one in trouble! You tattled!

Emily: My Barbie is named Lyla and she is going to get married to Eric. Katie: She can't! My barbie is going to marry Eric! E: Well, Eric is MY cousin, so I get to marry him first. K: When you are done, can I marry him? E: Well, that is a possibility. (Emily must have hid her barbie) K: Where did Lyla go? E: May I now present to you Lyla and her husband Eric. You may know him. He's my cousin. Lyla ran off to get married before Eric changed his mind to marry YOUR barbie. So now we are married and it was the best day ever! Do you want to come to the after party? K: I'll go to the reception. But then I want to marry Eric.

This last weekend we went to Mark Twain lake and "camped" with andrew's side of the family. The dad's took the kids fishing Both the boy cousins caught fish...our girls were not as successful:( Molly watched the fishermen... We had a quick picnic lunch. The adults cooked delicious hot dogs, s'mores, and pie-iron sandwiches. The children really didn't have the patience to stand in the heat and wait for things to cook. Luckily there was a playground really close to our cabin. Katie eating a s'more! "I just want more chocolate!"Katie is our girl with a sweet tooth:) We took a little paddleboat ride where Andrew and I started in the front seats. About every 2 minutes the kids (all 4 of them) wanted to switch seats. The song "sit down you're rockin' the boat" was our theme song:) Each night the 2 kindergarten cousins performed a light show. Highly entertaining! Molly and Gramps hanging out in the cabin. Cousins have so much fun toget...