Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Fourth Birthday tickers

Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Second Birthday tickers

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Updates from the Past Week

We went out to visit Grandma Nancy before they left for their trip. The girls wore their matching shirts that a family friend gave them, so we had to get a picture.

Kyle's Grandma turned 94!
Tessa's starting to get fussy when others hold her, but she was all smiles with Aunt Bobbi.

Kyri started her first ballet class!! I have to admit, I got a little emotional about this.

She was sooo excited to go to class.

Here she is at the bar before class started. She really wanted to have fun at class, but I'm not sure she did. I learned that Kyri is a bit of a perfectionist. She's really hard on herself, and when she couldn't do some of the moves exactly right, she actually started crying. She's the youngest one in the class, and while she can talk better than most of the other girls in it, her motor skills just aren't as great yet. Poor girl wants to do everything that the other girls are doing, but doesn't understand why she can't quite get it right. We tried to practice during the week, but she usually would just get frustrated and start doing something else. We may have started a year too early... Hopefully the next couple of classes are more fun!

At home, she continues to use her imagination more and more. She is really into telling stories right now. I've tried to capture some on tape to remember this adorable stage. She actually creates better plots than some of my third graders do, and she includes a beginning, middle, and ending. There are transition words like 'suddenly' and 'finally', and what cracks me up is that she includes language like "said the girl" after she gives her characters dialogue! I want to try and turn some of these into books this summer.

She also plays pretend all the time. Everything she comes across gets turned into a family, "This is the mommy grape, this is the daddy grape, and this is the baby grape." Her bean bag chair is her "nest" and she is a baby bird. Aubry is the mommy bird, but yesterday I actually got to be the mommy bird!!

These next two pictures show her playing "bretend mommy". She treats her babies just like we treat Tessa, and we hear her saying the same phrases we use to calm the babies down. (That crown came from Aunt Sherry who stopped by for a visit last week. It is on ninety percent of the day. She even wore it to Jewel this morning. When she wears it, she is a princess, I am the queen, and Kyle is the King. He is loving that!)


On to my Big Girl Tessa B. I keep the camera on the table so I can grab it quick because every time I walk by Tessa, I swear she looks bigger. It amazes me how much she is growing and getting stronger. I want to capture all of the new things she is doing.

She still LOVES to eat. During the day, she'll eat every 2.5 - 3 hours. She becomes a bear when she is ready for her bottle, but afterwards she is back to her smiley self. She is starting to hold her bottle on her own, which I'm loving because it frees me up a bit!
Tessa does not like to lay on her back on the floor to play anymore. As soon as I lay her down, she instantly flips herself over to her belly. This is fine for about 1-2 minutes. Then she gets mad and starts to cry until someone picks her up. This is a little frustrating, because that basically means that we can't lay her down for more than 2 minutes anymore! She is getting much stronger on her belly now, though.
Here she is sitting in front of her gym since she refuses to lay under it like a baby anymore. She is clearly a big girl!
And this week we got the exersaucer out of our storage room. She is LOVING it! Since she loves standing, this is perfect for her right now. I just keep changing up the hanging toys to try and keep her interested.
Tessa has a pretty short attention span these days, so I find myself holding her quite a bit while she gums up a toy. EVERYTHING goes into her mouth, and she pretty much is a slimy, spit-up stained mess all day long (as are we). She's the cutest mess I've ever seen, though! I remember this stage from Kyri. Time to pull out the bibs!

Love spending all this time with my girls. Now, hopefully we'll actually have some summer weather next week so we can get outside and play!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Summer Photo Shoot and Fun at the Lake

I really should have done two different posts to display all of these pictures, but I'm too lazy. So, here are a million pictures from our last week. You may need to view them in sections and take breaks in between! Sorry there are so many, I just couldn't choose...


We did our summer photo shoot at Grandma Nancy's house on Monday. The girls are getting so big and are so cute when they play together. I just love following them around and snapping pictures! For those of you who follow Kay's blog, too, I tried to pick some different ones than what she posted, but I know there are a few repeats.





























These are the traditional polkadot blanket pictures.
(We have almost identical pictures of Kyri and Aubry in the blanket, too.)




The Lake House

We left for the lake on Tuesday afternoon and spent the whole rest of the week up there. Our first day was really rainy, so we went into town for lunch and then spent most of the day napping and watching movies.

Since we were stuck inside, we also discovered that Tessa can sit up in the walker now!

That evening the rain cleared and we were able to get out and do some fishing. We caught 10 - 12 small fish, and Kyri had a blast! It was fun because the fish were biting on almost every cast, so they kept her interest.

Here she is proudly displaying their first catch!

Haaa! Tessa liked the fish, too!!

Watching the bobber patiently...

She loved to inspect each fish.

Helping Kyle put the worm on the hook.
(The worms became like pets, and she was singing to them in between casts.)

She also talked to each fish Kyle brought in.
Her conversations were about the fish catching the worms for dinner to take back to their mommies and daddies. That's one way to look at it! So sweet!!

We were excited to see the sun when we woke up on Thursday morning! It turned out to be a beautiful day. We spent the whole morning on the boat and then in the afternoon we hung out at the beach.

Tessa's first boat ride! She squealed and giggled for the first half hour
and then spent the rest of the ride like this under the seat...

Since it was the middle of the week, the water was so calm and peaceful.

The Captain and his First Mate!

She loved to feel the wind in her hair!

Hold on tight!


The next morning we had beautiful weather again, so we spent the morning on the boat again. This time, both girls took naps on the boat, which gave Kyle and I some nice peace and quiet as we drifted along enjoying the breezy day.



That afternoon, Owen, Donna, Charlie, Gwyneth, and Lillian came up to join us for the weekend.

The two older cousins...

And the three youngest cousins...


We actually got the whole crew on the boat! 4 adults and 5 little girls!

Charlie was on the lookout.

Owen and Lillian

Gwyneth (aka Mini Owen)

Tessa and Daddy, "We love summer!!!"

The Burritt Five

Kyri and Charlie loved the beach!

Practicing their water ballet.
This picture makes me crack up every time I see it!!!


This is how Tessa spent the entire afternoon at the beach! Hope she continues to be able to relax in the sand, because it allowed me to relax in the sun, too!!

While I'm not happy about being in this picture, I had to post it because the girls were so cute. We burst into and impromptu game of Ring Around the Rosie, and they would each "fall down" in the water. So cute!

What a beautiful week we had! And summer has only just begun!

I love summer!!!