Photos take a lot of different forms at our house. Other than the blog I am trying to keep up-to-date scrapbooks with the things we do with the girls. While I’m about a year behind, I have made some significant ground in the last two weeks. Other projects demand that I put this project up for a little while. This is something I do when the kids are sleeping, so Emily started asking every morning what new pictures did I have to show her. Before I put the girls books away I snapped a photo of the albums. The top two albums represent my hard work of the last two weeks, but the stack has the collection of my girls lives. I loved showing the books to the girls and telling them about the things we have done. I might need a new shelf soon.

We seem to have started the month out with blueberries and we have now finished out the month with it too. Late morning, we made another trip to a blueberry farm to collect some sweet treats along with a fun playtime. The month of heat and rain has been good to the bushes and there were a lot to pick. Emily was selective of which blueberries she picked. They had to be a good blue, and generally, she wanted to find them exactly where I was picking them. Julia was also very selective to the ones she picked. They had to be small and almost white. I couldn’t get her to pick any other type. She was very intent on pulling the stem off and then putting them in her bucket. Luckily, she was slow about it. I’m presuming that she ate them too. Somehow when it was time to leave, both girls had empty buckets and mine was mostly full.

After about a half an hour into picking we were all dripping sweat and wearing the dew off the bushes. To our delight we were visited by some friends. What a treat! The girls all ran around the rows of berries yelling with the delight that comes with carefree play.

Emily expressed an interest in building a house in the living room with books. We tried a few different things and this is what we ended up with. We planned a door and window. Julia wanted to walk through the window and Emily closed the window and the door when they entered the house. They invited their stuffed animals for a picnic and consented to stop playing for a photo. The house remained up so that Daddy could see their creation. Emily’s only disappointment was that we couldn’t put a roof on the house.

We celebrated a little summer at a local splash pad and playground. Despite the heat, Emily and Julia seemed more interested in playing at the playground than getting wet. Emily did figure out how to make her pinwheel spin fast by putting it a stream of water. Julia liked climbing the stairs and sliding. The kids served a lot of food out of their little deli. During snack time Elena gave me an awesome smile.

Each visit to Dollywood we find new things to try out. We still did all the old favorites and then squeezed a few more in. It was interesting to watch Emily with the rides. She has been pretty courageous, but this visit she was more apprehensive to try rides. The rides that raised her into the air seemed to leave her unsettled. Julia on the other hand was willing to try all sorts of things without fear. The only thing that really scared Julia for the day was the bear mascot. She watched Emily from a distance interact with the big guy.

Emily backed out of the flying elephant ride, but was willing to ride the Veggie Tales roller coaster with me. She consented to ride in the flying bumble bee ride with Julia, but could not be convinced to try the River Rampage with Granddaddy and Mommy. I don’t think she liked the idea of getting wet.

The new things we rode were the flying elephant (Mommy and Julia rode), a bug themed playground, and the 60’s car ride. For the car ride, Emily rode with Grammy and Julia rode with Mommy. Both girls got to be the drivers of their cars. Emily gave Grammy a smooth ride, but Julia’s ride was a little bumpy. Every time we bumped into the guide bar Julia would let go of the handle bar and quit steering generally making us bump a little more. In the photo of Julia driving the car in the background is Emily’s car.

Emily loved the rope course and didn’t want to move on from it. She was responsive to try different techiques to cross each element. It was a lot of fun to watch her learn and love it.

We look forward to our next trip. Emily kept announcing that “next time she was going to go by herself. I will go with Mommy, Daddy, and sister.” I like how that is by herself.

Grammy and Granddaddy joined us this week when we visited Dollywood. The girls were so excited to go with them and show them the things they like. As usual they requested the carousel first. Emily asked Grammy to ride in an elephant ride together, but backed out when it came time to get on. The two of them rode in the old 60’s car ride together. Grandaddy, Grammy, and Julia rode in the lemon twist/teacup ride together. Grammy took Julia through the kids’ rope course several times and enjoyed watching her increasing courage to try the different elements. It was a nice treat to have additional adults so we could ride things that required the girls to be split up.