Just some other photos from our camping trip. Elena and Emily enjoyed playing with the stroller and giving rides. Emily is now big enough to climb in the stroller by herself. Julia had been riding for quite a while as an activity while Emily took her afternoon nap. I wasn’t lucky enough to have both girls nap at the same time.

Kenny let Emily ‘pretend’ drive while they were waiting for me to get Julia ready for the pool. Emily was as thrilled as punch to be behind the wheel. Who knows how many buttons she ‘adjusted’ for Kenny. Emily warmed up to Kenny a lot on this trip, normally she is somewhat cautious. Emily was trying to call the Smith boys by the right names too. It was really cute even when she didn’t get them all right. I appreciated the boys playing with Emily and not minding being called by the wrong name.

While we were camping we went to a talk about possums on Saturday morning. The talk had some interesting things in it, but it sure didn’t capture the excitement of two-year-olds. Emily picked dandelions, worked on sharing toys with Elena, visited with the other people at the talk, and was thrilled to leave the talk early.

After the talk, we said hello to some horses. The horses weren’t inclined to visit, but seeing them up close was fun. Julia was OK with someone else holding her in the close vicinity of her mother. That didn’t happen much on the trip. Somehow she lost one sock.

Last weekend we took the girls camping. It is wise to do things for the first time (with Julia) with friends, so we went in a rather large group. Emily slept on the air mattress with us and Julia was in the travel bassinet next to us. I found out how small our air mattress and tent have gotten with the growth of our family. Despite how cozy we were, both girls slept well.

Julia and Emily played in the pool with Elena on Saturday afternoon. It was a great way to cool off. The pool had music playing and the girls enjoyed dancing to the music. There was a good amount of splashing and even a few moments of sticking faces in the water. This was Julia’s first trip to a pool and she loved it. She loved being held by Mommy, being able to kick her feet, and slap the water with her hands.

Robby is spending quality time with the girls and a book.

Life changes so quickly! Julia is now mobile. One week she mastered rolling over twice in a row, the next she figures out that she can use that trick to get around the room. She isn’t efficient, but she has moved to a toy box and to the toy shelf on her own now by rolling over and over and over until she gets where she is going. You can spot some pretty big smiles while she is going too. Robby pointed out tonight that we need to get her used to playing in a pack-n-play before she knows better.

Every morning Julia and I go in to get Emily up. Each time Emily asks that Julia play in her bed with her. This particular morning I dressed the girls in matching Big/Little Sister shirts and Emily was very curious about the similar word on the shirts. Then she got really sad that Julia had her shirt on. It took a little while, but eventually she was OK with the fact that Julia and she had similar shirts with the word sister on it. I think the confusion came from the fact that Emily calls Julia ‘sister’.

Julia has moved into her big girl bed. We are at night number three in the big girl bed and sharing a room with Emily. Emily is so excited that Julia is in the room with her. She is even willing to be somewhat quiet. Our nightly routine is that Emily goes to bed and then about an hour later we put Julia down asleep. Julia has been going down awake, but I’m not willing to risk that one yet. Tonight when I put Julia down Emily was awake. She was so excited to see me bring Julia in and stayed quiet. My girls are growing up!

When Julia is sitting on Daddy’s lap Emily wants to join in. They love to share his lap. Good thing Daddy’s lap is big!