I know it's summertime and it seems like this blog should be poppin'! But the truth is it's summertime in Arizona and there's not much to blog about in our lives lately. When the rest of the country lets loose and crawls out from under their roofs, we go into hibernation mode, it seems!
We've definately got a sumemetime routine down. Our weeks consist of swim lessons for Hayden Monday through Thursday, and on Friday mornings we go to the movies. BOTH of the girls are loving that. And to be quite honest, so I am. I don't miss being at home every morning feeling as though I need to check email and busy myself with work stuff, but I do miss my morning cup or two of coffee (it's just too darn hot right now!).
I'm doing some summer homeschooling with Hayden. Her attention span (and patience level) is pretty short, so I break her lessons up into four 20 minute sessions. Some days we don't get in quite that much, but that's okay, that means we're off (or in) doing something fun. We're practicing numbers, letters, shapes, coloring within a designated space (following directions) and speech. And by goodness, she's slowly starting to say her L's!! We keep noticing that she's been really concentrating on her L's when she's speaking and she's even starting to correct herself when she realizes she uses a W in place. I have found some great speech development tips online and they are all really easy ideas to implement. Socially and behaviorly, that's a different story, but we're into baby steps as of late!
Taylor is blossoming right now. She's at that age where she just absorbs everything she hears, she's a little sponge. She understands clearly what we're telling or asking of her and, she'll answer back. She saying several word sentences, although, we're (and Conal probably only 2/3 of the time) the only ones who can understand her. She was having a trantrum in the car on Friday and I was even able to reason with her. I finished with a "do you understand me" and to my surprised, she answered with "Yah Mommy" and quit her trantrum. WHAT?? That seemed to come from nowhere, but she's a bright little cookie, that's for sure! She has a new PT that starts next week so we'll add that to a day, once a week. And of course, she had another mystery fever last week, but it was gone in 48 hours and she never acted as if she didn't feel well.
Both of the girls are having a blast swimming at Hamilton High and my parents neighborhood pool, playing in the sprinklers, eating popsicles and playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. They've also been having fun doing crafts, eating and whining! They're both always hungry! I usually tribute that to boredom, but ya know, I keep them so busy, I don't know how either of them could be bored. I think Taylor's just making up for lost years of lack of variety, and Hayden's metabolism runs so high her food dissolves before it dispenses!
As much as we're going kinda batty being in such close quarters to one another with limited breaks, I'm enjoying the summer with them. We love the weekends when Daddy's home from work and we can drive him nuts! It's nice to have few responsibilities over the summer break. The past six months was my first time working (albeit from home 80% of the time and SUPPOSEDLY part-time) since I've had kids. I've learned how not to take for granted the time we have to hang out together and enjoy each little bit of them doing whatever we want, whenever we want!
What a fun weekend we had! Conal is on vacation all this week, and we kicked it off with a couple of pool parties! On Friday, July 4th, we spent the evening with Scott, Jenna and Kadie at Scott's parents house while they were out of town. We munched on Oregano's pizza and swam the night away before capping off with a fireworks show from Mesquite High. We had a great view from the backyard...they were practically right overhead, even though the fireworks weren't the best, due to the monsoon weather. Regardless, we had fun hanging out with the Watson family. We're going to miss Kadie's 2nd birthday this week, so we celebrated it with a small little cake and a couple of presents. My girls had a blast and haven't stopped talking about her since. Thanks Jenna for the invite, we had a great time :) And a very Happy Birthday to Kadie!! 
(Obviously, Hayden was the only one up to having her picture taken!)
On Saturday, we spent the day at Chris and Melissa's house swimming for their annual 4th of July party. It's fun to get together with them, and they are great hosts. Melissa is due with their first baby in December, so their shindigs are really going family-style! Yeah for us :-) (I didn't get pictures, as my camera battery was dead.) Thanks so much to our friends for the generous invitations this weekend. We're lucky to have great friends to share fun and family with! 
Tay looks sad, but really, she's not. She was singing so loud you could hear her clear across the opposite side of the mall!
Today, we went to the circus! We decided to go early and experience the all access pre-show as well. You get to see many of the clowns and acts up close on the floor. You can even try on some of the costumes and watch Kelly Ann, the elephant paint a picture.
The girls had a great time watching our first storm of the season last night. We got hit really hard for about 5 minutes, it drizzled for about 5 more and then it passed. That's about the only thing I like about these Arizona summers! Anyhow, Hayden grabbed the camera and took a couple of pictures. She was really waiting for one with lightning, but she'll need to prove herself a bit more before I buy her a camera for that! ha ha
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