Summer Activities

With summer break officially ending, it is time to get our summer pictures up.  Tomorrow is Karina's first day of school and Thursday is Lydia's first day.  Karina will be in 1st grade and Lydia will be in pre-kindergarten.  

Poor Derek is obviously the only brother with two older sisters.  We have lots of pictures of him wearing purses, in fairy wings, in pink helmets, etc.  Here he is in Princess Anna high-heeled shoes.   I tried to keep him away from the girly dress-up stuff, but he was adamant about participating in everything his big sisters do.

Derek has now also grown out of his 'kid' binary shirt, as it is too short.  Karina, Lydia, and Derek got good use out of it.  Maybe they need another geeky shirt.  Nate can continue to wear his matching 'dad' binary shirt, but won't have a coordinating child.  

We went to the Maryland Science Center museum one day and enjoyed exploring there:

One afternoon we had a great run playing Jenga (a wooden block game).  We got to about 34 levels tall, which made Karina and Lydia proud.  Nate and I had to finish the game because the tower was so wobbly.  

Princess Anna and Queen Elsa.  I think they coordinated wearing these dresses together 10-20 times this summer.  Lydia in particular always wanted to wear her Elsa dress. 

Another day we went to Clark Eliok's farm, a local attraction fixture.  We had been curious about going for years and finally made it.  The first picture below is from their large kid maze that we enjoyed running through.  

Karina and Lydia got to ride a pony for the first time at Clark Eliok's.  They both thought it was scary and exciting at the same time.  Karina was proud she got on by herself (the step ladder reached almost to the seat) and Lydia was impressed she didn't fall off.

Derek at the petting zoo:

My little cutie:

Police officer Lydia and police office Derek both like this costume:

Karina in my aunt's 1st communion dress from 1960 again:

Karina built a lego tower that was taller than me.  I don't think the kids have ever done that before.

With great sadness, I decided that on Derek's 18 month birthday he would get a haircut.  I took the following pictures right before the haircut to celebrate the sad day.  I really loved his long light blond hair.  I didn't want to cut it, but it was getting in his eyes and I didn't want him mistaken for a girl.

He was not particularly cooperative during the haircut.  In this picture he was at least sitting, later on, I had to chase him for each snip:

Short boy hair:

I never posted Karina and Lydia's stats from their annual doctor visit earlier in the summer.  Mostly for myself, here were their 4 and 6 year old stats:

Karina
Height: 46.75 (70th %)
Weight: 43 lbs 10 oz (38th %)

Lydia
Height: 42.5 in (94th %)
Weight: 42 lbs 3 oz (90th %)