August of 2012

Continuing my recap of this summer, I give you August of 2012:

We made it to the County Fair twice this year.  The first night, Nick and I took just the older two girls and did the rides and junk food with them.  The next morning, Nick had to work, but I met Bev and Daryl at the fairgrounds and they helped me maneuver all three girls around to see some of the animals exhibited.

Eliana and Victoria controlling the helicopter at the County Fair.

Ellie and Victoria enjoying a little music at the County Fair with Grammy.

Nick will probably never have me as a running partner, but I think he's okay with that now that Ellie has expressed some interest in running with her daddy!

Ellie and I made it to the State Fair with my parents, sisters, and brother-in-law this year.  The one thing she was most interested in was getting her face painted this year.  I let her pick whatever she wanted (REALLY hoping she'd choose the pretty butterfly), but she had to have Spiderman!  She was so patient and so thrilled with her choice!

My Spidey at the State Fair!  She was the envy of all the boys there (including a group of teenage boys who thought she was SO COOL!).

The girls "playing" together.  Poor Malin...

Victoria definitely is our baby-lover!  She LOVES holding Malin and gets so upset when it's time to take Malin from her!

Malin started smiling a lot this month.  She's got the gummiest, biggest, and most endearing smile!  We are in love!

Eliana at Water Day at daycare.  Just thought this picture was cute.  :)

We try hard to make sure that each of the girls receive special one-on-one time.  So one weekend, Heather and John took Victoria to the Cities with them and had a whole weekend with just her doing fun things!  I think everyone had fun, though I know Heather and John were pretty exhausted at the end!

Eliana's newest fad has been Spiderman.  I think it started with some of the boys playing Spiderman at daycare, but her fascination with him grew exponentially after finding the old 70's cartoon on Netflix!  Because she can be such a stubborn child at times (particularly when it came to pooping on the potty), we started offering her "Poopie Prizes" each time she would go on the potty.  Her prizes were usually small (a pair of Spiderman underwear, a jar of playdough, a coloring book), but one of her last prizes was this costume!  I'm proud to say that she is fully potty trained now and hasn't had an accident in several weeks!

Somehow, Nick managed to get both girls to fall asleep on top of him - AT THE SAME TIME!  Sometimes daddies perform the best miracles...

A family walk is quite an ordeal these days!  Thankfully, though, we were able to get out for quite a few of them during the month of August.

Victoria got some good cuddle time in with Nana one night.

One of the bigger pieces of news this month - Victoria managed to get stung by a bee while at daycare one day.  She was actually stung on the lip as you can see here, but the effects were never-ending and we now fear that she may be allergic to bee stings and have a worse reaction next time.  The poor child is now terrified of bees...

After the initial swelling on her lip had disappeared, she woke us up the next night screaming (not like her), and while trying to administer some Tylenol, we noticed that the inside of her mouth was completely swollen on one side and her breathing was odd.  I had to take her in to the ER (the first visit we've ever made for any of the kids).  It was interesting pulling an almost all-nighter in the ER and then heading to the state fair the next day!

Even this picture doesn't quite capture how bad it was, but the final effect of the bee sting was the swelling of each of her eyes - first one eye, and once the swelling went down, then it hit the other eye!  It was the oddest thing, and even the doctors (after two more visits) couldn't quite figure it out.  Thankfully, Victoria was a trooper and really didn't seem bothered by her symptoms.  In fact, she was a rather happy child!  The best part was that after the last of the swelling disappeared in her eyes, it didn't come back.

Unfortunately, Malin is the third child and just doesn't receive as many pictures because we are so busy.  And if I do happen to catch a photo of her, she's usually sleeping!

But, every once in awhile, I'll find a moment to grab my phone a take a photo or two of her.  Isn't this just the happiest kiddo?

Got to love those big open-mouthed smiles!