Summer Fun 2017 Part 2

Hello again! Let's pick up where we left off. In early July we took a quick trip to Austin to see Scott, Anna and Ellis and to attend Atlas and Jane's 2nd cousin Dylan's 2nd birthday party. Little did I know this would actually be our last trip to Austin to visit Scott and Anna. They are leaving their city townhouse and moving to a river country house. When they told us the news I was super excited for them! But a small part of me was like "Wait! I didn't get to have that one last visit to the Austin house!" Haha, I'll survive. We'll miss the parks and the close proximity to a cornucopia of excellent restaurants, but seriously, I could not be happier about their move! And they won't be far from Austin if we really want to revisit something there. My cousins will still be in Austin too. I'm sure we'll visit them sometime. :) I cannot wait to go visit Scott and Anna in their new home! From the pictures I've seen it's gorgeous! We can walk to the river and play in their backyard that has a beautiful view. Again, can't wait! :D

Me with my only niece!

Uncle Scott with his only nephew!

It's so much fun to swap parenting stories with my brother now. It's also fun to entertain each others kiddos for a while for a change of pace. They all have such different personalities. I definitely see some similarities in Ellis and Jane as first born girls. Ellis and Alexandria will be the closest in age, just 1 year! I'm looking forward to when they are just a little older and they can all play together and they start looking forward to the cousin sleepovers!

Walking around Mueller.

Atlas found his favorite animal!

We went for a walk to the park shortly after arriving in Austin. On the way we encountered some ducks and a pet pig. Jane was pretty excited to pet the pig! Atlas was way more interested in the ducks. I think he would have followed them right into the water if I hadn't stopped him. After a relaxing evening at Scott and Anna's, we headed out the next morning to cousin Dylan's 2nd Birthday party at the Austin Aquarium!

Look at all the fish!

Birthday Girl!

It was such a cool place! Jane really enjoyed petting any animal that they brought out to us. Including a turtle and a snake. Atlas liked the fish but was mostly absorbed in the animated, interactive game that was being projected on the floor. 

I can't believe I'm this close to a bird!!

She did so well!

Jane adored getting to feed the birds! She squealed with delight every time one landed on her. She is so brave with animals. Other kids much older were getting scared by the birds. But Jane enjoyed it so much! They were instructed not to touch the birds with their hands. She did really well and stayed calm and still.

Feeding the stingrays!

Getting her face painted.

Jane's favorite part was feeding the stingrays for sure! Everyone at the party got to feed the stingrays together at the beginning of the party. Our party favor bucket had a few tokens in it so we could do a few more activities with the animals. She chose to feed the stingrays twice. She also chose to get a sparkly dolphin painted on her face. She stayed super still for the artist. Once we used all our tokens it was about time to leave.

Water slide!!

Yippee!!

Marmee and Ellis!

After Dylan's party we all headed over to the Williams' house for some fun family time! Jane was in love with their water slide!! She did not want to stop. I lost count on how many times she went down. Atlas was the complete opposite. He didn't want to try it and he cried when he got splashed when Jane slid down one time. It makes me laugh how different they are sometimes. This should have given me a pretty good idea on how our trip to Schlitterbahn in September would go. But that's for another post. ;)

Great Mama & Papa with all their Great Grandchildren!

This was the first time the Daugherty Great Grandparents were in the same place as all their great grandkids. We had to grab a picture to commemorate the moment! It turned out pretty good for having 5 kids 5 and under in a picture together. Little did I know that less than a month from then I would find out that I would be adding another great grandchild to this group of cuties next year! I didn't realize this was our last visit to this house as well! My cousins moved into a new house the same weekend as Scott and Anna. Unlike Scott and Anna they stayed in Austin. Their new house is amazing!! I can't wait to visit!

Number 3!

Since I already covered the beginning of my pregnancy in another post I won't go into it again here. But I will say it did have some impact on our summer. I started slowing down our activities just because I didn't have the energy or feel well enough to do as much as we were doing near the beginning of the summer. I tried to say yes to things even when I was feeling tired because I normally ended up feeling better since I was distracted from feeling bad. ;) So I decided to take on a trip to the zoo the week I found out I was pregnant. I wasn't feeling too bad yet anyway. Our friends the McNair's invited us and had passes to get us in for free! I couldn't turn it down!

Daniels and McNair kiddos

Atlas and Jane both love animals! Somehow this was only the second time we've made it out to the zoo. Downtown just seems so far sometimes and trying to go to a large public place on my own with two toddlers is overwhelming to me. Also I want to stay long enough to feel like I got my money's worth out of the trip and staying that long on my own is just too much! This was our first time to go with friends. It was a lot of fun. Jane was excited to be there with her friend Nathan. :)

Jellyfish!

Elephants! 

Nathan and Jane watching the elephants play

It was pretty hot that day so the aquarium is always the perfect place to cool off and look at the fish. It's dark in there so I always feel like I need to keep a really close eye on Jane and it's not ideal for pictures. So I just have the one with the jellyfish. I think the jellyfish exhibit was their favorite part of the aquarium though. Jane says her favorite animal now is dolphins. That was my favorite animal growing up so it makes me happy. :) We didn't see any dolphins of course. We'll have to plan a trip to sea world sometime. She still loves elephants! In fact she just switched her favorite to elephants when I was asking her. Haha! Let's call them tied. The zoo had a new water exhibit for the elephants and it was super cool! There were two adolescent male elephants wrestling in the water. It was pretty neat to watch them interact with each other! Jane thought it was pretty amazing!

Zoo Splash Pad!

They are big fans of the merry go round!

It was getting a little to hot for us moms so we headed over to the splash pad so the kids could cool off and we could sit for a while in the shade while we watched. Atlas wanted to eat more than play it seemed. Which isn't abnormal for him. ;) I decided I shouldn't push myself any more than I had that day. So once my kids were done splashing we said goodbye and thank you to our friends started making our way to the exit. Before I left my friend Marie gave me their free merry go round passes because her kids don't enjoy it. Well as you can see Jane and Atlas both love merry go rounds!! Of course Jane wanted to go again and again. But our pass was only good for one ride. One of these days I need to get admission to somewhere that has unlimited rides on a merry go round. Jane would be thrilled!

Climb the giraffe!

Ducks! I mean... Flamingos!

On our way out we stopped to climb a giraffe and look at the flamingos. Atlas kept pointing and saying ducks! I said, "Sure, that's close enough bud." It was the closest thing we saw to his favorite animal that day. Ducks are a whole lot easier to see in the wild than dolphins and elephants though. ;) It was a great day at the zoo!

We love to swim!!!

Little fish!

I'm happy to say we spent the majority of our free time in the pool this summer! Jane still asks to swim even when it's snowing outside. Haha! We swam from late April to mid October! Almost half the year. One of the perks of living in Texas. :) We spent a lot of time swimming with Marmee and Pappaw! We even got to have a few swims with Scott, Anna and Ellis.

1 2 3 Jump!

Jane loved sliding into the pool!

Pappaw always makes swimming extra fun

Swimming with Dad

When we weren't swimming with family we were swimming with friends! We had a lot of swim dates with the McNair's either at Marmee and Pappaw's pool or the neighborhood pool. Jane and Nathan would spend their time fighting over swim toys or annoying each other with squirting toys. For some reason unknown to me they seem to enjoy it. They always want to be together. :D I love that she has a friend she loves to be with so much. An added bonus is that I love getting to hang out with Nathan's mom. It's a win win!!

Collecting water ammo!

Swim buddies!

He loves bubble fountains!

Ta da!

Jane also learned to swim all on her own this summer! It was actually during one of our swim dates with friends earlier in the summer that Jane saw her friend Brianna, who's 4 months older than her, swimming on her own that inspired Jane! After that she started swimming on her back on her own and quickly moved to swimming under the water and doggie paddle. By about the middle of the summer she could swim across the pool if she tried.

One of her last swims with floaties.

Doing her thing!

She LOVES to swim!

Atlas hated the pool at the start of the summer. It made me so sad! He loved the water last summer. I think he didn't like the cold water because as soon as the water warmed up enough he decided he loved it again. Yay! When fall rolled around he still wanted to get in and swim even though the water had cooled off. So I guess he realized the fun was worth the cold in the end. :)

Not thrilled

Finally decided to love the pool!

Our last swim in October

We had a bunch of fun playdates with friends throughout the summer as well. This post is getting at little lengthy, so I'll just add a few pictures of the fun times we had with friends over the summer and wrap up our 2017 summer.

Babyhoodies minus Lenore

Old Bible Study pals!

Meeting Barnabas!

Old Camp Tejas buddies. Love you Kae!

Hugs with Rose!

Hugs with Nathan!

Playdate with Liam!

Daniels and McNair's after library story time 

We are so grateful for all our friends! It's so special for my kids to get to have relationships with my longtime friends kids. Just as equally special is when they choose friends completely on their own. Then I end up meeting new friends too! :) While I was looking through this post Jane asked to do everything we did during the summer again right now. I'd say summer 2017 was a huge success!

Colossians 3:12-14

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Two are better than one,

Because they have a good reward for their labor.

But woe to him who is alone when he falls,

For he has no one to help him up.

For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.