Fun at the Schiele Museum

We headed to the Schiele museum with a neighbor, Grace. The kiddos had a fun time learning about life a hundred years ago at their village. Inside we learned all about mammals. Kiddos even got to dress up in addition to seeing a dancing bear, bats, lemurs & porcupine.  It was a great way to spend a rainy morning :)

All The Charlotte Little Ones

Well, our MI family in NC has dwendeled.  We had one last BBQ to say goodbye to the Lambrix & Kelly's.  We will miss them dearly.  

Baby Maddie Ray as a happy Monkey

Emma, Maddie & Luke waiting for the rest of the clan to hop up on the couch

Almost there...still missing Grady... 

Baby Anna (5wks), Emma (4), Maddie (8mos), Luke (18mos),Grady (3) & Mayson (2mos) 

Luke & Maddie

Maddie & Annie

Hilton Head Weekend

We had a great weekend getaway to Hilton Head Island. It was nice to relax with great friends. (From the pictures you'd think baby Grady & Michele were the only ones who joined us, but Kevin, Eray & Curt were there too.)

The first night we enjoyed the pool. Emma's swim lessons are paying off. She LOVES to swim to us by herself. She can float (in the picture she has the tube...but really she can float by herself). She kicks & holds her breath underwater. She's a regular water bug.

Emma & Mimi

At the beach!

Love this picture!

Baby Grady & Emma playing in the sand.

We rented bikes for the weekend. It was so much fun (and nice not having to deal with a car seat all weekend). We were even able to ride out on the beach in the morning. The beach was covered with starfish.

We rode to get ice cream one afternoon & Emma fell asleep during the bike ride. But she kept holding on to the handles!

Look at that face - I LOVE it!

See - - here she is swimming!

Both kiddos enjoyed an afternoon of reading nudie

Emma didn't want to nap but just couldn't stand the fun any longer.

Beach 1 - Emma 0

Hangin' with baby Grady

We worked in a lot of play dates with Grady before Deb had to go back to school. Here are a couple really cute pics of the two of them:

So sweet watching Sesame Street together.

I can't remember if I posted these or not (I know, I could go back and check but that'd be too easy). These are from the Crit Bike Race uptown a few weeks ago.

Amy was in town visiting for the weekend. So fun to have her here!

More From the Zoo

Like Bas said earlier, we had a fun time at the zoo. Well...the first 1.5 hours was nice. Then the girls were fried/done/miserable. But it won't keep us away...we'll do it again this summer (sorry Bas!)

First stop - - watching the bears swim.

Looking to cute in the bird cage. She was so excited to be at the zoo. She really wanted to go find the giraffes.

The daddies showing the girls the GIANT turtle.

Elephant rides

That's Bas' hand feeding the giraffe. Emma didn't want to hold the lettuce so Bas held it & Emma put her hand under Bas'. They fed the giraffe together.

So happy to be riding the carousel

We wanted to take a picture of the girls next to the large gorilla. Just like we did with the elephant. But neither of them would go near it. So I knocked on it to show them it was fake. They would run up, knock & run away as fast as they could.

Eventually Emma warmed up to it. But this was the beginning of the end. As Emma was running back she fell & skinned up her knee pretty bad. She saw all the blood & freaked.

The freakout. While still a little interested in what the monkeys were doing.

We ate lunch. Which seemed to help both girls attitudes. Then headed off to see the fishies. I think the girls could have staying in that spot all day. They loved all the different sizes & colors.

Emma knocking on the large lizard to make sure he's fake.

A grumpy gus. No smiles from Olivia anymore. She was fried.

The faker wouldn't look at me. But this is how we left the zoo - hot, tired, a busted knee & 102 degree fever. Poor poor pitiful Emma. But the good thing is....if you ask Emma if she had fun she says yes.

An update: Originally Emma wouldn't let us put anything on her knee. The first day we had to hold her down to put neosporin & a band aid on. If the neighbors could have heard her screaming I'm sure they would have turned us in. It was terrible. This evening we were able to bandage her knee with no tears. Such a brave girl.

We aren't sure what brought on the fever. She has what looks like a spider bite on her arm. After some tylenol & cortizone cream both seem much better.

And after this weekend I think we should have bought stock in Johnson & Johnson with all our medicine use :)