Lydia got her hair cut for the first time today. Trish said that in the 10+ years that she's been cutting hair, Lydia is her best 1st haircut client! Lydia sat so still and patient while Trish cut it and then showed her in the mirror. Lydia looked and said "BABY!"
So shaggy!
Two weeks ago we took a little road trip over to South Dakota. We stayed in Sioux Falls 2 days and then went up to see Jill in Brookings on our last day.
Sioux Falls is a very nice town with lots to do. We arrived around lunchtime and went to the zoo.
Lydia liked all of the animals and even liked this camel. Nate wanted to ride on the camel with Cassidy, but she didn't want to get near it.
This was as close to riding anything as she would get!
This peacock was just roaming around hoping someone would feed him!
and we did!
Here's a big moth that landed on my upper arm. It peed on me!
My little poser, She wanted me to take this picture! Maybe she's getting out of that stage of not wanting a picture taken? I can only hope.
On our last day, we traveled up to Brookings which is about an hour drive from Sioux Falls. It seems to be a nice place for Jill & Eddie. His store looks great and is a fun place to shop.Two weeks ago we went to visit my sister's farm to ride horse. It's actually her friend's farm, but she keeps her horse there and lets us come to ride every now and then.
Lydia rode first! This was her first time on a horse, doesn't she look like she knows exactly what to do?? It was so cute, she was gripping with her little legs and holding on tight to the horn. She really enjoyed riding the "hoo-hee" (horsie)
This is Dubbs. Not my sister's horse, but a nice old horse that's great for kids.
Cassie loves riding with her cousins.
Lydia loved petting the fluffy kitties. Our clothes were full of cat hair when we left!
WARNING: LONG POST!
I realize it's almost the middle of July, but before I add anything that has happened this month, I thought I should go back to June because it was pretty eventful.
For the third year, we planted our vegetable garden and grew our first radishes, and nobody likes to eat these in our house other than me, so they were all mine. They could have been a little hotter, but I won't complain too much. At least they grew! Other things in the garden: Beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, asparagus, jalapenos and sunflowers. We planted cucumbers, but we think they got overrun by weeds and didn't make it. Currently we're trying to stay on top of the weeds, and trying to be much better about it than previous years. Maybe next year on those cucumbers??!!
The second full week in June was our first time attending VBS (vacation bible school) at our church. Around 65 kids attended and it was so much fun. Cassidy still talks about it. They had a safari theme and I helped with crafts. Every day was something different and the kids kept very busy because they had different activities every 30 minutes. Here is the preschool class during their program on the last night:
Cassidy is in the front with the zebra hat. They made them in their classroom and I think she still has it in her bedroom. I had to staple it a few times because Lydia got her hands on it!
The following 2 weeks we had swimming lessons everyday in town. Again it was our first experience with lessons, so I wasn't sure what to expect because Cassidy has been so scared of water. She would cry & scream in the tub if a tiny drop of water got on her face. So I was sure we were going to go to lessons, because we needed to get over this "fear".
The first day was bad. I wasn't sure if we were even able to make it the next day. The teacher taught them how to do a bob, back floats, and at the end of that first day they were jumping off the side! Cassidy was very proud and excited and was ready for another day! She even called her daddy and told him all about it while he was at work.
The last day was their test day. All of the kids passed easily. Here is Cassie jumping off the diving board:
Even I can't do that!!
And her face is all wet too!! YAY Cassidy! We're so proud of you!
Nate was in a wedding in June. It was Deron (he was our best man) and Erin's wedding. Erin has become a good friend of mine as well as my hairdresser.
We had a wonderful time and the day couldn't have been nicer. 80 degrees and no humidity, lucky for them! You can check out more pictures at the photographer's blog. Congrats Deron & Erin!
That's about it for June. I'll leave you with this picture, my favorite. She never looks at the camera and when she does it's quick and usually without a smile. I was a lucky to get this one!!
Isn't she just the cutest? We love her to death and couldn't imagine our lives without her. She's got such a fun personality and keeps us on our toes.
She's such a smartie pants, for example, this morning Daddy and Cassie were playing Wii baseball and Lydia seemed to want to join in the fun. She ran over to the toy basket in the corner of the room and dug out the little plastic Wii remote that we got from a happy meal long ago and started pointing it at the TV. I understand that it's quite a simple thing that she did, but we don't play the Wii very often, and I think she's pretty smart to make that connection. She understands a whole lot more than we give her credit for. Funny.
About 3 1/2 weeks ago we took away her pacifier, aka nookie. She handled it better than I thought she would. We only had about 2 days of difficulty and after that it was a breeze. We've replaced her nookie with a cd player which has really helped her settle down. I'm so glad we decided to take it away sooner than later since we've heard so many horror stories about other kiddos and their "addiction".
**photos taken at Lake Louise.
My poor Lydia. It all started 2 1/2 weeks ago. She got pinkeye and we didn't even think it was pinkeye, so she suffered 2 whole days with it until we took her in. Things were going good, until the 10th day of her medicine...She developed a rash. And not just a little spot on her arm, but an all-over-the-body rash with little red bumps. She was really uncomfortable, so I took her in right away to our regular dr. and he figured it was an allergy to the medicine that has amoxicillin in it. Nice. So she possibly is allergic to penicillin. Nice.
We were told to stop taking the medicine and let it run its course. Fast forward a few days (late last week), and she developed pinkeye yet again! So another trip to the dr, and he was a little shocked that she still had the rash, that it was worse than 2 days before, and also has pinkeye again. This time she got eyedrops. Wow. If you have never given a 16 month old eyedrops, you are lucky. It's just not that fun, I'll leave it at that.
By Saturday this poor child has a nasty rash, pinkeye, and then developed a low grade fever on top of it all.
Things didn't get any better on monday when I was busy yapping on the phone in our bedroom and in the next room, Lydia climbed halfway up her dresser when it fell over ON TOP OF HER! It was so surreal to me when I ran in there, throwing dresser drawers off of her. She cried so hard, but didn't even end up with a bruise. So scary.
Yesterday we went to the dr again so he could see how her rash was, and I explained how she's had a little fever, but otherwise fine. He checked her over and found out she has an ear infection. I'm so glad that there was an explination for all of this. Hopefully this new medicine will work for her and she'll be back to her normal goofy self in a couple days! 
I wanted to share a couple of pictures that I used for my final project for my photo class. These were from a series of 5 pictures that represented the farm that I grew up at and how it's aged. I chose to just show these pictures because they were chosen by my instructor to be shown at a summer exhibit at the college! I have 17 other images from this class, which is way to many to post in one day, but maybe some other time. There was a lot of great work from our class and also a lot of pride went into making the prints. It was a lot of fun to see the improvement we made in our printing skills as well as the photography itself. I made a few friends and learned a lot from our master instructor. I will definitely miss this class, but I'm glad I have these few "souveniers" to remember. 
