I'm sitting here scratching my head about how summer could possibly be halfway over already! I just can't even believe how fast time is flying and I wish it would just slow down! We have been loving summer here in the Martino household. No school and having a nanny instead is wonderful! It makes mornings so much slower paced and less stressful. No having to make lunches or get kids ready and out the door early. If they're still in their jammies when Emily gets here it's no problem. And the kids get to be together and just relax and have fun. I kind of just wish it could stay like this!
Another thing I have enjoyed this summer is doing "works" with Levi and Emery while Isla takes her morning nap. I enjoy working with them and seeing them learn. They both are progressing really well. Levi enjoys doing sudokus and I'm really proud of Emery because she knows all her letters now and the sounds they make! She's getting close to sounding out some simple words, which is exciting. And I am really grateful that Isla has settled into a pretty good nap routine now and will take two hour to hour and half long naps each day. Now if only she would sleep through the night! She is still nursing once a night any time between 1 and 4 and sometimes wakes up outside of that as well and needs Eric's help to go back to sleep. Since she's been struggling, we moved Emery out of her room and into Levi's room. The kids love this but it's definitely a challenge to get them to go to sleep at night because they just keep talking and playing together! Even right now (an hour past their bedtime) I can hear them jabbering away with each other. So they've been going to sleep late and still waking up early which means they're a little sleep-deprived and extra emotional during the day. But I feel like we can't move Emery back in with Isla until Isla is sleeping better or Isla will wake Emery a lot at night. At least with Levi and Emery together they have fewer nightmares and both just sleep through so we only have one kiddo up in the night. I get a little crazy when I'm up multiple times a night.
Anyway, here are some snapshots of summer vibes and life in the Martino home:
Emery LOVES "helping" Isla. She is very nurturing, almost to excess at times! She always wants to feed her, hug her, play with her. We have to constantly be reminding her not to try to pick up Isla or move her because she just wants to so much!
At the beginningof June we threw Emery a little birthday party. We called it a princess ball and invited all her little friends to dress up for it. It was SO cute and fun! She had several friends from school come as well as some church friends and Silva and they had a blast doing the pinata, eating cupcakes and having a glow in the dark dance party.
Isla thinks she is a big girl and started pulling to stand right before she turned 8 months old! I was like, "what are you doing?! slow down baby!" but she has not slowed down haha
Thighs for daaaaaayyyys.
Both my girls LOVE the water and the bath :)
Look Mom, now I stand only holding on with one hand!
Isla has also figured out how to carry things around in her mouth while crawling and pulling up on stuff and it is both adorable and hilarious.
One of our family goals this summer was to do at least 2-3 things from the family adventure book that Katie and Kendall got us. This was one of the activities: the parent holds a glass of water and the kids use pillows to try to make it spill. Eric was MUCH better at it than me and the kids had a blast!
Yesterday we celebrated 4th of July at the Celina Splash and Blast just like we did last year only this year instead of being with family we went with friends. The Ennises and the Schades joined us this year and it was soooo hot but also a lot of fun. The kids had a great time riding the water slides, dancing to the live music, playing in the sand and running around with their glow sticks while watching the fireworks. Love this picture of Emery and sweet Addie.
Levi making sand angels in the beach volleyball sand which basically turned into a giant sandbox for kids during the event. He also amused himself by running laps around the sand volleyball court even though the temperature was in the upper 90s with humidity pushing the "feels like" temps above 100!
4th of July baby!
This is how we did fireworks: binkie in and ear muffs on to block the noise. I'm actually impressed with how well Isla handled being out so late. We didn't get home till nearly 11 pm last night but Isla only got a little fussy while we were out.
Church with this little girlie of mine can be a bit of a challenge. We have 1 pm church which overlaps with her afternoon nap so she's always getting a bit fussy towards the end. And she's gotten to the age where she just wants to be free and explore. Today I missed most of 2nd hour because she needed to nurse, then she fell and hit her head because she let go while standing and toppled over so she needed comforting, then she pooped so needed a diaper change! And with Eric rocking it as the primary chorister Isla duty falls solely on me. Good thing she is just the cutest ever :)
Oh also, I realized I only have videos of these things and no pictures but the kids had swim lessons the last two weeks that went great and they can both at least kind of swim now! The teacher, Miss Sally, is amazing. She got them from 0 swimming skills to being able to jump off the diving board and swim to the side of the pool in two weeks. Also, we put the pedals on Levi's balance bike on Friday and with less than an hour of practice, he is now riding his bike great all on his own with no training wheels! Balance bike worked like it should! Too bad Emery refused to ever ride one so it's training wheels for that girl.
.heic)
.heic)
