Life, by Merry, Dave, Lizzy Jo, and Charly

Here are some of the everyday happenings in our family these days:

*Every morning Lizzy Jo comes sleepily into our bedroom and asks for a pull-up change.  She is pretty accident-free during the day but still sleeps with a pull-up at night.  I love her cute, sleepy greetings.  Sometimes she climbs in bed with us for a while, if it's especially early, although we try to get her to go back to sleep in her own bed on those mornings.

*Charly wakes up and usually stays content in her crib, sucking on her "baba" (our family word for the pacifier).  We usually hear her talking or singing to herself, so when we get up to change Lizzy Jo and get her breakfast, we go in to get Charly too.  She always wakes up with her frizzy hair on the back of her head all worked up and crazy!  This spot never goes away, just lies a little flatter and smoother after it's been brushed.

*Dave rides his bike to and from work almost every day (even when the high gets up to 120!).  He's still working on divorces, child custody, some criminal defense, and a lot of civil litigation.  He's recently been trying to convince me that we should buy him a motorcycle!  When he gets home at night, the girls run to him and scream "Daddy!"  They love it when he can come with us to the pool or splash pad.

*Speaking of which, we go to the pool and splash pad a LOT in the summer.  The girls are little water babies and love every minute we spend there.  Lizzy can do a little floating and likes to swim under water from the wall to me, or dive down to get rings on the bottom.  She can't swim on top of the water yet, but I think that will come by the end of the summer, or next summer.  She had one week of swim lesson already, and she'll have another week of lessons next week.

*Some of our other favorite summer activities are going to the park as early as we can, going to the library for story time or to play with toys, getting an ice cream cone after grocery shopping trips, and going to my exercise group where Lizzy can play with other kids while I exercise (although we haven't gone in over a month because of sickness and travel).

*Starting last summer, I've been a REALLY regular runner, and I run most days (although, again, the last little bit I haven't run as much).  I'm attempting to run 1000 kilometers (621 miles) during 2016, which requires running about 12 miles/week.  Before the summer heat, I ran with the girls in the jogging stroller pretty often.  They were both getting pretty used to it, but now that it's so hot, I usually run in the mornings or evenings without them.  I think that it will be an adjustment for them again in the fall, to get used to sitting in the stroller for runs.

*A lot of our time right now is spent sitting in the air conditioned house.  We play, makes snacks, read books.  And I'm afraid that we do watch more TV than at other times of the year, since we can't get out as much as we'd like.

*We live pretty close to St. George, and every 1-2 weeks we go play at the St. George Children's Museum.  The girls love playing in the mini post office or grocery store, and riding the carousel outside.  We make it an all-day trip and bring our swimsuits for the splash pad they have there.

I'll come back and add pictures to this post if I remember.  Better to post now without pictures than to have never posted!