Buddies

Auntie Erin is staying with Carter and Camden, so we invited the three of them over this evening. Dane and Carter were off and running right away!

"Does your popsicle taste as good as mine, Dane?"
Toys out of the toybox to make room for the boys!
Camden just watches in anticipation of the day when he can join all their fun!
Blowin' bubbles with Erin.
Dane's turn.
Playing in the sandbox. These two go from one activity to the next every few minutes. It's hard to keep up!!
Watching Finn before the fun evening together ended.

Primm

Mike had to go to Primm for work yesterday afternoon, so I took the kiddos to meet him at Buffalo Bill's after I was done with work for the day. A couple of Mike's coworkers watched Dane and Nora for a few minutes while we rode the Desperado. Then Mike took Dane on the Log Flume before we mosied around the arcade for a while. So far, Dane has not realized that these games would be much more fun with some quarters, and we're just fine with that!

Nora looks like she's eyeing Daddy's ice cream! Sorry, but you'll have to wait a few more months, sweetie!

Nora

Our poor little peanut is trying to finally get rid of the little cold that's been nagging her for the past week. Just some congestion and a bit of coughing, but we took her to the doctor yesterday since the weekend was approaching and we didn't want any visits to the ER if it looked like something more serious was developing. We were reassured that she was doing fine and would likely kick it soon. We also got her most recent stats- she now weighs 11 pounds, 12 ounces and is 23 1/2 inches long.

Nora seems to like her cute little flip-flops!

This is how she sleeps. We have to swaddle her in these blankets at night so that she sleeps for more than a couple hours at a time. Any time that I have tried to go without the swaddling, the nights get a bit rough. So we'll keep swaddling for now and appreciate the 7-8 hours of sleep that it buys us! She always winds up sneaking a hand or two out by morning.
Such a little sweetie. This picture of Nora reminds me of this picture of Dane when he was just a couple weeks older than Nora is now. He was already quite a bit heavier than she is, but they are definitely related!

12 weeks

Time certainly is flying away. Here are some pictures of our little peanut taken today in her cute new dress from the Klock "grandparents," her sweet little shoes from Auntie Renee, and her new lovey bear from the Coppin family.

Cuteness

Nora has started sitting in the Bumbo for short periods of time. She seems quite interested in her big brother! The shirt pretty much sums it up...

Dane likes to "shave" with Daddy.

We went to lunch in downtown Boulder City with the Shepherds after meeting. The boys kept themselves (and most of our fellow diners) entertained while waiting for our food. The pictures look a bit fuzzy because of the misters above us helping to keep us cool. It's still in the low 100's here during the day.

The boys wolfed down two large slices of pizza between the two of them. By the way, check out Dane's tie. He didn't want to take it off today!

Happy Labor Day!

Our little girl is 11 weeks old already today.

Check out that big dimple in her left cheek.
We enjoyed a lazy afternoon at a pool just down the road from us. Dane had a great time!

Warming up in the sunshine.

Bathing beauty!

It was an adventure, to say the least...

Friday afternoon, our friends Bryan and Anna called to ask if we would be interested in camping with them out on Lake Mead. They had gone out the night before and found a nice little spot. We had a little lapse of reason and agreed to join them. We both rushed home from work early to start packing up and getting our boat ready. By the time we met them (along with John and Denita) out at Calville Bay and all launched our boats, the sun was setting as we set across the lake. We were wishing it was a bit lighter out since the water was perfectly still and would have made for some beautiful wakeboarding. We hoped it would be just as calm the next morning.

We followed along behind them as they led the way through the darkness to our campsite. It was nearly a 45-minute boat ride. Dane helped Daddy navigate.
It was Nora's first boating experience, but she didn't think it was all that exciting.

We got out to the area where Bryan and Anna had camped the night before, but they couldn't find the spot. Luckily, they came upon a nice little sandy beach just as good or better than their previous site. It seems we were pretty lucky to find it, since we realized it was surrounded by many rocky points when the sun came out Saturday morning. Thus far into our experience, things were going fairly smoothly. We unloaded our boats, and Anna proceeded to put together some hamburgers since none of us had eaten yet. Halfway through our meal, Dane started to get tired (it was nearing his usual bedtime) and started sobbing to go home. It wasn't really an option for us since it would have taken over two hours for us to pack up, try to blindly navigate back to Calville Bay, load up the boat, and drive back into town. So Mike decided it was time to set up the tent so that we could settle Dane in for the night. That's when he discovered that we had no tent poles with. By now, Nora was a bit out of sorts, Dane was outright melting down, and Mike and I were becoming rather frazzled. However, Mike and Bryan managed to pull together some light poles, a boat oar, and a water ski and set up our tent after a fashion. I continued to try to calm Dane, who finally settled in with me on the boat (he must have felt there was some hope that we would go home as long as were on the boat), and Anna rocked Nora back to sleep. We finally all settled in for the night with Dane stirring every so often and sobbing "I want to go home!" We thought things were good until Dane decided that this camping thing was pretty fun and woke up to jump on our air mattress for over an hour! We were glad that he was not longer sobbing, but we were getting rather desperate for some sleep. We finally settled in again sometime in the early morning. It was kind of fun to lay there under the stars, hoping the wind wouldn't get any stronger, and watching the lightning far off to the south, crossing our fingers it would stay there. Dane awoke early the next morning, eager to go for a swim!

The view from our tent.

Nora slept in her pack and play most of the night, but she snuggled in with us early in the morning. Overall, she did much better than Dane- this time!

See, it really did end up looking like a tent after all.

Dane decided not to actually go swimming, but he watched Daddy from the boat.

Then they meandered around the beach for a while.

Bryan and Anna put together a good breakfast over the fire.

We went out for a little while to do some wakeboarding after breakfast. However, Dane's lack of sleep was catching up with him, and he started becoming rather unbearable. The water was a little too rough to be much fun, so we packed up and headed back to Calville Bay. The wind continued to pick up on the boat ride back in, making for some rough waves and one very upset little boy. We finally got him to calm down enough to "drive" the boat in the calmer water right before we loaded up to go home.

We were all unloaded at home with the kids napping by noon. We had a lazy afternoon and all were in bed by 8 pm to try to make up for our lack of sleep Friday evening. All in all, we had a very memorable time!!