Taking a baby shower

Last week Sophia, Ella and I went to a baby shower for our nanny Veni who was with us from when Sophia was born until I stopped working last year. Sophia and I were very excited but Ella seemed apprehensive. This made no sense because she LOVES Veni and is always jumping off the walls when she knows Veni is coming over.

The night before the shower I was trying to encourage Ella that it would be a fun afternoon:

me: It's going to be so much fun tomorrow. You are going to have lots of friends there. Gosia, Michelle, Val, Emmy.

Ella: But not at the same time.

me: Yes, everyone will be there together with Veni.

Ella: But we can't all be there together.

me: Why not?

Ella: It's too small!

(at this point she is getting frustrated with me and speaking to me like I'm a toddler and she is tired of explaining why I can't have candy for dinner)

me: Veni's house?

Ella: No, the BABY'S SHOWER! We can't all fit in it!

We all started laughing and I explained to her that we weren't all going to actually take a shower.

Here are some pictures:

Happy Fourth of July!

We had an All-American weekend at our friends the Dold's lake house in Michigan. It was a weekend filled with friends and family. For the kids is was all about swimming, fishing, watersports, sparklers and s'mores.

Everyone caught their first fish:

Sophia was very excited
Until she realized the fish was still alive and it started flopping around
Here's Ella's whopper:


Ceci even got in on the action:


Life is good

Rick took the girls out on the jet ski:
Sophia went tubing and on the wake board:
Rick went waterskiing:
Well...he wasn't technically "waterskiing" since he didn't actually stand up on the skis but he did get pulled behind the boat a number of times. I think you can see his skis sticking out of the water on this one. The other shots were just a big splash.

S'mores were definitely a highlight:


The kids decorated the pontoon boat for the boat parade:

Katie was meticulously wrapping the streamers
Sophia and Harper made a lego flag:
Here are a couple more photos from the weekend: