July-August 2013 (Lazy summer days)

Although July started with a week-long trip to Idaho and ended with a week-long trip to YoungLives summer camp, there were many, many days in between and after that fairly counted as lazy, summer days.  

This summer, we spent a lot of time outside.  It was beautiful and not too hot, for the most part.  We spent a lot of time on this swing and on the front porch...

...and  even more time in our backyard which, despite the awful mosquitos and lack of grass (read: weeds & mud), we have really grown to love.  

"Slip and slide"... appropriately named.

Charli got super-brave after watching her big cousins in Idaho and would fearlessly leap off of the slide into the water.

Nevertheless, she would scream at the top of her lungs when Sam went down in a reasonably normal fashion... "SSSSAAAAMMMMMMMMM!!!!!"  I'm not sure if it's her southern accent or the fact that when she's yelling at Sam she's typically worried- either way, "Sam" is almost always a four syllable word when big sis is yelling it.  

Poor Benjamin didn't get out as much as the rest of us.  He was napping a lot, and mama was taking advantage of those naps to run the big siblings around in the heat (the luxury of having a husband who studies at home a lot).  But those naps served B well.  He was mostly smiling when he was awake, he is the only Martin child to date to walk before the first birthday, and he consistently weighed in at dr's appointments in the 90th percentile.  Chunk of love.

It's worth noting in this picture that I've had a favorite baby body part of all my babies.  I'm not sure if that's creepy or not.  For Charli: her thighs.  She could've taken down any baby in a thigh-roll competition, and she was just so round and sweet.  For Sam: his feet.  They were more like marshmallows than feet, and I absolutely adored them.  For Benjamin: THOSE CHEEKS!! They are perfectly round and full and adorable, and they get more than their fair share of kisses.  Noticing a theme?  I like my babies fat :).  

 Sam and Charli took swim lessons this summer.  They were moderately successful.  They learned to float a bit and jump into the pool unassisted.  But they had a really nice time!

                                               

 We took these mad skills to the pool pretty regularly.  With puddle jumper life jackets, of course.

                                               

The three pictures above show classic examples of Sam and Charli's "cheese" faces.  Who couldn't love these faces?!

Here are some other things that we did a lot of this summer:

                                      

And I almost always ended my days this sweet way:

                                                

Happy, lazy, summer days.