Carli 17 months

I guess I better finish this post before Carli turns 18 months!!! Carli turned 17 months while we were visiting the Bartoo's. She has come into her own the last few months and is really acting like a toddler. 

She had no patients or desire to take her 17 month picture. She is getting so fast it was hard to get any pictures at all. 

Carli has such a sweet personality. We are so grateful she joined our family. 

She is still a good sleeper and goes to between 7:30 and 8:30 and gets up between 7:30 and 8:30. She takes about a 3 hours nap in the afternoon. She is good about taking it anywhere between 11:30 and 1:00pm. 

She loves to read books and her favorite book is, " The little engine that could". I think she likes the trains in the book. She also likes to pretend to talk on her toy cell phone, or my phone if she can get a hold of it. She says, "Hi Nana" and then carries on a conversation that is pretty much non understandable. 

I took her over to U of M for a speech evaluation at the beginning of the month and even since then she has started to say a lot more words. It's so cute to hear her say, "Owe", "Yeah", "Uh-oh". She is also gotten much better at caring on a conversation and answering questions. 

Carli is busy!!! She can open drawers, bottles, caps and get into almost anything. She can also climb on the table, counter top and loves to find crayons or pens her sisters have left out and draw on stuff. 

I use to think I was a great mom because Gretta and Eliza never colored on the wall, but really it was only because we didn't have any crayons in the house they could get too. Where as Carli already has because crayons are every where in our house now. 

She has a mouth full of teeth!!! She also loves to brush her teeth. 

She is still not a super picky eater. She likes most things, but if you put something on her tray she doesn't want she will throw it off the tray. 

She loves to play with her sisters and is super social. She loves to tell everyone she sees hi. 

She cries every time her sisters leave for school. She is so sad to see them leave. She also gets excited every time we go to school, or I tell her we are going to the bus stop to pick them up.
She is such a love!!!

We love you Carli !!!

Sisters at the park

We went to the park today for a little while before we started our trip to Anna & Gabe's. Gretta and Eliza are so good to Carli. We are really going to miss them when they go to school next week. They are always playing with her and Carli sure tries hard to keep up. She is quite the dare devil. 

It is so much fun to see them playing together. 

Back to School Ice Cream Social

The girls were so excited to attend their back to school ice cream social and meet their new teachers and play on the new playground equipment. Unfortunately  the playground wasn't read and safe to play on which was pretty sad, but we still had a good time seeing old friends and meeting their brand new teachers.
I also took some pictures of the courtyard. For our Ward Day of Service we helped with 3 other families from our ward clean it out, weed, and put down new mulch. It turned out nice.
Gretta has Ms. Adams and Eliza has Ms. Etter. They are both brand new out of college! I don't know what to expect, but the girls were excited to have such cute teachers.
The PTO did a great job with the event and the kids enjoyed the ice cream as well as the St. Joe Bear Tattoo's.
Eliza also got to check out her classroom and the bus too. She is so excited to ride the bus with Gretta!!!!

Visa pictures

We went and took our pictures for our visa today. This is proof that even when you are as cute as Carli they don't turn our very flattering. 

Hopefully we will be able to use our visa pictures soon:)

Thanks Dennis & Linda

Thanks for the beautiful flowers!

Whirlpool Splash Pad

We hadn't been to the splash pad all summer. This summer has been pretty cool and the splash pad is the best on a hot day, so some how we hadn't made it yet. In our attempt to make the most of our last week of summer vacation we picked up a few friends and went on Monday morning. We had a great time. I think Carli enjoyed it the most. Gretta enjoyed playing with her friends Maren and Alexa. 

We dint do it

The girls left this note for Eric outside our door. 

What do you think? Are the guilty?

Surfing Lake Michigan with the Christensen's

Friday our good friends Mike and Elizabeth Christensen came down with their family to come to the beach. It was one of the best beach days of the summer so far. We had such a good time. Eric enjoyed surfing the small waves and the kids had a blast! We brought along Maren Barfuss too. 

We all love the beach!!! Carli especially loves the beach!

Then they came home to our house and had dinner and we put the kids to bed. We had a great time playing games and laughing after the kids went to bed. We are so glad the Christensen's moved from MBA school with us to Michigan.