The past week and a half has been crazy. We started potty training Quinn on Memorial Day weekend...and that's all I'm going to say about that at this time.

Jonathan finished our fence that weekend and we've done a ton of yard work lately. Archer turned two months old (my baby is growing up too fast!) and we went to a neighborhood BBQ on Memorial Day.

We spent a ton of time outdoors last week and went to some parks for play dates. This weekend Quinn had her first smore. Some friends of ours just put in a new fire pit so we went to test it out Saturday night, so fun! Their property is amazing for kids to run wild on.

We had our first Sundae Sunday party of the summer. It was a good turnout and the homemade flavor of the month was a simple chocolate.

A highlight of last week is that Quinn and Archer are starting to really interact. He loves watching her and smiling at her and she likes helping him play and talking to him. It completely melts my heart seeing these two begin their friendship.

A quick update on the kiddos. Archer is eight weeks old today! He is now wearing size 6 months because he is getting so long. And that was even before we started cloth diapers with him today. I'm curious to find out his new measurements at his check-up on Friday. His head is quite round, especially with his cheeks getting chubbier. He's cheery, chatty, and strong. Look at these muscles.

Quinn's Montessori activities have been going well. This is our current learning activity set-up.

Clockwise from top left we have knobbed cylinders, colored pasta sorting, pipe cleaner threading, and stringing beads. Her mat is in the bottom left corner. Aside from doing these independently, she's been working over and over on a United States puzzle, a spelling puzzle (pictured below), some jigsaw puzzles, and writing notes and lists. When she writes, she'll spell a word out loud (just an assortment of letters in a row, not actually spelling) and draw squiggly lines next to eachother as she says each letter. She frequently asks me to spell different words with the letters from her puzzle. And she's starting to know the names of the state puzzle pieces, which is boggling my mind. Toddlers are such sponges! 

Her imagination continues to be quite active. Most days I'm expected to respond to Michael (from Mary Poppins), Joseph (as in Mary's husband), or whatever other role she's cast me as in her current game. She is also in love with her salt water sandals. The majority of the time she wants them on first thing in the morning, even while her pajamas are still on, and doesn't take them off until bedtime when she requests to have them on the floor near her bed.

My seven week old little Archer is so sweet these days - full of smiles, constantly wanting to bounce and stand, saying "hey" and "ah-gee" (just like Quinn did, I guess our babies like those sounds), doing awesome on all sorts of outings, and I'm swaddling him with one arm out now. I think he's kinda over the swaddling thing. He's got a pretty predictable routine as far as eating and sleeping goes. On Mother's Day he gave me the best present: a six hour stretch during the night! Up until that point the maximum had been 4.5 hours. Such a thoughtful little boy. And he's kept it up since pretty well.

Friday night before Mother's Day, Quinn and I went to a Mother Daughter Pajama Party at our church. It was awesome. Quinn rocked her unique mix and match pajama style, giggled with other little chickies, munched on snacks while watching Frozen, decorated clips, and, most exciting of all, picked out nail polish colors for her and me. She still talks about her nail polish first thing to everyone we encounter and asks them what color their nail polish is whether they have any or not. It was such a treat to get some one-on-one time with her.

Jonathan's sister Chelsey visited on Saturday. On Mother's Day, we went to my favorite breakfast restaurant and had some awesome food before heading to church. Quinn dressed herself as Belle, but kept her identity a secret so our meal wouldn't be interrupted by fans. (I have to note, Quinn has no context for any of the Disney princesses, but talks about them all the time. Genius marketing? And she's always asking me what each of them sing so it's a good thing my sister and I memorized every song when we were kids.)

Jonathan spent a lot of the weekend and this week finishing off our backyard fence because he is amazing and we want to keep our kids and dog contained. Thanks hubs!

This was the last week of bible study and the gals in my group threw me a little baby shower for Archer. I'll miss those ladies and I know Quinn will be missing her teachers. We also spent a lot of the week having picnics and tea parties in the shade outside. We've gone to a couple birthday parties lately and I've made bean bags as gifts. They are pretty easy to throw together in a short period of time and I have so much fun leftover fabric. I tuck a little list of various bean bag games into the gift as well. Bean bags are so helpful for toddlers working on their gross motor skills. Well, with all the tea parties we've been having, I realized I could make mini bean bags that looked like tea bags. For anyone out there who has a child who likes playing tea party, a sewing machine, and fabric and ribbon scraps, you've got to make these! I just cut out two tea bag shapes per fabric, sewed them right sides together leaving an opening, flipped them right side out, filled with some lentils, tucked some ribbon in, and sewed around all the edges. And Quinn will actually sit on my lap and watch me sew too, I love it! Pictured here we have chamomile, gingerbread spice, peppermint, and vanilla rooibos. Mostly because those are the flavors we actually drink in our home.

Oh, this afternoon. Never before in my life have I experienced an hour and a half so full to the brim with spit up, urine, spilled food, and tears. So many tears! Everything was making the tears worse and the tears were making everything else worse. I finally convinced my youngest darling child to take a nap and my oldest darling child was immersed in an activity, so I snuck away to every mom's favorite hiding spot: the bathroom. I was just crafting up a whiny, pity text to Jonathan when I heard my sweet little girl's voice singing out, "...Glory Hallelujah, He's so good to me..." Pierce me to the heart, Lord! You are good to me! I can't even number the blessings! Thank you!

We've had a lot going on the past two weeks! Our neighbor girl had a fun birthday party picnic. My sister, mom, and dear friend Amber threw me a "sip and see" baby shower with friends and relatives from both sides of the family. Quinn watched her first full length movie - Mary Poppins. She loved it! She hasn't stopped singing the songs since. My Grandma June flew out from Niagara Falls and stayed at our house a couple days, then we all headed to Eugene for a couple more days. It was so fun having her meet her great grandboys. And Quinn got a lot of fun playtime in. Today was Archer's and my final check-up with the midwives. I have to say, I'm quite sad to be done visiting these sweet ladies. They have been such an enjoyable part of the last nine months. And Archer is six weeks old today! He gained ten ounces in one week, such a chubba cutie.