THE WILSON FAMILY CIRCUS!

Ladies and Gentlemen! Come one, come all to the Wilson Family Circus! Pull up a chair and be ready to be entertained...
For our first act, Chloe balancing on a ball!

Our second act is Gracie, the juggler...

For our third act, we have Julia clapping!

And for the Grand Finale...Chloe, doing ballet on an elephant! (originally, the elephant was Gracie, but that didn't work out so well, so we switched our elephant)

Thanks for coming to our circus! Chloe has decided that she'd like to be a ballet clown in the circus when she grows up, balancing on balls and on elephants and doing all sorts of tricks...

My amateur photographers

Chloe & Gracie love to take pictures with the camera whenever we let them. (Which is one of the things that I love about digital pics...I can delete the 30 pictures of the drawer and the lamp and the toybox) But they do actually take some very good pictures. They love to follow Julia & Izzy around and just take tons of shots. Here are some of the good ones from today...

Chloe's...

And Gracie's...

Julia the firefighter

The girls got this fire hat at the 4th of July fair we went to, and Julia loves to wear it and play with it. She even crawls around with it over her face! Take a look at the video and see her...

And a picture...

Our future's so bright, we gotta wear shades!!

Mommy's Shades that is... on a side note, doesn't Chloe look so grown up? I was watching her with my sunglasses on, and she just seemed so big all of a sudden.

There's a theater near Ben's work that does a summer movie program, so we went today to see the VeggieTales Pirate Movie. It was very cute, and the girls had a good time...even Julia stayed awake and "watched" the movie with us.

Then, there is a set of play fountains, so the girls got to run through the fountains for a little bit before we met Ben for lunch at a Greek Pita place. Yummy!

Summer is for...Blueberry picking!

We went with our friends today to pick blueberries. We had a fun time…the girls loved being with their friends way more than picking the blueberries. They picked for a little while and then they all sat under a tree and played while we picked a few more. It was a fun time to be with friends and to get some great fresh and delicious blueberries. Here are some pictures…

Serena, Chloe, Corrinn, & Gracie

It was pretty warm, so they were all ready to get out of the sun for awhile, but Julia was especially excited to be let out of her stroller and be able to move around. She was crawling around squealing for a few minutes... We got lots of delicious blueberries, so now we need to decide what we're going to do with these...the girls want to make a blueberry pie and some blueberry jam.

Summer is for... Catching Fireflies!

Ben and I both have memories from visiting places as kids where there were fireflies. We both loved catching them as kids, so we were excited when we moved to Pennsylvania that there are fireflies in the summer. In our block, there are several other kids and they love to run around and play together. They often are out catching fireflies as it's getting dark. All of them were out last night running around, having a great time. Between the five of them, they caught so many fireflies and had them all in this big bug catcher. Chloe even got over her fear of bugs and caught them in her hands to put them in there. I just thought I'd post some pictures of the fun!

And here's Julia who can't catch fireflies yet, but LOVED watching the big kids run around and come say hello to her on their way past.

Who do the girls look like?

We get that question all the time... I saw this look-a-like meter on a friend's blog (thanks Joanne). Here are the results...


Here's Chloe's...

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology - Family pictures


And Gracie's...

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph


And Julia's...

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Pedigree - Family tree template



I wasn't completely convinced that it was actually calculating anything until I did my own...

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph


Everyone has always told me that I look just like my mom, so that fits pretty well. Now it does make a difference what picture you put in. I put one picture of Gracie in and it said she looks equally like both of us, but then the 2nd one I put in changed it to more like Ben. People have been telling us lately that Chloe looks like me and I think Gracie looks a lot like Ben did as a kid, so it's fun to see what this website said...

Sleeping with the Fishes

When we went to check on the girls last night, we found them sleeping with their dolphins. They love these dolphins that they won at the festival! Last night, Chloe's popped a hole in one of the fins, and she was so upset about it. So, we ended up patching the hole and giving it a band-aid to make it feel all better. That satisfied her and she was able to go to sleep.

Here's the dolphin with it's dorsal fin all bandaged up!

A visit with Mom & Dad & the 4th of July

My parents came back from their year abroad this week. They stopped here to pick up their van and to visit with us for a few days before they head on a 3 week trip back to Texas (with stops along the way with lots of different family). We had a great time with them while they were here...we did some sightseeing, had lots of fun, and of course lots of cuddle-time!! Here are (a lot) of pictures of our time together. It was so great to see them, and to watch our girls light up whenever Grandmama & Grandaddy were near.

Playing outside on a beautiful day!

The girls love having G&G read to them! The WWII memorial by us

Spending time together!

We went to visit and tour a coal mine. We rode a train way under the ground and got to walk around and see a little of what it was like for a coal miner in the 1800s. Gracie was very concerned while we were down in the mine about how we were going to find our car again. She wasn't scared at all of the stuffed rats or bats, or when they turned all the lights off to demonstrate how dark it is in the mine with only a tiny flame to light the way, just wondering "where's our car?"

Ben & I have our 10th anniversary coming up next week, so while Mom & Dad were here, we got to go out on a 2-part date (since Julia's still nursing). We had a nice time together without the kiddos.

We celebrated the 4th of July together

We went swimming for a little while, but it was cool and a little rainy,

so that didn't last very long.

Mom & the girls made a cake for America's birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday to America. You can't really tell in this picture, but Izzy had gotten a hold of the cake and licked frosting off of one corner. It was still very pretty and yummy, as long as we avoided that corner... Mom & the girls had a game day where they played a bunch of different games. Here they are playing "Great States"


Then, on Saturday, we went to a 4th of July festival at the park near our house. The girls got to ride a bunch of rides, and play some carnival games. They won a goldfish (which died already today...), and a couple of inflatable dolphins!

Here they are on the mini-ferris wheel and a train ride. They had a great time on all the rides and were laughing and having fun...then they'd get a little bored, but as soon as they got off the ride, they'd both say "Let's go ride another one!!"

Here they are riding race cars, and Julia waiting patiently in the stroller.

We were so glad to have Mom & Dad here for a visit. We were sad to see them go, especially since it'll be a few months before we see them again. It's crazy to think that Julia will be walking, and probably talking some by the next time we see them. But while they were here, Julia got another tooth, and started letting go for a few seconds while she's standing. She also was clapping, and we put her hair in a ponytail for the first time... She's at such a cute and fun age, so it was fun to have Grandmama & Grandaddy get to know her. Gracie was also keeping us entertained with all the funny things she says and her funny take on the things we were doing.