Maren at 18 months old

I'm a little late in posting this as Maren will be 2 next month (and then I'll have more!).

In February Maren was 1 &1/2. Wow so much can happen in just 6 months for these little ones.

Maren was always a good mimmicker and talked really early so I don't know why it surprised us when at this age she was starting to talk in sentences and singing songs.  

She is not nearly as shy as her brother and sister have been at this age (and beyond). She may take a few minutes to warm up but is pretty easy going.

She is a total daddy's girl. Sometimes she won't even let me help her put her shoes on or hold her if he is around.

And funny enough she looks just like his baby pictures too! minus the girly stuff of course.

She loves her big brother and sister and follows them around all the time.  

I guess having two older siblings means that she will grow up faster in a sense than the other two did. She is picking everything up so quickly.

Her favortie song is "I Am a Child of God". She knows all of the words perfectly except for one ... instead of "parents kind and dear" she sings "Maren's kind and dear". Someday we'll have to break it to her, but for now we'll just let her stick with that. 

What a precious baby!

1 out 1 to go

Embrire's 1st year of preschool came to a close at the end of May.

She already missed her teacher as soon as we walked out the door, but we'll be back again in the fall!

She did such a good job on her program part (remember I already said she is getting to be less shy). 

secret cave

We took a little adventure on Memorial Day this year and found an easy hike area where there was supposed to be a hidden cave to explore.

First of all, we found it really wasn't much of a hike at all, which was sitll ok, and second it probably isn't much of a secret these days, but it wasn't too crowded either.

The kids thought it was great!

Maren decided there was no way we were going to talk her into going into the dark hole in the rocks, she stayed outside with the snacks.

We didn't go to far into the cave because it happened to be pretty wet the further in you went. And I had a hard time convincing Embrie that it would be ok to turn the flashlight off for a picture inside.  

The kids really wanted to hike and since it really wasn't much of a hike they took off up the steep mountain side. Brad told me this wouldn't be a good idea, but I thought it was totally fine. And then once we were half way up with Maren in tow, he pointed out that it is easier to go up than to go down....

oh... yeah that is true. I was carrying Maren in my arms and Embrie is only 4 so it was tricky to get down but we all lived to tell the tail, with no injuries. It was really pretty there though.

Garrett carried around with him a glass jar in his backpack because he was really wanting to catch a lizard. But thats another story for another time...