Fourth of July in Swansea

Alright, back to the regularly (or not-so-regular!) scheduled catch up posts. On today's menu, the Fourth of July in Swansea!

As usual, we spent the fourth of July weekend in Massachusetts. Unfortunately this year, the fourth was on Monday when we had to go home, so we didn't get to participate in the neighborhood parade. We still had a great weekend though!

On Saturday was Cathy's baby shower. It was very nice and she got a lot of great gifts. Here are the Walker ladies at the shower: Kristin, Joan, Cathy, Kim and Ella in front

While we were at the shower, the boys and Leah went down to the Landing to go swimming. Jack and Cameron check out the beach.

Jeff supervising the kiddos - Jack, Cam and Leah

Sweet Miss Leah! She LOVES her hat.

They got tired of the beach pretty quickly and headed out to the dock to jump off and swim. Cameron wanted to jump in on his own, with no one in the water to catch him. He did great!

Then Daddy showed off his diving skills

And back in jumps Cameron

Then Jack wanted a turn

Leah wanted to jump in too, but she can't quite jump yet. Instead she backed into the water, just like she would go down any step. Very cute!

Leah going underwater!

Apparently she was not a big fan of the yucky tasting water. I can't say I blame her!

This is what happens when you leave a baby girl along with a bunch of dads. The poor kiddo ends up with one sad looking pigtail coming off the side of her head. This would have been acceptable in the 1980s, when it could have been considered a side ponytail. Now it just looks silly! :-P

Daddy dives again

And Leah backs into the water again

After we got back from the shower and they got back from the Landing, everyone went over to Tom and Joan's for dinner. Leah and Ella hanging out.

Goofing around with Jack

Cathy, about eight months pregnant

The next day we decided to go back to the Landing for more swimming, since the kids had so much fun the day before. Unfortunately, it was much more overcast and chilly, so we didn't do much swimming. First Cameron and Daddy checked out the water. There were also more waves, so Cam really didn't like the water as much today.

Walking out to the dock

A cute family picture - I can't believe that everyone is looking at the camera!

Walking back down to the landing. I think this one is pretty cute too. :)

My sweet kiddos

Leah and her cherry hat. The girl LOVES hats! She is probably the only baby ever who will actually keep them on.

That night we went up to Kim and Jeff's for dinner. The kids had a blast playing in the backyard. Cameron and Jack took turns being soccer goalie. Jack kicks!

Coming in from the other side! Cameron loves being goalie, and he is actually pretty good at it.

Now it is Cam's turn

Meanwhile, Ella and Leah play in the grass

It was such a fun weekend, as always!

More about Leah

One thing I forgot to mention in my 15 month post was how good Leah is at communicating. She really gets her point across and understands everything we are asking. We think she is pretty darn smart! :-P She can nod her head yes and shake her head no, and amazingly she actually uses them correctly. She doesn't just say NO to everything, like I remember Cameron doing. She has a pretty good size vocabulary, although I think I am the main one who can understand her words. She can say: Leah, Mama, Dada, Poppa, Nana, brother, Cameron, Grandpa, hi, bye-bye, ball, up, out, help, more, thank you, please, milk, water, do, poo-poo, duck, uh-oh, cracker, cookie, baby. She can also make the animal noises for a duck, a cow, a dog, a bird and a cat. We think she is going to be quite the chatty girl when she gets older!

Leah - 15 months old!

Last week, our sweet Leah Kate turned 15 months old. It is crazy that she is such a big girl already. On Tuesday she had a doctor's appointment. She got one shot and was so mad at the nurse after she got the shot, but then waved and blew her kisses on the way out. Here are her stats:
Weight: 19 pounds, 14 ounces - 8th percentile
Height: 30 inches - 26th percentile
Head: 46 cm - 51st percentile

Tim was very worried that the doctor would be worried about Leah not gaining much since her one year visit, but the doctor was fine with it. He knew how active she has gotten since she her last visit, and figured she is probably just using a lot more calories these days. He looked at her chunky thighs and said, "It doesn't look like this child is starving!"

We certainly don't think she is starving, the girl is a wonderful eater. She will eat most anything - meat, veggies, fruits, bread. She drinks a ton of milk and loves anything dairy, especially cheese. Many times, she will eat more than Cameron during a meal. All of that is exactly why I wasn't too worried about Leah's lack of weight gain.

Miss Leah is indeed a very active girl these days. At around twelve and a half months, she started walking quite a bit. It started out, of course, with four or five Frankenstein steps between Mama and Daddy, but pretty quickly turned into walking for distances. Now she walks, runs, can walk backwards and tries her hardest to jump. She LOVES to dance and do acrobatics - really she likes to do whatever her big brother is doing!

Leah has always been a curious girl, and now that she is active it has just increased. She is very mischievous and is getting into everything! We have definitely gone into childproofing overdrive, making sure all of the cabinets are locked and the dangerous stuff is out of reach. Leah loves to walk around the kitchen, opening up every single cupboard, looking in, taking one or two things out and moving on to the next. She can be a one-woman wrecking crew, but it is very fun to see her start to explore her world.

Brian and Gina's Wedding

The weekend of June 25th, we went to Massachusetts for the wedding of my cousin Brian and his lovely bride Gina. We headed down on Friday night and checked into our hotel in Devens, MA. Mom and Dad, Matt and Gina and Paul and Angela all arrived that night as well and we had a great family dinner. It was so nice to spend lots of time with everyone, especially Paul and Angela who we don't get to see very often.

On Saturday morning, Gina (Matt's Gina) and I went to get pedicures. While we were doing that, Tim and Poppa took Cameron and Leah swimming, then Tim and Cameron went to get haircuts. The wedding was in the early afternoon so we had lunch and then headed over to Acton for the ceremony. On the twenty minute drive to the church, both Cameron and Leah fell asleep. Both stayed asleep for a while in church, so that was good.

Leah slept for the first half of the ceremony, it was great!

After Cam woke up, he was still sleepy and lounged on Daddy's lap for a while.

Once the ceremony started, Cameron was very interested and scooted to the end of the row to sit with Uncle Paul, where he would have a better view.

Nick and Ali walking down the aisle

Here comes the bride! She looked so beautiful!

With this ring, I thee wed.

And the kiss!

After the ceremony there was a receiving line where we got to offer our congratulations to the bride and groom and their parents. Cameron and Leah liked walking around on the steps of the church.

My sweet girl, dressed up so pretty!

I don't know what Cameron is doing here. I am going to guess he is dancing, rather than the more likely candidate: going in to punch his sister.

After the ceremony we took the kids back to the hotel and tried to get them to take a nap. Tried is the operative word there, as no one was interested in napping. Instead they wanted to play with Uncle Paul and Uncle Matt. We gave up on the nap idea pretty quick and let them play with their uncles!

We headed down to the reception and had fun chatting with everyone during happy hour. Then it was time for us all to sit down and for the reception to start! First the parents walked in, and Gina's dad was wearing a Bruins jersey. Cam LOVED it and cheered like crazy! Then the wedding party entered - as each pair entered, they did some kind of dance. It was hilarious.

Brian and Gina's first dance was to Almost Paradise from Footloose. That was the musical that they met at, so it was very fitting. They did an AMAZING first dance, choreographed by Gina. It was sooooo good. Unfortunately, we didn't really get any good pictures of it, but trust me, it was great!

The is the best picture I got of Cameron and Leah together at the reception. They were both so adorable and sweet. If anyone else from the wedding has a better picture of them together (or really, any pictures of them from the wedding), we would love to have them!!

Leah tearing up the dance floor. You can't tell in this picture, but she was on a mission to dance, run and get every ounce of fun out of the reception that she could.

It didn't bother her that she was the only one on the dance floor. She was also having a lot more fun than her face indicates!

The wedding was the first meeting of the entire membership of The Kate Club (family members who have the middle name Kate!): Madeline Kate, Lucille Kate, Alison Kate, and Leah Kate

Not to be outdone, the Ann Club also had a meeting: Rosemary Ann, Kelly Ann and Patricia Ann

After dinner, Brian and Gina cut the cake

Awww, so nice giving each other a sweet little bite.

That is, until Gina got a little feisty! I love the look on her face in this picture.

And a cakey kiss!

Cousins! Obviously, they are from the same family. :-P

Mama and Leah

Gina and Matt

Next up was the father-daughter dance. They started off dancing to a nice song and then went into the Twist, and then some Greased Lightning, and then back to the nice song. It was great!

Then was the mother-son dance. It was so nice!

Mr. Cameron, loving the dancing and the cake and getting to stay up LATE

Brian and Aunt Pat. As his cousin, I sure don't know how he is old enough to get married. I'm sure his mom was thinking the exact same kind of things!

Grandma and Grandpa during the anniversary dance

A family picture...

...which we turned into a family dance! Both kids loved being in a big dance circle. It was so sweet!

Then it was time to DANCE. This was by far Cam's favorite part of the night, as his uncles showed him great dance moves like The Lawnmower, The Sprinkler, and The Grocery Cart. He loved it and continues to do the dances he learned at the wedding.

Uncle Paul critiquing Cam's arm positions during some dance

Matt dancing with Patrick

Leah and Poppa

Leah, not sure what to make about the crazy dancer Uncle Jim

Cam dancing with Gina

This is how the night ended for Leah... she got sleepy while we were dancing, then conked out on my shoulder. She spent the rest of the night in her stroller, with Great-Grandma keeping watch over her.

It was a wonderful wedding, we had such a great time. Cam and Leah loved being part of it and it was so fun to see them having such a blast. We loved spending time with everyone in the family. I love weddings!!!