It's gettin' hot in here!

June sure started out with a bang of heat and humidity! We finally made one of the best purchases ever - an umbrella for our deck furniture - hooray! It's SO NICE to be able to sit outside on weekend mornings and enjoy our breakfast in the shade, which we did all last weekend...ah, peace and quiet.

oh yeah baby - we bring a lil' bit of redneck to the city life around here, haha!

This little girl is obsessed - wait, let me repeat - OBSESSED with her "sunscream" and advises us daily that we need to put it on her, on ourselves...our little health-conscious girl

Often I'm reminded how lucky we are to live in Baltimore and have a ton of things to do around us all the time. Summertime is certainly no exception. Every Friday and Saturday night in the summer, you can find a number of places to enjoy outdoor free concerts. They're always packed with people, but it's an enjoyable way to spend an evening as a family, and Kate loves to dance her heart out so we give her lots of opportunities to do so.

Jack also seemed to enjoy his first visit to the Avenue at White Marsh...

Kate is so focused when she's writing her letters these days. Jesse got her this awesome dry-erase book where you can trace upper- and lower-case letters and numbers, etc. and she will sit forever just practicing. She calls it "texting" !!

Jack's first experience in the pool. It was a tad chilly, and I think he actually did enjoy it for a little while...I clearly did not capture those moments!

Anyone who's been to visit us recently knows all about Kate's (other) obsession - BOOKS. She literally sleeps with them under her bed. A LOT of them. I don't know how she ever gets comfortable with all the lumpy pointy corners of books poking at her all night! But she is such a fan of "reading" and stories, so we don't discourage it. We read her one book before naps and bedtime, but then she continues to flip through book after book until she dozes off. Most times she's able to tuck the books away before her eyes close, but yesterday she just couldn't hang long enough to finish her beloved princess story....so sweet.

oh yes, that's a drooly-puss we've got there!