A Smile From Berkley

Are these not the squishiest cheeks you have ever seen?! People can't believe how big they are. Of course, our families can attest to the fact that these are the only cheeks this Curtis family knows how to produce!
We were finally able to capture her smile on camera. She has been smiling for awhile now, but everytime we tried to get a pic we'd miss it. Her cheeks are so plump that they push her eyes closed when she smiles! Her cheeks are so scrumptious that we just eat her up! We love her to death and can't imagine our family without our sweet little Berkley Paige!

A Day at the Lake!

The Spiedel's are a couple that we know at church who have a home on the lake. They invited us and a couple more families out to their place on Saturday for a BBQ so we headed out to spend the day at Lake Arrowhead. We spent the afternoon swimming, riding on the boat, tubing, and relaxing! The kids had a blast jumping off their dock and just floating around in their life jackets.

Morgan is a little nervous about putting her head under water. She had tubes put in when she was a baby so she's never really put her ears in the water. This last week she realized that it isn't as scary as she thinks it is! She has been putting her head under the water and having us count to see how long she can stay down. She's gone to six and is very excited about that! She loved being able to practice her swimming while having on a life jacket. She's great at doggy paddling, but gets tired very quickly. We've been trying to teach her to do big kicks and move her arm's in front of her and 'scoop' the water. She's doing great!

Emree is our little fish! She was the only one who would jump off the front of the boat & ride the tube. She went on with Brackon and our friend Richard rode the other one. Richard kept bumping into them and as you can imagine, with it being two men on the tubes, the boat was clipping pretty fast! Dear brave Emree! Our little neighbor Reese came with us too!

The view from off the lake was beautiful!

It took a little persuasion to get some of the kids in the lake because of all the fish. In the middle of their dock was a 12' x 10' opening that we threw bread in and a million fish would swim up. Reese thought that he was going to get eaten by a sea monster. It was a lot of fun. The kids especially loved the paddle boat. They loved being out on the lake by themselves. A great time was had by all!

How Tall is Kennedy? And What about Berkley at 2 1/2 months?

It's been a while since I've actually had the time needed to sit down and catch up on everything that has been going on in our family. There are five more new entries below this one so be sure to check them all out if you want to see what we've been up to the past month or so. This picture is for you Jean. When we were on the phone you asked me if Kennedy was taller than me. She still has a way to go before she passes me up!

Whenever we put Berkley into her swing, the first thing she does is look up to see the little birds and butterflies that spin around. She loves to watch them! You also have a pretty good shot of her cheeks! She doesn't want to be out done by her sisters and their cheeks when they were little!

A little talk with Grandpa!

We were at the store and Emree wanted to hold Berkley so we put her in the cart so that she wouldn't drop her.

Here are a few picture of different faces that Berkley was pulling the other day.

She was looking at her toy that hangs from her carseat handle. She got very excited and kept pursing her lips. It was cracking us up. Berkley has start to show us her little personality. She loves to talk to us and gets so excited over things. I even managed to make her laugh yesterday. The girls are just loving it! It is so much fun to watch them interact with her. Berkley is definitley not starved for attention! When she gets older we'll have to ask her what it was like to be raised by four mothers!

The Georgia Aquarium

Mom & dad Curtis came to visit us for a week and one of the first places we took them was the Georgia Aquarium. It is so much fun to see all that they have there. Here are some pictures of all the different animals and sea life that you get to see.

A jelly fish.

Look at all the beautiful colors of the fish behind Morgan & Emree.

Mom & dad & the girls standing with Deepo the fish. There is a cute 4D show that you can see while at the aquarium and Deepo is the star of show.

We thought this couch was pretty cool!

Another tank.

This is the largest tank they have in the Aquarium as you can see when you compare it to the people. It was so amazing to just sit and watch all of the different fish swim around. Very calming.

The tank was full of Grouper fish that were HUGE!

Above is a whale shark. One of them had just died the day before we came.

When you first walk into the Aquarium them have a petting tank that has sting rays and little sharks that you can touch. They have a few more places where you can touch other things as well.

Look how big the turtle is above dad's head!

Berkley and Daddy! Berkley slept for most of the time and Kennedy was at girl's camp so that's why she isn't in any pictures.

These are amazing Japanese Spider Crabs. They can get as big as cars. This photo doesn't give them justice because there is nothing to compare their size to.

Where the penguins live you can crawl into a little tunnel and come up into their "home". You can see one of the penguins next to Morgan's head. He was taking a nap in his little hut. Dad loves to go diving and was thinking how great it would be to get into a few of the tanks. It's amazing to see everything and quite honestly, I think I would crap my pants if I ran into half of the fish and sea creatures that we saw! I don't know that I could ever go diving! I would be the one whose lungs would explode because I was more concerned about getting away from something than taking the time that is needed to resurface. I'll stick to the Aquarium!

Stone Mountain Park

Another place we took mom & dad Curtis was Stone Mountain. It's about 1 1/2 hrs. from our home. The mountain is all granite and on the side of it is carved three Generals from the Civil war. Only 20% of the mountain is above ground. It's beautiful there. They have little shops like old candy stores and little resturants. Stone Mountain used to be a mining town back in the day and you can take a ride in an old train that will take you through the old town while telling you all about it. They also have a gondola ride that you can take to the top of the mountain and a boat ride as well.

We ate yummy homemade ice cream and sat in the little train depot to stay cool while we ate it. Of course, everything cost a small fortune. To get 4 hot dogs with a little bag of chips and drinks cost over $30 dollars! But that is to be expected when you go to places like this. It was so much fun to have mom & dad with us!

Laser Light Show at Stone Mountain!

After walking around Stone Mountain's little shops and eating dinner we decided to go back to the blankets that we had lied out a few hours prior to reserve our spot for the Laser light show. They have a show every night from 9:30pm - 11:00pm.

The weather was perfect. It had cooled down and we were waiting...

and waiting. It was around 8pm and we were relaxing on the lawn and it started to sprinkle a little bit. I told mom & dad not to worry, that we were in a drought and that it would probably just sprinkle and then clear up. Everyone else thought the same because no one was packing up. Well, famous last words! Within minutes it was a total down pour! We thought we would get under the blanket and wait out the storm. The rain never let up and by the time we decided to leave we were SOAKED!!! The blanket was dripping wet so water was streaming in as if it had holes in it. Mom Curtis braved the weather to get this next picture. It doesn't give justice to how hard it was coming down.

When we got to the van we looked like wet cats. Soaked to the bone! We were laughing our heads off and couldn't believe it. I was so sticky! We all know that it takes a truck load of hair product to style my hair and it was running all over my face and neck. Mom felt like her pants were falling off because they were so wet and heavy. Emree looks pretty good, but that's because the kids were running while looking at the ground so their backs are soaked. The umbrella was in the van. Look at poor Brackon and how wet he got! Both him and dad got the worst of it. It really was an adventure that we will always remember! We promise that we normally don't treat our guest like this.

A Little Dip in the Pool!

The girls could hardly wait for the pool to open for the summer. It usually opens before school is out, but this year it didn't open until May 25th. We have had so much fun going to the pool almost every day. We especially love to go around 8pm when the sun is behind the trees and it's cooler. I love it because I don't have to put any sunscreen on the kids (I hate putting on sunscreen) and because it's easier on Berkley. The girls also love to swim when it's dark and the pool lights are on. We always have friends with us and Lauren (Emree's "twin") was with us on this day. The girls had shirts on because we fried ourselves half to death on Memorial Day weekend!

Emree's 6th Birthday

Emree's birthday party was supposed to be a very stress free party with a bounce house and sno-cone machine to keep the kids entertained so that we could relax and just watch the kids play and have fun. The party was from 12 - 2:30pm and the only thing I had planned for activities was decortating your own little heart cake and opening presents. I figured that the kids would just want to jump and eat sno-cones. Well, note to self, prepare games that you can play to keep 25 kids entertained in case your "party" doesn't show up! What a total nightmare!! The bounce house and sno-cone machine was supposed to show up at 11:30am, plenty of time before the party right? Well to make a very LONG story short, after 7 phone calls and racing around to figure out what to do with the kids, my party showed up at 2pm. It took them 15 min to set up so the kids had 15 min to play in the bounce house and eat sno-cones before their parents arrived. I, of course, got everything for free and will never use that same company again. We can laugh about it now, but it really was a complete wreck and I was just a tad bit furious when they showed up. Definitely a party to remember and a lesson learned - always be prepared!!

Emree and one of her best friends Lindsey eating their sno-cones! Emree had a great time with all of her little friends and all was well when her party got there!

Kennedy and Dalin were a huge help in getting the sno-cones ready for the kids. It was a really fun little machine to have. I would love to have one of my own.

Finally we give you a picture of Berkley!

Morgan had her little friend Kennedy sleep over last night and she wanted to hold Berkley and have her picture taken so here is the most recent picture of Berkley. She is growing so quickly! We took her to her two month appointment on Tuesday and she weighs 12 lbs 8 oz. & is in the 90th percentile! She's trying to keep up with her sisters! We have a bunch more pics that we need to post so we'll post them in the next few days, but we wanted to get a picture out for those of you that have been asking. We will be better about posting pictures of Berkley so that you can watch her grow along with us!