More Beaching

I thought I would send a quick message before our next family excursion. We went to the cape last weekend and spent some time with Nana, Papa and Ella. We hit the beach and the girls got to play together at the house. Katie had her first outdoor shower and seem to love it as much as the rest of us. After our visit, Katie and I went to Sean and Jill's for a summer bbq.

Here are Katie and Ella enjoying their little pool on the deck. Post beach shower...

...and relaxing in the sun.

Beach Baby

It's official. I have a beach baby. We spent the last two weekends at the beach (which I'll blame for my lack of blog postings) and Katie loves the ocean. First stop was Maine for the 4th of July. This weekend we went to the Cape. I'll recap Maine first and get to the Cape later in the week. Ok, 4th of July. We went to visit Auntie Sheila and Uncle Bob at Moody Beach in Maine. From the minute we got there, Katie hit the beach. I think she gets her beach baby status from her Dad who willing swam twice in the very, very cold water. It’s a perfect beach for little people. It’s long and flat so we let Katie run around in the small waves and when she wasn’t hanging out in the water, she was playing in the sand and building her sandcastles. She loved it and soon after breakfast each day she would hit the water. Since we were right on the beach, Chad and I were able to relax a little without having to worry about bringing all the paraphernalia to the beach…and that made it a pretty sweet deal for us.

We spent some time with the Murphy’s who were visiting from California. It’s rare that we are able to get together at all since we're on opposite coasts but we were able to do it a few times last week. The kids got to play and even the four adults got to hang out one night too.

More from Maine: Katie pretending to crack a lobster.

Here is Katie and Sadie relaxing . Katie is showing off her new "Bug Boots". They could come in handy with this season's weather.

Stay tuned for a Cape update....

The last party...for now.

We wrapped up the graduation party circuit this weekend by celebrating with Emily on Saturday. Here is a picture of all of the graduates and their parents. The sun finally came out so we were able to enjoy some time outside. I've noticed that Katie is a little shy when we first meet people but we are getting better as we become party regulars. Once she gets warmed up, we are in a performance phase. By we, I mean me and Chad. Poor Katie is always asked to jump, sing or say something that we think is funny. Not sure if this is cruel but we can't help ourselves. We're proud parents and she happily complies. Here is Chad and his mad badminton skills. Below is Katie and her Godfather Steve. And before I forget...this is my cousin Sean and his wife Jill. I know he'll be a little irked when he sees this like he was when I asked him if I could take this picture. Hi Sean! Thanks for reading my blog! Now we have our sights set on some upcoming beach weekends. I hope the sun decides to join us! First stop is Maine over July 4th weekend....

Me and My Shadow

Katie discovered her shadow. Hard to tell in this photo but it's so funny to watch her stand in the corner and wave her hands around.

Father's Day Weekend

Chad still hasn't been able to use the chiminea (outdoor chimney/tall fireplace thingy) Katie and I got him for his Birthday/Father's Day but we are holding out that we'll be able to later this week. It's been raining for 3 weeks so our patience is running thin. But the sun finally broke through for a little while on Saturday so Chad mowed the well-water lawn and Katie wanted to help. Abby followed closely hoping she could catch the bubbles coming out of Katie's mower. Later in the day, our friends Heather and Greg came over to hang out with us. Chase, Kyle and Katie got to play. The only time it was quiet was when we ate dessert. On Sunday, we were able to see my Uncle Brian, Aunt Dee and cousin Adele who were visiting from Florida. Last time I saw them was at my wedding so it was nice to introduce them to Katie. And we saw the Kerrigan-side again! This weekend was grad party #2 where we celebrated my cousin Kaitlin's graduation from high school (Holy Name) and her brother Nick's graduation from college (Villanova). Hooray!

Party time!

We are on the party circuit! We celebrated Helen's graduation on Saturday and then celebrated my cousin-in-law's 40th birthday later that night. Sunday was Chad's 38th birthday so his family came over to visit. We also had Katie's Nana (Chad's mom) visiting for the past few days to help us out by babysitting Katie. With all of these parties, Katie has been able to see some of her cousins. Jillian is my cousin Pam's daughter. She and Katie bonded over the purple buggy at Helen's party. Ella is my niece and she came over to celebrate Uncle Chad's birthday. Here are the two monkeys on our deck before dinner. In other news, Katie graduated from swim class and is now "Little Nemo Kathleen". She got "the dunk" at the last class. They are not big on dunking the kids unless they are one year or under but the parents had the option of having the older kids go under and Katie took the plung! Literally.

2,3,4,6,7,8,7,8,7,8,7,8,11,13....

Katie is learning her numbers and trying to master her letters too. Counting usually goes like this: 2,3,4,6,7,8,7,8,7,8,7,8,11,13.... Not exactly in order but we are working on it. She doing really well with learning new words and is starting to regularly speak in sentences. We're having pizza tonight so we heard "Pizza's Done!" many times. We noticed this week she has begun to mimic us. We really have watch what we say now!