Harper's birthday, eating cereal, Lake Keowee with Olivia, & more Hiking

On August 21, we spent the afternoon/evening at Harper's 1st birthday party. Harper is the daughter of friend's of ours, James & Diana, that we met through Corby & Katie (Corby & Nick were college roommates at USI). Harper's party decorations were amazing!!! I think we were all alittle over stimulated by all the pink stuff, but it sure was super cute! The picture below is the only one I got at the party, but if you want to check out more pics, Diana has lots posted on her webpage: www.thedaysofdiana.com
Hadlee, Kooper, Olivia (Corby & Katie's baby), and birthday girl, Harper!
That same weekend, as I was giving the twins their baths, I just had to take their pictures. I am simply AMAZED at how much they have grown! Yes, I know they are still really small in comparison to their age, but when they first came home from the NICU, their bath tub was huge and now they are filling it up. Before long, they will be sitting up on their own in it. They already really enjoy playing in the water & splashing mommy! Although it is a lot of work, I love giving them baths!

On August 23, the twins had their first experience sitting in their high-chairs. They started eating oatmeal cereal first, but they only did for about 4 days and we had to switch to rice cereal. The oatmeal cereal did not settle well on Hadlee's stomach. Since then, the rice cereal seems to do just fine. One of my high school BFF's (Autumn) bought us the high-chairs and I am so thankful to have 2, plus they are portable so it makes it easy to take camping & to restaurants!

Over Labor Day weekend, we spent Sunday out on the boat at Lake Keowee with Corby, Katie, and sweet Olivia! Olivia was born just 2 months prior to the twins' arrival, so Hadlee already has a best-friend and Kooper already has a girlfriend, ha ha! While we were beached to enjoy some lunch, the babies played. It was funny to watch how different they all responded to the sand. Kooper LOVED running it through his fingers, Hadlee wanted to pick it up & lick it, and Olivia didn't want to touch it at all!

Beautiful Miss Hadlee ;-)

Kooper doing what he enjoyed....running his fingers through the cool sand.
Nick and Kooper enjoying some sun shine.
Hadlee & I loving our boat ride....check out the pretty mountains surrounding the lake!

Corby teaching Olivia how to drive.

Over the past few weeks, Kooper has been showing off his "push-ups!" It is absolutely hilarious to watch him! He gets up, rocks back & forth, and then collapses back to his belly. He also gets up on his knees and army crawls some, but it isn't as cute as his "push-up."
On Monday morning, Hadlee was up first, as usual. So I was in the living room nursing her when I heard Kooper's jungle mobile playing from his crib. When I went to check on him, I found him awake, sucking his thumb, and obviously he had turned it on all by himself! I was shocked, so I had to snap a pic of him.
Although I didn't take a picture of Hadlee throwing her usual evening tantrum, here is Kooper on Tuesday (Sept. 7) after getting their baths, and Hadlee screaming in my arms fighting sleep. I thought he looked like what I wanted to do "just throw my arms out & give up."
On Monday, of Labor Day weekend, we had went for a short drive up to Hendersonville, NC to the Apple Festival. It was extremely busy, so I didn't get any pics on our camera, but on our way home we took a more scenic route and we found a few new spots we couldn't wait to hike to. The next Sunday was beautiful as usual, so we headed back up. We were shocked to realize that these waterfalls were only 20-25 minutes north of our house. They were so pretty, I wished other people were with us to see them too! Here is the first one we hiked to: Hooker Falls. We also hiked up to Triple Falls, which was 3 staggered waterfalls, much larger than Hooker Falls, and oh so very pretty! Unfortunately, our camera's memory was full, so I didn't get any pictures of them. I think Nick took several pictures on his phone, so hopefully I can add those soon. This was a more serious hike & I was of course sore the next day....but so was Nick, so that made me feel better!