Savannah and Julius playing ball...

I captured this video of Savannah attempting to "play" ball with her four-month-old brother, Julius. You can see that she actually hits him in the face first before he reaches out and grabs the ball... and actually does a decent job in holding it!

Playing at the park...

We took Savannah to the park this morning in an effort to get out of the house. She loves the slide and especially having her Daddy go down the big kids' slide with her!
Here are some photos I took while they played... and while Julius slept in his car seat.

Found: One sleeping toddler...

Pat snapped this photo of Savannah sleeping on her bedroom floor Monday afternoon after she played herself into exhaustion. We've been struggling to get her to sleep in her bed as she would rather sleep in Mama and Daddy's bed.
I just think this is a precious photo...

July 4...

Sorry it took so long to get these photos up, but we've been trying to make the most of Pat's three days off from work.
The kids and I spent July 4 at home while Pat worked at the newspaper. Savannah, who has had a big issue with fear in the last few weeks, was a little scared of the noises from our neighbors shooting fireworks. I couldn't even get her outside to sit on the blanket to watch the few fireworks we could see over the tree line around our house.
Savannah did seem to love the fireworks on television and wanted me to rewind them so she could watch them over and over again.
Pat bought a child's packet of fireworks (which had a few packs of sparkers, some confetti guns and boxes of snap and pops. Savannah was really scared of the sparklers, but enjoyed the snap and pops and was actually able to do them herself.
Here are a few photos from July 4 and 5... it was a nice time.

Nighttime at the Fitzgeralds...

I captured these photos of my little ones tonight as Savannah was reading to her brother (would you believe it was a book on water divers). Soon after I started taking pictures Savannah gave up the reading and started playing with her brother.
Julius has started turning over so you can see in these pictures that he's getting around the blanket fairly easily... I know it won't be too long before he's moving all around!
They really do love each other and it watching the two of them together brings me lots of joy.
Happy July 4th to all of you... we're planning to have a quiet evening at home... at least until Pat gets home from work and we can light up some sparklers.

Pool time...

Savannah and I went out this morning to meet some friends at the new Onesty Water Park in Charlottesville. This water park opened up a last month and is very popular, but this was our first visit.
I left Julius at home so I could focus on Savannah and her fear of the water.
Savannah, who loved the water last year and took her first swimming classes at the old pool in this park, is now scared of the water. We got there shortly before 10 a.m. (when the park opens) and there was already a line... but the time we got in and got our feet wet the park was filled to max capacity of 220 people).
Savannah wasn't scared until she rounded the curve and saw the pool... then she started screaming.
Here are a few pictures from our trip to the pool and as you can see they were taken right before we left and after I put Savannah in her "traveling clothes". You'll see Savannah's friend, Jayden, and a little girl who took a liking to him in the water and wanted to hold him as we were leaving!
Hopefully little by little Savannah will learn to love the water again... until then we'll probably stay away from this water park (which cost me $9 and we only stayed an hour).

A hairy situation....

Julius has picked up the bad habit of hair pulling and poor Savannah is the most likely victim. It started several days ago when I had both of them in my lap and Julius reached over and grabbed a pile of Savannah's fine hair.
She didn't cry or even seem to notice, but I think it was because I grabbed his hand and repositioned her before she got a chance to really feel any pain.
But I wasn't so quick yesterday...
Julius and I were sitting in the recliner when Savannah woke up from her nap and climbed in the chair with us. Before I knew it, Julius leaned in and grabbed a pile of Savannah's hair... and with a big smile on his face he pulled it towards him.
A few times of this and Savannah started saying "Julius pulled my hair!" and she started to cry.
I tried to explain that poor Julius didn't realize he was hurting her... although he did seem to laugh every time he did it.
I even showed her how he grabbed my hair if I put it within his reach... that didn't help either of us as Julius has a helluva grasp!