Remembering

I'm looking through pictures from summer and wanted to post a few from our visit out east. The kids and I headed up to NH to visit my sis and her family. Rather than having a low key time in NH, Les and I decided that it would be good to drive up to Maine to take the kids to the beach for the day.

Here is Les as she belts the 5th and final car seat / booster into the car.

Micah is in the forefront and Ben is in the back. You can see little Graham if you look hard.

Micah has got to be one of the most helpful and kind kids that I've ever come across. Love that little guy.

We arrived and the kids were off.

Graham was completely fearless, truly a man on a mission.

As usual, Noah chased the sea gulls.

Ella worked really hard on building a rock pile. She spent lots of time adding little rocks and then patting on a little more sand. Sang songs the whole time she worked.

Noah helped his sister collect rocks from the huge pile.

The highlight of the day was in the last 45 minutes of the trip. We were driving in a bad rainstorm and Les looked back to see Graham puking. Due to the massive amount of rain coming down, we could not open windows without the other kids getting drenched. It was awesome and completely expected given the situation of 5 kids in a minivan. Someone has to throw up...Les and I decided that we'll be taking a sisters only trip next time.

And finally, a picture of all the cousins together watching a movie.

I keep looking through the file thinking that surely Leslie and I are together in one picture. Nope. Will have to do that next time.

I do dots?

Mom arrived last night. I left this morning. Tomorrow morning I'll be in Santiago with Matt. Hooray! I'm currently enjoying a long layover, realizing that I am great at sitting in a comfy leather chair and doing nothing.

As usual, Mom arrived with a suitcase full of interesting crafts for the kids. Remember the magnetic fish from the last post? One of the first things that Ella told my mom was that she needed to fix the broken fishing pole. After that pronouncement they proceeded to show her each of the crafts that they did with her. Once the display of treasures ended, Mom pulled out the dot paints. They painted for a LONG time last night and then first thing this morning (as in 7 am) Noah asks me if he can 'do dots.' Sweet boy.

I can't resist a little compare and contrast here. Ella really likes filling in the shapes in her coloring book.

And Noah likes completely saturating the page with one color and then doing the same thing on the other side of the page.

*humpf*

So, I finally decided that I'd load some photos to the neglected blog and I seem to be having some technical issues. Photos of our time in Chattanooga and Nashville will have to wait.

I can share a little story from today though. A friend at church is pregnant and her baby shower was this afternoon. I was telling Noah that his favorite babysitter was going to come over because I was going to a shower and he responded with 'you dry your hair, momma?'

Forgetting (again) that my kids don't know what a baby shower is, I later told Ella that I was going to a baby shower this afternoon. She responded in her you-are-so-silly voice saying 'my baby does not have a shower!' over and over again. You are right Ella, your baby does not have a shower.