adventures in weeball

My favorite almost-nephew just finished his first season of weeball and I got to be there to see his last game.

This is Dave, Jonathan's dad. :)

Everyone practices catching the ball...and parents help. I liked the lots of parental involvement! :)

Jonathan's whole team. See him? Third from the left on the front row.

Isn't he cute?? :) Good job, buddy!!

**Hopefully the next time you see his picture on here, it will be with his little sister who is due to arrive in just a couple short weeks!!**

snapshots

While my kids' parents went away for a week last week, I was on kid duty for 8 days. I decided to pretty much spoil my kids rotten while I had the chance and we packed in a bunch of fun during those 8 days! I ditched my "real" camera for the week and just used my cell phone...so here are most of the things we did via cell phone snapshots. (Thus the crappy quality of the pics...) :}

This is my absolute all-time favorite way to be woken up in the morning - with a snuggly kid crawling in bed to say good morning! :)

...or the inside of the car that was inside the garage was this hot...?

I was stuck in the middle of no where ish. I tried calling six cell phones and two house phones...and no body answered!! I had to laugh at the irony of all these convenient cell phones that weren't helping at all! Finally, Michael called back and thankfully we happen to have the same car insurance so he gave me the number to call for roadside assistance and then came and stayed with me and ended up taking me home. That is what a best friend is for...hanging out with you while you wait for your car to be towed...then waiting for said towed car to show up at the shop...and then taking me all the way home...2.5 hours out of a saturday just waiting with me. Thanks again, M!!

Lulu comes to play at our playground across the street and we often see her on Mondays...which is now excitedly referred to as "Lulu day!" :) My kids love her and think she is too cute (which she is...) and she loves them back! :)

Lulu's mommy, Marianne, did a fantastic job on her party!! I will definitely have to remember some of her ideas! :)

Ok so this was really the day we went to the library but A) I didn't take any pics there and B) this fountain pic was from the first day but I kinda forgot about it and now it would mess up my rainbow to go back and put it at the top! lol We love these fountains and had a blast...until this sweet dog came. She loved the fountains too and at first greatly amused the kids. However, she apparently drank too much water, threw up, and consequently got the water shut off for the next 4 hours! Thankfully we had already been there for an hour by that time and were ready to go anyways. :-p

Wow. Such a bad photo. Oh well. :)

Haha...there is more to this story that I won't tell here...

It was a very busy week but I enjoyed all of it! Definitely was not tired of being with my kiddos - but was just tired in general by the end! :) My goal was to wear them out and keep them so busy they wouldn't have time to miss mommy and daddy. I only heard LMG say she missed them the very first night - and at least once every single day Mr. Happy would say "This is the best day EVER!!!". Mission accomplished!

Now for a nice three day break over the weekend and then I'll be at it again!

jonathan and cousins

A couple weeks ago, Shannon asked if I would do pictures of Jonathan and his two cousins who were in town for the weekend. I think this was the first "real" photo shoot I've done with Jonathan and it was definitely a lot of fun!

If you live in our city...and have your photos done...chances are, you are going to have them done at this spot at one time or another! :) Isn't he cute?? Not that I'm partial or anything.... ;)

Doing an outdoor photo shoot on a beautiful afternoon is not the easiest thing in the world to do when you're trying to follow three little boys all over the place! Josiah (the older of these two) had no patience for slowing down to have his picture taken, lol.

Caleb was still young enough that a few things caught his attention and he would stop to explore for a couple minutes at a time.

Finally we found something that caught Josiah's attention and even let me get this awesome smile out of him!

A swing! :)

Swings are fabulous things....and make little boys smile and laugh! :)

(note to self: remember that! lol)

Next we found a caterpillar to examine. Said caterpillar may or may not have survived the examination..... ha!

This is not supposed to be a cute pic of Jonathan...although he is cute... :) This is just to show a tiny bit of the damage from the storms/tornados that came through just a few days before. All the downed trees made this shoot a bit more tricky since I kept seeing yellow caution tape in the background of some shots...and who wants giant tree roots in the background either?! Poor trees. :(

Sweet baby. :)

He's adorable.

Outtakes. :}

Hopefully in just a couple short months you will get to see a photo shoot with Jonathan again...when his new baby sister arrives! :)

two!

So as usual, I'm a little behind in my blogging. Last Wednesday we went to Leah's birthday party. Laura always does SUCH a great job of decorating and letting things up!! And we all had a lot of fun just being together again!

The birthday girl. She now answers "two!" whenever you ask how old anyone is - herself, my kids, Mommy, Kiki.... :)

Laura did a nursery rhyme themed party because Leah is very into nursery rhymes these days. She had set out spiders for the kids to color and stickers to decorate them with.

Little Miss Sunshine here is going to make a great babysitter in a couple years! She loved getting to hold Annie for a couple minutes. :) I think Annie liked it too. :)

Ok, seriously! Check out these peanut butter sandwiches - in the shape of a clock!! (Hickory Dickory Dock...) So cool!!

I should have gotten more close up pics, but each snack had a nursery rhyme to go with it! And if you have read my blog for very long...you know who did that cake there in the middle. Do you know the nursery rhyme that goes with it?

"Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds,

baked in a pie......

...When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing;

Wasn't that a dainty dish

To set before the king?"

(Cake by Leah, of course!)

"Leah, say 'Cheese!'"

Isn't it funny how so often the other people around will "blow" the candle out with the birthday person? :}

Jonathan here LOVES birthday parties. But there MUST be balloons. And cake. And presents. Of course. He couldn't wait for Leah to open her presents and finally it was time!

Great job on the fun party, Laura!! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEAH!!!