july continued

fritz

Carrie and Jason had to have one last meal at Fritz before they went off to Texas (because really, how are they going to find Belgium fries there??). And of course the kids love going there too and playing around the fountain.

Abby thought it was hilarious to feed Chad the fries:


The kids run around:



Twirl time with aunt Carrie:

Obviously upset about something:
The kids try to twirl by themselves:



oopsie!
Abby's turn:

Chad's birthday

On the morning of Chad's birthday, the kids I went out to buy him a present (because I am so the procrastinator!). I knew they would spill the beans so I purposely did not tell Jamie what it was called when we bought it. And then I had brought the wrapping paper in the car so I wrapped it up before we went inside. The kids were so excited to give him the present that he had to open it immediately, and they had to help too!

misc

Sometimes naptimes go great while others are quite trying. If Jamie is being too disruptive, I will pull his mattress off his bed and put it on our floor in our bedroom. Although the rules are that he is not to play with my shoes, I could not help but chuckle when I peeked in and found him asleep like this:

One of Jamie's latest things is to close his eyes and exclaim "Mom, I can't see anything!"

This was Abby's first major haircut, besides a trim I gave her last year. If you can't remember how long her hair had been, go back to the 4th of july post.



I did a few portraits of Jamie on the big rock at the park:

I started working on some gardening, so my first task was to dig out this stump, at least as much as I could so Chad could finish it off. The kids helped too.
Can you see the layer of dirt covering Abby's skin and clothes?

Cousins!
Trying to steal a kiss!:
Here is the flag we made once we had to give Otto back his:

leaving for Texas

I was dreading this day for quite some time, but there was no getting around it, my little sister was moving to Texas. It's still pretty hard to have her so far away, but we'll always be best friends!

bye-bye!

family photos

Before Carrie&Jason headed off to Texas we attempted to do some family photos down by the lake. Key word here: {attempted}


Say cheese!


The best of the bunch. I had to wash it out to get Charlie's face out of the shadows, maybe with a little more touch-up, I can get it to look a bit better. Or maybe I'll just make a really good scrapbook page and you won't notice the photo anymore. LOL!
The sisters shots turned out good (probably because of the subject!):

Here's one of the siblings. And speaking of siblings, a t-mobile operator with a strong Indian accent was helping me the other day and asked how many siblings I had. I told her 3, and asked how many she had. She said her and her boyfriend are planning on one. Nothing against her, but I think she had a bit more to learn about the english language...

belfair state park

In July, we went camping with the Chris&Myra and their bunch of boys out to Belfair State Park. The beauty of camping so close is that the kids don't have to sit thru a long car ride, and you can always go back if you forgot something! We also had Pat & Kristy, Andy & Jessica, and John&Tanna and clan come visit us on Sunday. It wasn't quite as hot as it was last time we were there (approaching 100 degrees two years ago), but it was nice and still warm.

Of course the creek was always a crowd pleaser:


Best friends:


Three amigos:

Funny story behind this flag: Otto found this flag and both him and Jamie were totally attached to it, fighting over it several times. Finally, on the day we were to leave, we tell Jamie that he is going to have to part with the flag and give it back to Otto before we leave since he was the one to find it. A few minutes later he is in his carseat with the flag (we were not even near ready to go yet) and says to me "Mom, let's go!!". Apparently, he thought we could make a break for it...
Wading out in the water:

Some cute pics of Isaac:


And Abby:
This was our own version of Iwo Jima (it was the best we could do):

Here Pat and Kristy are playing, well, fetch with my daughter (just kidding, thinking of a line out of Knocked Up). It's totally acceptable to play fetch with a one year old, they think it's cool, and well, Kristy was helping to fetch the rocks too!!
Abby gives the rock back to Pat and he throws again:
It was fun trip, thanks to everyone who shared it with us!