Growing Up

The two things Molly loves most...sitting by herself and suckers!

Park Day!

In May we had a lot of time without Mike, who was averaging 12 hour days 6 days a week at work.  When some of our cousins were in town we went to Grandma Grace's to hang out!  There were more cousins than we were expecting (the Crains were there too!), we were so lucky to play with them all!

Kaitlin, Ksenia, and Will (with the much loved mask) riding in the wagon on our way to the park! 

Molly loves to swing, and she even loved it when Will took a turn pushing her from the front...

and Cory took a turn pushing her from behind.  He also gave her a couple of impressive underdogs.  She was laughing and smiling the whole time!

Will also enjoyed pushing cute Kaity on the swings.

Will and Cory are both the #2 brothers in their families.  They are also both busy and mischievous, which is probably why they get along so well!

Ben, Cory, Sam, & Will.  For being the sons of twins, they don't look too much alike!

On the way home we (Grandma Grace and I) were faced with quite a dilemma.  How do we keep eight ACTIVE kids from running all over the road and neighborhood, and staying together for the walk home?  In my desperation, I made up the Freeze Game.  I would yell, "GO!" and let the kids run for a second.  Then I would yell, "FREEZE!" and they would have to freeze.  Complex, I know.  Effective though.  I especially love Will in this picture!

It evolved into NINJA FREEZE!  The other kids weren't sure how to be ninjas, so Sam showed them what to do.  They loved it!

It evolved again into SUPERHERO FREEZE!  I'm not sure what superhero Kaitlin is, but I really love her pose!

It was absolutely hilarious, the kids were all totally into it...even the girls!  It was such a fun trip to the park with cousins, and it was a fantastic walk home...no one got lost!  A success on all counts!

Sweet!

I have this terrible habit of not keeping a hawk-eye on Will 24/7.  I left the kitchen for a second while we were making cookies and he got into the sugar...

which didn't take long for Molly to find.

And, as you can see, she loved it!!

I don't know what to do with Will, he's such a monkey!

Catching Up!

I am so behind on blogging it makes me want to cry.  Some day I'll catch up...but until then, here are a few pics from last month!

My brother and his family moved out to Washington DC earlier this year (he's Secret Service at the White House!  How cool is that?).  They came out for a visit, and Molly got to play with Gavin!  They mostly just looked at each other and smiled, but it was so cute!  Gavin has a lot of Foutz in him...but a lot of Keddington too.  He's a good lookin' kid!

I love this sweet little face!

Will gives really good hugs, and he was sharing the love with Nana.  

So...Will went through a marker phase.  One morning he woke up with black hands, black sheets, black pillow...black everything.  It took several days before all the marker finally came off his hands!  FYI, if you have enough washable marker on something...it will not all wash out.  By the end of their bath, the water was a nice DARK blue!

Mike and I celebrated our EIGHTH anniversary on May 15th!  We went to Iron Man 2, and when we got home I made him take a picture of us.  He is so great, I think I'm pretty lucky to have such an amazing husband!  I could go on and on and make this a REALLY long blog post about how great he is, but for now I'll just say that life is wonderful and I'm very blessed!!

First Taste of Ice Cream

This is what happens when...

you try to put the baby down for a nap TWICE and she won't go to sleep. I couldn't hold her because I had to make dinner, so I put on a baby einstein. It was probably about three seconds before she zonked out.
She looks so sweet sleeping with her favorite blankie!

The Three Amigos

Play group. It sounds fun. And when you see the three amigos you'd think that they were playing and having a great time, sans pants. Well, that's all true...

until I realized that they completely destroyed the garden. Jumping in mud puddles is fun!

This is the saddest thing I've ever seen. And now we have to completely start over. Goodbye tomatoes and peppers. I miss you.

After the friends left, Will kidnapped that poor baby and made it watch while he played with the water in the orange cups.