Lemonade

The boys have had a fabulous summer.  The weather has been great and barely a rainy day.  With all the beach days they needed something non-beach to do.  They held a lemonade stand a couple of times over the past 2 weeks.  They filled up the cooler with a couple of gallons of lemonade and found a great spot where many walk by on the way to the beach and toward the center of town.  They had a great time. They raised money for St Jude's and will be sending a check to that great organization.  They made a good profit as well.  They are looking forward to getting some new legos.

Matt and Jake manning the lemonade stand

A night out with my guy

Phil and I got the opportunity to go out to dinner with some friends.  Beautiful setting.

So nice to spend time with my best friend.

A love for all critters

 Lauren loves all critters here at the beach.  She brought a caterpillar to the beach today.  It was held and loved on and carried around in a bucket.  It was given the opportunity to swim in a small cup.  Surprisingly it was still  able to move once we told her that it was "done" swimming and preferred to be on dry land.  She also had her daily catch of small crabs ( 4 today).  The crabs were sent home as we left the beach.  The caterpillar was brought to the pool and then set free in the flower garden.  Then...she found a frog at the pool.  She held it and gave it some love.  The frog was put back by the fence after some good quality Lauren time.  She is really gentle with her creatures.

Family Beach Pictures 2012

My boys first race!

We had our fantastic extended family vacation last week. On the last night there was a 5k road race. My sister-in-law Suzie and cousin Mike and his wife were planning on running. Phil decided to run the day of the race. About 1/2 hour before the race, the boys decided to run the race. There was an option of a 1K for the kids but my boys kept going for the WHOLE thing. NO training and basically no running since spring sports got out besides running to catch a wave. I was so proud to see them cross the finish line.

Josh just over the finish line

Matt cooling down after crossing the finish line

The 1st two boys to cross the finish line.

Jake after finishing the race.  

Shannon and Mike

Suzie with most of her crew

Congratulations all!

I was able to video Jake and Phil finishing the race.  I love the smile on Jake's face as we all cheer him home.

Heading home

Our mermaid

Lauren has LOVED the water since her first time in a pool at age 1.  We put her in all her swim gear and off she goes.  She loves the pool and the ocean.  She prefers to be in the ocean at high tide and loved the big waves. We started with swimmies on her arms with a front back bubble, took off the swimmies so she just had her bubble, then we started taking out some of the support form the bubble so she could build up her endurance.   She has been asking for a week or 2 to take off her last bubble because she wanted to swim underwater and dive for rings.  So we did and....she swam.   She is just 3 1/2 and we are amazed at her strength.

With the last of her bubble on.

Bubble off and officially a swimmer.

Lauren getting ready to dive

Blueberry Picking 2012

Here are some pic's of the kids picking blueberries.  We went a little earlier in the summer this year and I think we hit it just right.  There were tons of big fat blueberries for the picking.  Lauren for the most part picked the blueberries and ate them.  Matt, Jake and Josh are experts at finding the big fatties (Matt's make for them)

Jake and Lauren as blueberries

Matt pretending to pick Lauren

 Josh allowing me to take a picture:)

We  had so much fun picking the blueberries and there were so many big fatties that we didn't realize how many we had picked.  What a bumper crop!  Yup, the scale says 10 pounds!

 For the ride back home Jake popped open the box and snacked away.   They are delicious.

The Uno Champion of 2012 is...

MATT!

Here Matt is receiving the trophy.  Way to go Matt.  We are thrilled that the trophy will once again be in our possession.  Way to represent the family:)

Here is the brackets that Matt made and everyone's name as they progressed in the composition.  U.P. stands for Uncle Paul

The trophy has officially been "engraved" to reflect this years winner.

Beach Art

Josh has  his own comic strip that he has developed.  We have even copyrighted it so he can share without fear of someone taking his idea.  Here is a head shot of the main character in Shortheads.
Great job Josh!

Summer Fun

We are having a fun summer this year. SO much better than last year. Here are some pictures of random fun. Matt with the lobster hat.

Jake with the moose hat.

A trip to the big candy store. Lauren picked out the BIG lollipop. So cute.

The kids and I having lunch out. Such a beautiful view. This was before we headed out to go crabbing.

Lauren loves her some crabs. I know the look on her face says otherwise, but I assure you she was loving all the crabs we caught.

Jake and a crab.

At my friends beach house. Lauren filled up the stroller with babies and put on some high heal shoes and was off on an adventure. She cracks me up.

It was windy at the beach. Jake went home got a kite kit and brought it back to the beach. He assembled it by himself (mostly). Jake undid some string, threw the kite in the air and off it went. Very impressive. That is the blimp kite up in the corner of the picture. Lauren is tagging along and enjoying Jake's spirit.