I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our Memorial Day weekend mountains trip.  This is our second year to head up to Grace's family's house in Cullowhee, NC.  There were four families and 10 kids - did you catch that, 10 KIDS.  It was wild.  We had a great time and, believe it or not, there was even some down time for the men and women to get away separately and lots of  wine drinking and game playing in the evenings.  The weather was  exceptional.  

We spent lots of time at the house just being together, eating and talking and playing.  We also walked to a neighbor's garden that is easily the size of a house lot.  There was a fire pit and rocks to throw (for the boys) and flowers to pick look at (for the girls). 

Near the house there is a rock slide.  The water is freezing!  If there was a more intense word for freezing, this would be the time to use it.  It is so cold it burns.  Parks obviously went down the slide and this year even Shelley did (impressive, Shelley!).  The kids played in the water and we ate lunch on the sand.

Samuel, braving the cold water.  He was the only kid who went down the slide.  Always up for adventure!

June Bug

Sherry and Matthew

We spent one morning at a great park they have in town and attempted a kids group picture.  Please take notice of Lily Kate.  I have maybe 9 of these shots and she is just sitting, ready for the picture in each one of them.  Hadley and Ben are crying, Charlie is slumped down, Charlotte is absolutely refusing to be a part of a picture, Samuel is wandering off, and the other 4 are totally distracted.   The picture is kind of how the weekend felt :)  Love those kids.

Our always favorite part of the weekend is our pontoon boat ride.  So fun!  

Charlie and Grace

The Thomas Family

Miss Hadley

Another one of Hadley, this time with me.

Charlotte, enjoying the "beach" we stopped at on our boat ride.

The men

The ladies

Another attempt at the capturing the kids.  No babies this time, just the big ones. Poor Samuel was on his way into the shot and we missed him, but a close attempt.  

We had a great time!

Here are some porch time shots.  I love Lily Kate so much.  She is truly hilarious without meaning to be funny at all.  That's the beauty of her.  Doesn't she look so old in this picture?  And I'll call the one of Charlotte and me "Green Team".  That's what she says every time the two of us end up together because we're the only two in the family with green eyes.  We were reading books on the porch swing. She almost sat still enough for me to take a picture of us.  

And, in other news, Swimming Lessons are going very well.  Charlotte is not exactly swimming, but she is loving her lessons and she is super proud of herself.  No more tears shed either!

Jitters

 Today was our first day of swimming lessons (round 2 for Lily Kate, who took them last year also).  We spent most of the time checking of the kids' skill levels and putting them into groups for class.  Kate was surprisingly excited.  Yesterday she announced to us that she was ready to swim now and not interested in a float any more.  Now, Charlotte on the other hand was not so thrilled.  I love the look on her face here, she was trying not to smile so we have a partial scowl, and healing scab on her nose from last week, and her precious little big girl one shoulder, ruffle bathing suit.  She did end day one of lessons kicking in the water and smiling without tears (oh, there were tears when we started).  Maybe year 2 of lessons is the charm.  We'll see.

Celebrating Trista and baby Eleanor

 I always have great intentions of taking lots of pictures and usually I remember this when I get back home, unpack my stuff, and find the camera at the bottom of the bag.  This time I got 3 shots, so it's a step in the right direction.  We had a lovely shower for Trista and her daughter on the way, Eleanor.  Above: the hostesses and the glowing mama.  *As a side note, I feel like in this picture I also look like I have a baby on the way.  In case you were curious and way too polite to ask  the answer is no. 

 Dorothy made this for Elle's room.

Stephanie, Sherry, Grace, and Emily, some of my sweet friends.

Trouble

Hadley is 10 months old and we have entered into the age of "getting into trouble", emptying trash cans for fun, pulling all the art supplies out of the baskets to chew on them, and dumping out the diaper bag to scavenge for Cheerios.  Good thing she's so cute :)

Happy Friday

 We went to the Splash Pad this morning with friends.  I'm thinking it may need to be a regular Friday morning occurrence.  The kids loved it.  I didn't put Hadley out in the water until about 30 minutes before we left and I wish I had done it sooner.  She thought it was great.  

 On our way home the girls asked if they could have a tea party.  We made some strawberry lemon bars (with berries we picked from Lewis Farm!) yesterday and I suspect this was a fancy way to eat dessert in the middle of the day - but, hey, great idea.  I went to the kitchen to put the lemon bars on plates and get the juice out and they headed straight for the dress up box.  This kind of thing is daily activity for our house full of girls but I rarely have my camera handy so I was glad to capture sweet memories. 

June 1st, 10 months old!

Here's our Sweet Pea.  On June 1st she will be 10 months old.  Still as precious as ever.  She is recognizing words more and more.  She knows what I mean when I sign and say "all done" and "more".  A couple times she has given me her own attempt to do the signs back.  She gives a gentle high five.  She eats a ton of "big girl" food and is starting to prefer it to baby food (often rejecting baby food because she is wanting finger foods that she can eat by herself).  She loves to crawl around and pull up on things, but no cruising yet.  Just for fun, here are pics of Lily Kate and Charlotte each at 10 months.

One more momento shot of Lily Kate with her preschool teacher, Mrs Sutton.  We have LOVED her.  I'm thrilled that the other two girls could have her in the next few years!

Preschool Graduation

(I'm going to try to start writing the captions to pictures below them instead of above them.  Above seems natural to me, but I think below is natural to the rest of the world)

 Lily Kate's teacher gave all the parents pictures of their kiddo in a graduation hat, made it very oficial.  

Her preschool had a little ceremony on Monday.  We watched a slideshow of pictures from the school year.  The kids were all cheering and calling out the names of their classmates in the pictures.  And all the parents were discreetly wiping their eyes.  No one can believe that their babies are going to kindergarten.  I sure can't.

 After the ceremony the 4/5yr old class got to have a water day.  The clouds cleared and the kids had a blast. I was itching to go on this blowup water slide myself.  (I exercised restraint and did not, in case you are curious).  

This is Lily Kate with her great friend, Ellie.  Ellie is so sweet, her brother and Charlotte's are two peas in a pod, her mother is SO great, and she's going to Holly Tree Elementary next year (where we will be also).  So, I'm pretty much thrilled about her :)

Lily Kate has grown so much this school year.  I have always thought that I can consider my kids "little" until they are 5.  I can't believe we have a big kid on our hands.  She has made strides this year in self control and being considerate of others.  She is still wildly enthusiastic and imaginative.  She has a fantastic memory and a mind for details (often remembering much more than I do about situations).  She is wonderful with Hadley and other babies.  There is no denying her leadership abilities.  We are working with her to teach her to lead as a servant to those around her.  Her understanding of Christ has grown a lot too.  She seems to really "get" her sin and her need for a savior.  We are covering her in prayer every day.  I am excited to see what the Lord does with her life in the next year!
And, as a side note, her teacher filled out a stat sheet on her the first and last day of school and she grew  2 1/2 inches and gained 4 lbs this year.  I thought that was crazy!  The sheet has a fill in the blank and says "I gained 4.4lbs this year!".  Oh the innocent days when that is good news :)

Mother's Day

A little late posting these.  I had a great mother's day last weekend.  Kate "took me to breakfast".  She was so cute presenting the plan to me.  She told me that she was going to take me out but that I had to drive.  Sounds like the most sensible plan.  We had a good morning by ourselves talking about her upcoming preschool graduation and thoughts about kindergarten.  Pretty priceless.

Cinderella here can pull up now.  No cruising yet.  We've heard her crying in bed a few times lately (which never happens) and we've gone in to see her standing in her crib with no understanding of how to get down.  Funny little sweet girl. 

Muffins with Mom

 Our preschool hosted a Muffins for Mom morning.  It was precious.  I made a craft with each of them. Kate's teachers gave us potted flowers and some treats that Lily Kate had made in class a few days before.  After we ate they sang us some songs about being a mom.  It was adorable, even made me tear up.  Love this school!

School Pics

I'm already chuckling sitting down to write about these....  So, a couple weeks ago Lily Kate had her picture day on a Monday and Charlotte's was on the Wednesday of the same week.  Kate's went well because she loves posing for pictures (bet you didn't know that, did you??).  On Wednesday Charlotte didn't do so well.  She refused to smile at all.  They brought Lily Kate to take some pictures with her.  They had Kate stand by the camera man and make silly faces, dance, anything to get Grumpy to smile. Meanwhile, Kate mentions to the photographer that she saw that some kids took pictures standing up and asks if she can take some more like that.  The kids told me this story on our way home from preschool and I was cracking up.  I kept asking Charlotte why she wouldn't smile and she happily said (every time) that she just wanted to make a "mean face" and kept showing me this Mr T scowl.  That would make me laugh more and I never got any more info out of them.  The proofs are in.

Kate's normal picture on her picture day

 Kate's extra shots

 Straight faced

I will call this look forlorn

 my favorite, by far!

Hilarious.  This is the only smile he got out of like 20 pictures.

So, which ones should I order?

Daily Life

In keeping with the theme of documenting daily life, here's what we've been up to.  Painting bread with  colored milk.  (Pinterest taught me that you can add food coloring to milk, paint bread, toast it, and then eat your creation).  30 minutes of fun.

 Dinners on the porch (our favorite room)

 (sorry about the visible chewed up pork chop)

 The quality of this picture is really bad, but I finally captured Hadley showing us "SO BIG".  She loved the applause she gets when she's done.  

 Can you find the tiny turtle that lives in front of our house?  The water has been stagnant for a few days (no rain) so it's kind of mucky.  

Lily Kate visiting her "pet".