Enjoying the sun!

I just had to share recent pictures of our babies. Here's Lily enjoying a twig:

And Chloe chewing on a leaf and enjoying the cool grass:
Aren't they the cutest?!

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

At Taylor's birthday party last week, we had all of the little ones together and got the cutest pictures of them doing See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. Actually, we were trying to just entertain them and keep them all corraled in one place, but the result was adorable, don't ya think?

Cast for Kids Day!

Today was one of our favorite events of the summer. It was Cast for Kids Day at Merwin Park. Cast for Kids is an event at the Merwin Fish Hatchery for children of various abilities to catch fish and have a lot of fun. This is our fourth year, and as always, we had a fabulous time. Upon arriving we were greeted by a volunteer, given a T-shirt, a fishing pole and a tackle box with everything we needed, then it was off to the ponds. As you can sort of see in this picture, the ponds were stocked!

This was the first catch of the day -- 3 1/2 pounds!
This is the entire catch, a total of 14.2 pounds.

One of the most incredible parts of the day is after you have your catch (5 fish), they clean and bag the fish for you!
Thank you very much Cast for Kids! A wonderful event once again. Click here to see all of the pictures.

Tad - Week 1

I have to admit, Tad doesn't look a whole lot different, but he does appear to be a little larger. I have been feeding him the pellets that he came with but it seems I just clean out the mess the next day -- I guess he's a very light eater. Apparently he gets enough because he is still alive. = )

I tried a side view picture but he is a little hard to see. I keep trying to get a glimpse of whether he is growing legs yet, but it doesn't look like it. He seems a little shy and not real into letting me in on much information. Hopefully, by next weekend we can report some changes. Stay tuned.

Great Day for a BBQ

A 90 degree day did not deter us from having a BBQ where Erik could debut his famous ribs. On the north side of the house, the shade filled in and a little breeze blew which made the day quite comfortable. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of all of the food! You will just have to imagine -- we had ribs, chicken, corn on the cob, pasta salad, fruit salad, Joan's famous beans, cole slaw and rolls. There was also plenty of beer, pop, water and the best -- mudslides -- to drink, thank you Cindy! Dessert, provided by Goni, included fabulous chocolate/caramel/oatmeal bars (we must have the recipe!), mini cupcakes and homemade cheesecake! Renee also brought delicious chocolate chip cookies as an appetizer.


Logan had a blast playing with the big boys and sampling all the food. Here he is after he had eaten. I think he's trying to tell us it was chin-licking good.

Meet Tad!

Our new tadpole, Tad, arrived today. The kids and I will be watching him turn into a frog over the next couple of months and documenting his progress on the blog.
He doesn't have any sign of legs yet, but it sounds like it will take 2 to 4 weeks for him to turn into a frog. At that point, we have to feed him crickets -- yippee! Did I mention that I hate crickets! When cricket day comes along, I can positively say that I will be looking forward to release day. = ) I like frogs, but crickets are another story. In the mean time, he is happy in his new digs and probably a little frightened of all the changes, he wasn't exactly thrilled about the camera flash but I'm sure he will get used to his new celebrity status.

Happy Independence Day!

Check out these fireworks photos! I took them with my Canon, just holding it in my hands. I didn't think it would work well without a tripod, but I was pleasantly surprised. These are fireworks from our neighbors who do this every year and we get to enjoy the show. More photos are posted on the Picasa site.



Earlier in the day, we went to the parade and then had to have an elephant ear. It started raining as we were eating the elephant ear, so we decided it was time to go home. This was definitely one of the wierdest entries in the parade -- not sure what the point was supposed to be!