Playdoh Papa

Rock had a lot of fun pretending that this yellow Play-doh beard made him look like Papa John.

Dino Pajamas

If it wasn't for Nana Kerry and Juju, my children would probably sleep in their clothes every night. But thanks to the grandmas, Rock and Lou are continually getting new bedtime digs.

BOO!

AN UPDATE ON FEBRUARY 24th, 2012:

So you may have noticed that it's been awhile since I updated this blog. Well, I have been very busy this Fall/Winter. And then I accidentally sorta sat on my laptop. It was only for a millisecond and I didn't even put all my weight down on it. But it also happened to be the day that our third child was born so I was more than a little large at that point.

And it killed my hard drive. Which deleted a whole slew of pictures that I had intended to put up here. So, the end of the Summer and most of the Fall was lost. At least as far as pictures are concerned.

But I am pulling together the few pictures that I took on my cell phone and ones that others gave us to give you a piecemeal glimpse at our Fall. I will be post-dating the pics so the blog will stay in chronological order. This is because I want this blog to function as a scrapbook for our lives. And I will also be writing in a post-dated voice so I will talk about events that have already occurred (Halloween, the birth of our third child, Christmas, etc.) as though they haven't already happened.

So if that thoroughly confuses you, sorry. If you can hang with me through this rough stage, I promise I am trying to get back into blogging mode. And yes, I realize that I may be writing this note to my mom as she may be the only loyal reader I have left...

Anyway, here we go...

Lovely Lou

Our Little Lou just gets cuter and cuter by the day.

I love when she intentionally crinkles her nose. It distracts from the hot mess that is her hair. But don't worry Lou -- it'll continue to grow and I haven't given up on it yet!

Mr. Potato Head

Do you know Mabel Sawhill? She is a fantastic woman who defies her age (97 I believe) and keeps right on cooking. Literally. She catered our wedding. And the weddings of most of my parent's friends. And a few of their parent's friends. She's so amazing that Madeline Marshall followed her to create her senior thesis/film. It's a beautiful testament to a beautiful, Godly woman.

This Is Life from Madeline Marshall on Vimeo.

Anyway, what does she have to do with Mr. Potato Head? She told my mom and Rock that back in the day, they used to just have the Mr. Potato Head accessories and you put them in to a real potato.So they tried it out for themselves. Pretty cute, huh?

HE'S HERE!!!!

We've been waiting and waiting for MARK RONALD MCCALLUM to make his big debut! And he's finally here! Mark was born at 11:27pm on July 17th. He is beyond cute and we are so happy for Ron and Sarah! You can follow all of his adventures at www.tonybagels.blogspot.com.

Bath

Getting clean at Juju's house. Notice the Thomas tattoo.

Summer Fellowship Beach Shots

While we were at the beach Rock prayed "Thank you for my best buddy Clip and my best buddy Addy."
She is an awfully cute pick for a best buddy.
And this is an awfully cute bathing suit -- given to her by the Hathaways -- just one of her many Polkadotsie gifts from her first birthday party.Bethany and Kelly's cornhole game provided lots of beach-time entertainment for the fellas...
While the ladies preferred to lounge...
And nap (for the record I know that Clip is a fella, not a lady)...
And smile pretty for the camera.

Zuni got her haircut one morning so she could look particularly lovely at the beach. Good thing you can see the cut so well in this picture.

On our final afternoon at the beach, there was a rousing FIGHT THE TIDE competition. When the tide was out, each of the houses worked together to build a 'sand castle' (although I must say they all looked like mounds of sand to me!). Each team then places a straw upright in their 'castle' wherever they chose. Then the tide comes in and whichever team's straw stays upright longest wins.

Here's our house's team and 'castle.' Notice I am not there -- I was back at the house with a napping Lou. Our straw went down first, but the mound of sand lasted the longest so when Rock came back to the house he told me that our team won.

I think he may have been out in the sun a little too long.

Piggly Wiggly

Whoever came up with the idea for kids carts at the grocery store is a total genius. When we arrived at the beach, the first place we stopped was Piggly Wiggly. And our kids (still in their pjs) were quite happy to get out and run around.

Although this would be totally annoying on my regular grocery runs, on vacation I was able to (somewhat) relax and enjoy the craziness. As you can hear on this video, I couldn't stop laughing.
This picture reminds me of....
This one. Sheer delight everytime.

Beach Lashes

When I took this picture, I thought of...

This picture. From our beach trip in 2009. Where you can see Rock's ridiculously long lashes.
While Lou's lashes are beautiful and impressive in length...

I think Rock still has her beat.

Summer Fellowship Portraits

Look at those good looking grandparents and their cute grandkids!
Can you guess the impromptu color theme? And did you spot more matching outfits on the girls? We have Bethany to thank for those. If only Sarah and Ron could have been with us, but she's about to have her baby boy!

Summer Fellowship House of Chaos and Fun

There's a reason Louisa is positively giddy in this picture. It was SUMMER FELLOWSHIP WEEK! And Zuni was here from London and staying in our house!!!

In fact we shared a house with the Rabenhorsts, Brockmans, Barnetts and Hathaways. It was a kid-filled house of fun for sure.

There was young love....

And lots of screaming from the two kiddies pictured here.

And there were matching outfits provided by Juju for all the young ladies.
Juju even hosted a Bingo night at our house.
And she gave away killer prizes.

At the other houses, we celebrated Copeland's birthday.

And her Uncle Greg's birthday.

And took an adorable picture or two of the Barnetts. No no no, we didn't take a picture of our family. That would be silly.
But we did take a picture of the matching outfits again.

At the close of each day, we'd go back to the house of chaos. Our Litchfield, SC home away from home.