Florence trip June 2012

Daddy went to Boston for 5 days in June, and I took that week off work as well.  I packed up the littles and off we went to Florence to visit the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Needless to say, they had a blast.  This is also right after I got a new camera lens, so I had lots of fun playing around with it.

The first night we went to Aunt Maggie's house, and Drake tried his hardest to put the horse balls game back together.

And Tessa thought playing chase with Peyton was the greatest ever.

Oh those eyes.  They melt this Momma.

Now everyone is getting in on fixing the broken game.

No jungle gym?  Climbing Peyton will work just fine.

And off we went on a golf cart ride.

Picking fruit in the orchard.

My stinkers love their Aunt Cindy

This was Drake trying to climb on the front of the cart and reach an apple.

But then he got Aunt Cindy to lift him up!

Success!

Tessa's turn!

Of course Eli had to pick one as well!

I can't tell you how excited these three were when Grandma arrived.  Drake ran to show her the apple, but then ran back to grab more fruit to show off!

And now Tessa is running over to show off her fruit...doesn't Grandma have the perfect "I love your apple" face?

Drake just couldn't get over the fact that Grandma was finally HERE!!!

He just had to give her more kisses.  The sweetest thing about these photos is that they were all completely spontaneous.

Another ride before dinner.

The next few days involved lots of swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's pool.  Eli is the craziest about the pool yet, but we can't drag Tessa or Drake out.

Jumping off the diving board

Sweet cousin Piper!

Tessa is so sweet sometimes.  Here she is sharing her ice-cream with Eli.

Tessa with cousin Austin.  My littles are so blessed to have so many older cousins to love on them.

So behind!

I am so behind in all of my blogging.  I have about 10 different events in my aperture library that I want to blog, so I am going to try and at least get 5 done today.  I used to enjoy blogging to just let my thoughts flow onto the screen, sort of a venting or catharsis.  Now, I mostly use it to record our little family's lives.  I print these out at the end of each year, and we have a lot of fun looking back at where we've been.  So, onto all the fun stuff I've failed to memorialize.

First...Strawberry picking!  Yes, this was back in April.  The beginning of April.  Better late than never.  It was supposed to be a fun day at the strawberry patch with friends, except for one little issue.  Passports.  I send Eric to the passport office at 7 am to get in line.  Fabulous, because he was at the beginning.  The not so fabulous?  They didn't open until 10.  I won't bore you with how awful that was with three kids, but we survived.  We paid to have Tessa's expedited, because we wanted to have it before our trip to NY in May.  (Just in case we headed over into Canada).  Eli's is lost somewhere in space, and the last time I called, their computer system was down.  Oops.  Good thing he can travel to Canada on just his birth certificate.  So, passport trip OVER, I took the kiddos to the patch.  Our friends had already gone picking, and were actually finishing their picnic.  We ate with them, and then went off for some FUN!  Drake was busy finding the biggest berries, Eli was busy eating them, and Tessa wasn't really sure what she liked best.  The day ended in a massive tantrum from Eli, (we were WAY past nap time),  but we made it home in one piece.  And then enjoyed some yummy strawberries over the next few days.

I am often asked in public if all three are mine.  I don't find it offensive at all, I think people are truly curious because all three are so small and look the same age.  I hear the same three things:
1.  Are they ALL yours?
2.  How OLD are they all?
3.  You have your hands FULL!
I usually respond by with "Yes", "3/3/2", and "my hands are full but so is my heart".  And I always make sure to say we are blessed.  Never lucky.  We must give credit where credit is due.

We usually catch people's attention when we are out since it's usually just me and the 3 kids.  They all hold hands in parking lots and stores until I can get them secured in a cart.  It seems to honestly surprise people that I am out doing things with all of them.  Not just the grocery store or buying new shoes, but fun stuff.  Playgrounds, picnics, kids museums, bouncy house places, and anything else that strikes our fancy.  I refuse to stay home, even though that would be easiest.  I want them to have as many experiences as possible, and be around lots of different types of people. The only place I won't take them alone is to a place with water.  None of them have any fear of water thanks to swim lessons, and I just worry about drowning until they are all proficient in swimming.

The grocery store is the current favorite, because of the renovations.  There are bulldozers outside, and cookies inside.  It just doesn't get any better than that.  Drake uses his own little mini cart, and it's the cutest thing ever.  He loves putting food into it!

E Cards

I could spend hours on the someecards website browsing that stuff.  It's just too funny.  Here are a few of my favorites!

 I'm not sure which I love more, my middle finger or my horn.

 And this is just plain funny.

My new life mantra for wimpy men I have to deal with.  You nurses know what I'm talking about.

 All three of my children napped in the car, at the same time today.  A-MEN!

My favorite cards usually involve something hilarious about Facebook.  I don't know who writes all of these, but they are awesome.  My all time favorite says something about being unfriended.  I sure wish I could find it!  I frequently clean out my friends list, because I frequently have realizations that I just don't want certain people knowing my personal business.  It's also approaching November, which means it's time to start deleting people with increasing frequency!

Fun on the lake!

Evening boat ride. Loving my stinkers, and basking in amazement at how BLESSED we really are.

The letter B!!!

We are having fun learning letters this summer! Marley brought bird houses for them to paint:-)