Needle In A Haystack

Lucy is at the stage of finding microscopic particles on the ground.  If it is tiny and barely visible to the naked eye, she will find it.  We've told the kids that it is very important for us to vacuum regularly and make sure things are picked up off the floor.  Their solutiuon is to buy a playpen and keep her in it.

Mud Fest 2011

While I normally detest the kids making unnecessary messes, I stepped out of my comfort zone and let them play in a little mud Saturday.  Our community had a Mud Fest in one of the local parks to encourage recycling.  Personally, I didn't get the connection. Oh, well.  They had a blast.

 Drew, in orange, was the first to compete.  A HUGE obstacle course was set up, and the winners of the heats were suppose to compete in the end.

 Drew jumping over the barrels

 That kid is so fast!  Even in the soggy mud he passed kids from the two races before him.

 Dirty Monkey Boy

 Almost done!

 Even his teeth were dirty!

 And his ears.

 Lucy was like, "You fools are insane."

 Mallory took a turn.

 Her muddy little foot

 And it turns out she hated it.  She was finished pretty quickly.

 Much cleaner and much happier

 Elizabeth (on the left) competed with her friend, Anna.

 It's hard to tell because all of the muddy kids look the same after a while, but Elizabeth and Anna are on the ramp.

 Getting ready to cross the finish line

 Muddy beard

 Elizabeth and Anna, and their pretty white teeth

 Of course Edward had to compete.  He and Ross are ready to go.

 Showing Ross no mercy!  "Eat my mud, Ross!"

 Ross

This is my cousin, Joe.  The kids said, "Mom, that's Joey."  I never would have recognized him, and I don't know how they did.  All you could see was his blue eyes!

We ended up throwing all socks away and most of the clothes after the festival.  We never let the kids play in the mud so we thought, "Why not."  It certainly will go down in the memory books!

7 Months

I figure I had better post Lucy's 7 month photos before she reaches her birthday!  This month really got away from me.  Some of her new tricks include clapping and rolling herself any where she wants.

She fake-laughs to try to get people to laugh.  We sit in the pew in front of my sister's family at church each Sunday.  When we go sit down, she looks down the line at them laughing, knowing she's about to get some attention.

  She loves to pull Drew's hair and chew on his head when he's lying on the floor.  She doesn't do it so much to the others.  I suppose she has an inborn knowledge that she's suppose to be rowdy with her brother. 

She has also really grown to love her Daddy.  She nearly jumps out of my arms when she catches a glimpse of him.  None of the other kids have reacted that way to him this early, and it makes for happy people all around.

 Lucy went from this...

 ...to this fakeness...

 ...to this elation in a matter of about four seconds.  She is such a happy girl.

 Crawling is just around the corner.  She gets where she wants by an assortment of methods.  Currently she does a little move we call "The Inchworm."  It's like a little combat crawl, but she always inches along by pushing off with the toes on her left foot. 

And those cheeks!

Rubber Girl Is At It Again

I came around the corner to find Mallory in this position.  Her head and her feet are on the same step.

 Elizabeth gave it a try.

 It turns out she's not quite as flexible as Rubber Girl.

She's A Smart One

Ever since we have had kids, we have chosen to take a break from all TV on Sundays (Yep. Even the Super Bowl). It really is nice to unplug from the world on the Sabbath. The kids can watch what they call church movies as well as home videos and classic movies like The Wizard of Oz. The kids are constantly telling us that The Three Stooges are classics (That is a little true.).

Tonight my little Mr. Bean fanatic, Mallory, asked if she could watch a Mr. Bean episode. When we told her no, she asked, "How about the episode when he goes to church?"

She's a smart one, that Mallory!