cute siblings

Eliza went and laid down next to Sam the other night when we were getting ready for bed. Sam was being so smiley, and they were both giggling and smiling at me. Jed took a few cute pictures of them.
Then Benjamin joined the fun, and the three of them laid on Sam's blanky. Ages 3 months, 2 1/2 years, and 4 (going on five). What cuties!

Jed took these pictures one weekend morning while I was upstairs. They are so funny!

Fathers Day 2010

Happy Fathers Day
to the best Daddy in the whole world!

On Sunday we had a great time with Jed. He is the sweetest, funnest, most hands-on Daddy to our three children, and they all adore him. (yes, even Sam gives him the biggest smiles he's capable of.)
After church (Jed gave a talk and did a great job!) we came home and had dinner (roast, mashed potatoes & gravy and yorkshire pudding). Then we shooed Jed off to take a nice relaxing nap. While he was snoozing we 'made' wrapping paper and wrapped his Fathers Day gifts. Jed came downstairs just as we were putting the finishing touches on his wrapped gifts...

We opened his presents and the kids got to try on his new clothes...

When Jed opened up his new 'dust buster', he started sucking everyone's hair up in it. Benjamin just had to have a turn at that fun game!
Ben and I made these signs for Jed for Fathers Day last week and hid them behind the computer desk until Sunday. Eliza's sign was a colored 8x10 sheet of paper... Benjamin hid it for her, but we couldn't find it when it was time to hang them up while Daddy was taking his nap. I guess we'll come across it sometime this week!
Happy Fathers Day, Jed. I love you!

Memorial Day 2010

Memorial Day was Jed's last day of vacation. We had a laid back day at home, hanging out together. At one point in the early afternoon we were all in the front yard when a rain storm hit. It had been hot sunny weather all morning; Jed was taking the ski racks off his old car and putting them onto our other car and I was vacuuming out the cars. Ben and Eliza were running around the yard and Sam was hanging out in his bouncer in the shade of the garage. Within 10 minutes the sunny sky got dark and the weather went from hot to raining cats & dogs. It was weird. But also exciting. :) We scurried to get everything picked up and in the house, and we were all pretty wet when we got inside. Later in the afternoon (after a dry spell of a couple hours) Jed and Ben went outside to practice T-ball. I decided to join them after feeding Sam, planning to spread mulch on the front yard planters. When I went outside it was still overcast and was starting to lightly rain again, but I decided to do the chore anyway. Well, it quickly started raining harder but I had already committed myself... Jed helped me dump the bags and I spread it out while he and Ben hit balls... all in the rain! It was quite an exciting afternoon!
By the way, we have had SO much rain here. We even had a tornado warning last Saturday night. (I didn't find out about that until church the next morning. I didn't even stir when the tornado sirens went off in the night. Woops!)
Anyway, before dinner on Memorial Day we had our Family Home Evening activity - playing pictionary! Jed and I put a bunch of words in a cup and then we took turns drawing out a word and having the rest guess as we drew our picture. Ben and I were on our own separate teams, and Eliza and Jed were on the third team. It was such a fun activity!! (Jed always has the best ideas!)

(Ben's tree. Some of his pictures would have stumped us if we hadn't had the advantage of knowing the list of words that were floating around in the cup! :) )

(Jed drawing a dog with his helper scribbling below, with a marker in each hand.)

Father & Son's Annual Campout

It's that time of year again! Benjamin and Jed enjoyed their third Father and Son's Campout!

2008 campout (2 years old)
2009 campout (3 years old)

and now for the 2010 campout (4 years old):

Getting ready for bed. Time: 11pm

Time to get up! Or as my dad would say, "we're burning daylight!"

A brilliant idea for the bottle rocket this year. Theirs needed a little more weight.
His left shoe volunteered. His left sock took one for the team.

Jed had vacation time!

Jed had two glorious weeks off of work in May. We enjoyed the relaxed time together, and got stuff done around the house. It was so fun to have him home day after day. Wow! I loved it.

Toledo Zoo!
Eliza is blowing kisses to the zebras.
Jed is helping the kids get a good view of the baby polar bear. I love his face in the second picture. :)


Here we are in line for the train ride.



Hangin' Out
Eliza wanted to hold both of her babies.
Sam is smiling while getting his bath.
















Jed and Ben discovered a frog in the backyard. Since then we've found lots of frogs back there. (I love it! Frogs are awesome!) Eliza loved holding it, and when Jed said, "Give the frog a kiss, Eliza!" she totally went for it. So funny! Ben liked looking at it, but was kind of jittery about holding it.
















Eliza passing the frog off to Ben.

Movie Clips - clips from our time together as a family

1 min - enjoying a Sunday afternoon together.
2 1/2 min - Eliza shoving Ben out of the way so she can say Bye to Grandma on Webcam. Usually Benjamin doesn't back down, but luckily for Eliza he got sidetracked by his legos and she got her way.
3 1/2 min - Princess Eliza giving Mr. Frog a kiss.
4 1/2 min - Jed saving the day on our bike ride by hefting a tree trunk out of the way. It doesn't look that heavy, but he made me hold it for a moment and boy! it was waaaay heavier than it looked!
5 1/2 min (the end) - another relaxing afternoon with Jed home.