Introducing Maverick James

Born November 29, 2016, 8:52 a.m. to Brian and Kirsten, weighing 7 lbs 7 oz., 20 1/4 inches long.

Thanksgiving Day

The planets aligned, and all ten of our children and our granddaughter, plus all three of Andy's brothers and all of THEIR children were together on Thanksgiving Day for a rollicking, raucus celebration of family and food.

Mother's Day Tribute.

This one made Andy and me laugh until we choked.  

My mom taught me how to make yogurt, bake bread, have a garden, raise chickens, identify bird calls, and put rice in a sock and microwave it to make a heating pad. And then she goes and calls me a hippie. Happy Mother's day! Love you! 


Also, Clare and I took the most flamboyant flowers we could find to the cemetery, and we sang an Elvis song for my mom.  

New Haircut.

Opening Day at Knoebel's.

Oh. My. Goodness.  The awards party for the swim team was held at Knoebel's on opening day.  "What a great idea!" I thought, not for a moment considering that they were giving away 2-for-1 handstamps.  The weather wasn't rainy (for a change) but not terribly warm.  What WAS terrible was the crowds, however.  I have never seen such crowds there and I hope I never do again.  We were averaging two rides an hour.  Theresa waited for an hour and twenty minutes to ride the Impulse, one of the newest attractions.  There's no fun in that - for me, anyway.  

Although there was a bit of disapointment about why we couldn't go on certain rides, the kids still had a good time.  We began as we always do, with Mom taking mug shots of everybody for "missing child" purposes.

One of the rides we didn't have to wait for was the carousel.

She went for the brass ring.  I caught it. Heh heh.

Phil was big enough to go on some more adventurous rides this year.  I didn't get many good pictures but he really did enjoy himself.

Scott & Scarlett.

Watercolors.

Clare started taking a watercolor class in March, and after her lessons I make her teach me what she's learning.  When Sarah's birthday approached, we came up with the idea of each painting her a small watercolor.  Sarah likes birds, and trees, so  we centered our works of art around those themes.  

Here are all three paintings, along with the floppy sun hat we also gave Sarah.

Theresa opted for a simple bird and branch silhouette on a sponged yellow background.

Clare's has a tree done in watercolor pencil in front of a moody, dramatic background.  She wished, afterward, that she hadn't put the bird in.

I (Michele) copied a really cool picture I found on the internet with a variety of multicolored birds in the branches.

And of course, we painted Philip.

Now Playing on the Big Screen.

When Sarah was in town, she took her little sibs to see Zootopia.  This was Philip's first experience at the movies, and he was entranced - for the first 30 minutes.  After that he wanted to go outside, like usual.  I had to ply him with a box of Sour Patch Kids and a soda to get him to stay in the theater for the duration of the movie.
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Sisters.

Snapshots.

Every once in a while, B.D. sends me a snapshot.

Storytime With Sarah.

Sarah is a doer.  She doesn't like when everyone just sits around staring at screens.  And when she decided to read Regina a story, everyone else gathered around like moths to a flame.  Even Charlie. :)

Happy 25th birthday, Sarah! 

Frog and Toad are so silly.  Sarah even does all the voices. 

Twins.

This picture was taken at a playground a few weeks ago.

Here are two more shots of them:

Natalie

Noelle

Trouble - With A Capital P.

You read about the Tree-Climbing Incident.

Well, it's not just trees.

He'll climb anything.  He loves to climb up along the outside of the staircase and pretend he's "fixing" the ceiling with his toy tools.

He recently discovered (through observation) that Regina's closet can be scaled.  Now he climbs up to that shelf and throws all the stuff down to the floor whenever we forget to latch the door.

Notice how they threw down all those dresses to make room for their acrobatics.

Sleep Tight.

This is what I woke up to one morning.  It's no wonder Andy is always tired!

Still with the blankie and the fingers...

Swim Season 2016.

Theresa, Natalie, and Noelle all joined the swim team for the winter session.  Theresa loves swimming, and although the twins could swim before, they now know all the basic strokes.  Natalie learned how to dive off the blocks, Noelle improved her diving, and they both learned the underwater flip turn.