Attention

I don't think our children are getting nearly enough attention while we are on vacation.  

Ice Cream

Aunt Donna keeps a lot of ice cream in her freezer.  

It's hard to resist an after dinner snack.  

Ring around the rosie,

A pocket full of posies.,

Ashes, ashes,

We all fall down.  

Our First Day in Michigan

We flew to Michigan last night to hang out with Andrew's family.  We have been looking forward to coming for a long time.  There are so many fun things to do.  And it is a nice 79 degrees today.  It's been a perfect summer day. 

Madeline's all ready to go tubing.  (We still haven't worked on the thumbs up thing.)

What's in there?

We thought she would get in and be done in 5 seconds.  But, she loved it.  She especially loved the "bumpies".  

Andrew went out wake boarding with Zeke and his dad, Bill (Andrew's cousin).  

These kids don't know how lucky they are to be growing up right on the lake.  

Andrew's turn.  Noah took these pictures of Andrew wake boarding.  He got some great shots.  

Madeline got to go fishing with Papa.

Eli is quite the fisherman.  He caught at least 3 fish in first 10 minutes that we were watching him.  

He let Madeline help reel in a fish.

Before nap time, Madeline got to go Sea Dooing (sp?) with Andrew.

After Oliver's not-so-much naptime, he got to go for a ride on the pontoon boat.  

Our first day in Michigan has been so much fun and we aren't even done yet.  We might have to think about moving up here.  

Tags

Oliver loves tags.  It doesn't matter if it is connected to a stuffed animal, a blanket or his sister.  

So, today, while I was shopping at a kid's store, I checked out the Taggies blankets.  One little 12x12 blanket was 25 bucks.  Hello?!?  Now, I am pretty sure they weren't the cheapest at this store.  In fact, I have seen them for as little as $15 online.  But, $25.  I should get a full crib quilt for that.  So, I said to myself, "Self, you can totally make one of these."  So, I headed to JoAnn's Fabrics and found the softest fleece you have ever felt (seriously) and a bunch of ribbon.  I started working on it while the kids were taking naps today and finished it after they went to bed.

It is possibly a little over stimulating.  But, we'll see what Oliver thinks about it tomorrow.  Right now it is being washed to get rid of all the lent.  There's way more on the floor.  It looks like a Muppet Baby died on our carpet tonight.  

So, for around $4, Oliver has a bunch of tags to play with and maybe he can leave his sister alone for now.  And hopefully it will help him feel better.  I took him to the doctor today and he has Strep.  Poor baby.  But, he is on the mend.  

I Almost Forgot...

Oliver took his first step in Chick-Fil-A last Thursday.  My friend, Lauren, was there.  She can confirm that this is true.  He stood up in the middle of the play area and took a baby step towards me.  True story.  The end.

Rides

Oh my word, am I still posting about the beach?  The pictures keep getting worse and worse as well.  The lighting was horrible (it was nighttime), so they are all really grainy.  But, I guess a bad picture is better than no picture.  Well, at least sometimes it is.  

One evening we headed to Broadway at The Beach to ride the rides.  Madeline has been talking about them, especially these fast cars, for the past year.  Poor thing.  A year to a 2 year old is half a lifetime.   (We really need to work on her "thumbs up.")  

I think she thought the train was pretty boring.  She was ready to get off.  

Oliver took the opportunity to play with Baby and Big Girl while Madeline wasn't watching.  

Daddy was the only one who would ride the tea cups with her.  Every other adult had a realistic fear of throwing up shortly after getting off.  It brings back bad memories of the Tilt-A-Whirl when I was little.  

Oliver finally got to ride the carousel.