In the Canoe at French Creek.

Here's Amelia "helping" Daddy fill out the paperwork to rent the canoe. Notice how the hat has already been removed.

Geese. There were lots of them. Amelia like yelling, "DUCKS!" at them. Therefore we never got very close to them.

My view from the back of the canoe (notice I've put Amelia's hat back on). This was after Amelia's first attempt to exit the canoe, at which point I moved her closer to me. I think this was before I gave her crackers to eat to keep her still.

Maria imitating the geese flying away.

Ok, this one's not of us in the canoe. This was at the campsite on our last day. Thank goodness for camera's with timers.

Jen's attempt at "Art" from the French Creek Hike.

Indian Pipes

Teaberry on a Rock

Canoes

Little Bridge

Forest Flowers

Wild Blueberries (Yum!)

French Creek 2008 - Still more pictures.

This is zombification from a different angle. Rainy days are a good reason to have a motor home while camping with kids. And a satellite dish.

From our two-hour hike. This is Jim at the start of the hike. I didn't take a picture of him at the end, but if I did I'm sure he wouldn't have let me post it. A hike is much harder with and extra 35-40 lbs on your back.

Here's one of Amelia and I. Not the best one of me, but Amelia's cute.

This is the best one of our navigator, Becky. I had one of her with the map, but it was fuzzy. However, this shows what my view was like much of the time, Becky blazing ahead unhampered by a backpack full of wiggling, hair-pulling, screeching fun. (Becky is also in better shape than Jim and I so I'm sure that helped too.)

More Camping Pictures.

These are from our walk/playground stop on the first day there.

Maria heard Becky and I talking about running and so she needed to get out and run. Maria made Becky and I be on her team and run with her. Then Amelia tried it...she spent the rest of the weekend yelling, "I running way!" every time we let her walk by herself. (No pics of that though, too busy chasing.)

The kids enjoyed the slide.

It was nice to have extra hands around to help with the girls. Aunt Becky did a lot of chasing and "spotting" while we were at the playground.
A fun time for all.

Note: I had intended to post this last week, the computer ate it. Luckily, blogger saved it right after I uploaded the pics so I was able to come back and get it posted finally.

Camping.

Zombification in Progress.

Finally more yarn pictures.

I know that you are all waiting for a pictures of those socks... right? Well, you'll just have to be satisfied with picture of my yarn swift and ball winder, and my two little helpers.


The one on the right is the sock yarn that was tangled. I had hand wound it, and finally have re-wound it properly now that I have the swift and winder. I probably won't retry those socks for while though. I have a scarf and sweater to do first.

When baking with toddlers...

...don't put the cooling racks within reach of small hands. Or you'll end up with something like this.

Because Jim did it....

...I had to do it too.

Movie Reviews

Not bad considering that most of my posts are pictures of the girls. I may have to write a few more "wordy" posts just to see if I can match Jim.

Hanging out on the deck.

Pictures from Father's day.

Here's one of Jim and the girls engaged in a favorite daddy and daughter activity... playing/watching a computer game.

The rest of the girls at the pool, while daddy was off catching a movie with his dad.

Amelia spent the first 30 minutes or so running around gathering every toy in sight, often falling face first into the water and drinking pool water.

She calmed down somewhat, and by the end was spending her time poolside pouring water or floating, relying on the armbands, with her head barely out of the water, somewhat like a crocodile.

The boat was supposed to be for Amelia, but since she abandoned it within 20 secs of entering the pool Maria claimed it and spent much of her time cruising around in it.

She also very much enjoyed meeting new friends and playing with their toys.

Maria's Camel

Maria's got these domino's as a present a few weeks ago and loves to play around with them. When I saw this, I had to take a picture. She explained to me that she'd made a camel. Do you see it? The head is in the upper left hand corner, the legs are closest to her. When I asked her what that little bit on the right side was, she said, "My camel is pooping."

Yep, she made a pooping camel. That's my daughter for you.

In her defense, she has been to the zoo twice recently, so I imagine she may have seen any number of animals pooping and thought that it was interesting. Gotta love the zoo.

Now where did I put that apron?

74 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

The other picture.

I mentioned that I would be getting a picture from the day of my sister's engagement, so I'm finally going to post that now. Becky says that she likes it a bit better than the one that I took.

"Once upon a time...

...there was a little girl named Cinderella, whose father, the king had to go and help the church. So Cinderella stayed home to play with her mean step-mother and mean step-sister, and they played with their cooking-stuff. The End."

A new fairy tale, as told by Maria.

Engaged!

My little sister's engaged! Yay!

I've been promised some pics from the actual day, but until then here's one I took Monday night of the happy couple. Aren't they cute?

Becky and Kerry

Of mowing, gardening and decapitations.

Friday we got the chance to go outside and take care of some yardwork. (Not all, of course, I still have more than a few plants to get in the ground, and the weeds keep coming back.)

Before mowing, Jim had to pick up the massive pile of weeds that I left in the yard after pulling them out of the flower bed.

Maria and Amelia helped me plant some flowers. Amelia really enjoyed dumping dirt as we filled a planter. She also decided that I needed to have more dirt on me, and dumped a pot full on my back. Sorry, no pictures of that. Maria is really starting to be a good helper in the garden. Here she is patting dirt around a newly planted calla lily.

Amelia soon got bored with dirt and decided to play t-ball instead.

Maybe one day she'll be able to hit the ball more than a few inches from the tee.

While we were having fun with flowers, Jim was down near the soon to be ground-hog buffet, I mean, veggie garden, clipping the high weeds surrounding it. I heard him give a shout, but he wouldn't tell me what happened until the girls were out of earshot. Apparently, while clipping the grass, he accidentally decapitated a snake, only seeing it after the deed was done. He chucked the body off into the weeds, but the head is still down there somewhere for me to discover.
Fun, fun.

The second decapitation of the day came later, when the girls and I were out on the deck. Amelia picked up the turtle bird feeder and dropped it. I'd say it was a banner day for us.

Nobody nose the trouble I've seen...

and her name is Amelia.



When Maria was younger, I thought that she got into trouble and did lots of strange things.

Now I know that she was a very good baby.

In the last week Amelia has fallen down the stairs (totally fine except for rug burn on the bridge of her nose), eaten copious amounts of sand and finger paint, and "discovered" the contents of her diaper and shared it with me.

I thought she'd slow down a bit after that list of accomplishments. But no, she had to top it all. Last night at dinner, she looked at me, rubbing her nose, and said, "Nose!"

Which I took to mean that she had a boogie in her nose. So, as any good mama would I looked in her nose only to discover... corn. Yep, she'd shoved it up there pretty far. Luckily, I have an assortment of tweezers and was able to retrieve said corn.

Being a mom is so much fun. ;-)