Maxine on a wakeboard...

I don't remember how it happened but Merril convinced Maxine to try wakeboarding.  To my surprise, she popped right up.  Then Merril started looking at the end of season deals and scored a kid wakeboard.  Maxine's pretty good at it!

The rest are just lazy lake pictures.

Jack's not really going anywhere on the jetski.  He just likes to think he is.

Mikayla is a crack up to me.

Having a good time!

Maxine chillin' on the tube.

Sadly, lake season is coming to a close.  :(

Grandma's rocking chair...

Grandma C. has a rocking chair that's for little kids. When we were up for Sunday dinner recently, Mikayla was sitting in the chair in her Sunday dress. The dress looks vintage and her cousin took a picture. It inspired me to borrow the rocking chair and take a few pictures back at the house.

I think some of them are absolutely adorable!

I don't know why but I really like this one of her looking down.



I can't believe she's 7 months already! She started inching forwards on her tummy the other day. She's actually achieving forward motion! Unbelievable.

The perfect picture...

I decided to take some pictures of all 4 kids together. It's quite the feat. But the kids and I set off after dinner to get some pictures taken! The first one fired off was pretty great! I swapped Mikayla's head because she smiled better the second shot. Hooray.

Here was another good one, except for Jack. He was done by now and didn't want to participate. He was swapped out and looks pretty good.

The kids wanted to take pictures of me and Mikayla so I agreed, mainly to keep them cooperative. I like this one.

The overall experience was good. Even without photoshop, I would've had some pretty decent shots.

No wonder people didn't smile in the old days; it was just too hard when you had 19 kids.

Juliet's Dance Class...

Ever since the summer Olympics, Juliet has decided that she's a gymnast. A flyer came around for the community center and offered ballet classes for $18 a month. Jules was all over it. She begged and begged to go. So I signed her up, bought all the cute ballet clothes and she's in love. This is from the first day of class.

She's been living in the ballet clothes ever since. I just have 2 rules, she can't wear them to school or eat in them.

She's also gotten really good at cartwheels and surprised me by doing backflips on the trampoline! How did she get so big?!

Hula hoops and 500th blog post! Wahoo!

Juliet got a hula hoop at the dollar store yesterday. She's been having fun practicing!

Hiking Oak Grove...

Merril and Ryan R. took the kids hiking up Oak Grove trail.

 I remember hiking it and thinking it was pretty steep but the kids did great!

Ryan and his kids brought stuff to camp out but Merril turned around with our kids after about a mile.  Good job kiddos!