nap time

Sometimes I know Leah has woken up early from her nap. I can hear her quietly and happily playing, so I usually just let her play for a few minutes, you know, so I can squeeze in a few extra minutes of whatever it is that I am doing. Usually when this happens, I open the door to a train wreck that happened in her room, and sometimes she is dressed like this: 

I promise this is not choking her, mom...

I'm not gonna lie, I kind of like her style.

Strawberry picking

We have been strawberry picking several times in the past couple of weeks/months at this wonderful mennonite farm down in montezuma. I have TONS of frozen strawberry's, and I made two batches of jam, so I think we are set for a while.

The three babies did great the whole time. You can't really tell, because we wiped them mostly off, but they were completely covered in red strawberry juices.

The four older ones did pretty well, too. It's always an adventure taking seven kids under 5 to a huge blazing hot field and expecting to accomplish something.... but, we all managed to go home with about 10 pounds of berries each! And hey, if all three of us ladies go again together next year, we will have 10 kids under 6!

pool time

The past couple of days we have been playing in our lovely pool.

I put the slide in it, and it makes it just that much more fun for Leah. Now she can do something other than try to hold me underwater.

Eli likes it for about 30 minutes, then he starts freaking out.

I'm a wimp in the heat. The only way I enjoy being outside in these blazing summers is if I am in water, so, this 70 $ pool, in my opinion, is the best money we have ever spent.

Tea Party

Several times a week, usually when Elias is napping, Leah and I have a "tea party".

We usually drink apple juice and eat crackers, but she calls it her tea and biscuits.

She'll take a sip, and then say "I'm acting like a lady!" I have tried to get her to talk in Jane Austen fashion, but she's not really picking up on that.

In other news, Elias had his 9 month checkup and he is in the 14th percentile for height, and the 98th percentile for weight. He is a chunk!!!!!!

He's pulling up, crawling like a maniac, and is generally super cute and fun.

Easter activities

I know it's a little bit late for the Easter post, but I'll go ahead and do it. Easter can't be complete without a egg dyeing and decorating (very biblical, I know), so that's what we did on Saturday.

It was the first year that Leah was really able to do it, and it was a lot of fun.

She naturally ate a couple of the eggs. She would have eaten them all if I had let her.

This is a creepy face... I don't really understand.

Our lovely finished product.

Elias just hung out in the yard, crawling and being cute.

I mean, he is very cute...

Easter Sunday was a great day. We had a wonderful Church service, then we celebrated the day with three families at our house. We did a non-traditional lunch (hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill), played in our little backyard pool, hunted easter eggs, and had great fellowship.

Savannah

Tony had to go to Savannah for work this past week, and the kids and I were able to go with him. It was a nice little "vacation", so to speak, even though he had to work during the day. We spent a good deal of the time outside, as the weather was absolutely perfect the entire week.

We went to Tybee Island and had some beach fun

Leah loved playing in the water.

Eli, like his daddy, was not such a fan of it all.

We ate at Joe's Crab shack and saw some alligators, some real...

And some not so real...

We walked on river street alot...

She probably could have just looked at the river all day long and would have been perfectly happy about that.

and we even got to ride the ferry boat

We ate at all sorts of fun restaurants, like Spanky's vinnie van go-go's, and Lady and Sons

(funny tid-bit about this picture, I told Leah I would give her a sip of my tea if she smiled. She hates smiling for the camera...)

we played in City Markets fountains (which was just a huge cement hole last time I was there two years ago, so that was a nice surprise)

(she actually never even got close to the water... she ran around them in a very very wide circle)

And finally we played in the playground at Forsyth park (I never knew there was a playground there, and I have been there many many times... maybe I just never looked or cared because I had no kids at the time)

Another funny thing is that no matter how sunny it was, Leah always wanted to wear her hat backwards, "like Joel". At least she doesn't insist on walking around shirtless like he does.  (Love you Joel)

But, if you ask Leah how the trip was, she won't mention all those fun things she did. She will merely tell you (and she mentioned this to several people at church today)  "I slept in the closet."

Crawling!

This little dude is crawling now!

And he also looks really cute in Leah's hat.