Oh the random things you will see...

This is my latest favorite read in blogland:
Cupcake Bakeshop
She's got beautiful pictures, interesting recipes, and her site is easily searchable! (Check out her right-hand sidebar) Her latest is Sweet Corn, Maple and Bacon Cupcakes.

The other day I had to bring in groceries, so I left Lavella with Andrew. When I came back, I found him reading to her.




Last week Lavella cut her first tooth and had her first "solid food":

Really, she just chewed on this carrot, but it counts, right?

I'm blond again.




The boys got haircuts:

(They're modeling my latest pair of socks in progress -- rainbow colored yarn that is dyed to stripe itself while I knit)


I found Elijah inside the refridgerator yesterday, looking for grenadine.

"I need the wed (red) stuff"

Greg, in his Apocolypto pose:

Greg decided that the inside of these truffles were the only good part. He chilled them, then cracked the chocolate coating open with the side of a butcher knife, and re-wrapped all of the fillings.

True story.

Lavella, who is now five months old, was helping Jillian out with the laundry.

She's almost strong enough to start thinking about sitting up on her own now.

Eis Cafe!

We went out for ice cream for Andrew's birthday (Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Bob sent him a check for his birthday, and a little bit of that went towards this -- he says "thank you!")



I got a Marsala Becher, which is a few different kinds of ice cream with Marsala poured over the top. Tastes a lot like the Italian custard dessert, Zabaglione.

Greg got his favorite kind of becher, Kiwi.

Wrapping it up

Ok, so I've been blogging all of the trip pictures at a painfully slow pace. But the trouble is, I've been having rather rough days lately for various reasons, and just haven't had the extra energy for blogging. In the interest of getting all the pics on here so that I can proceed to blog in "real" time, here are the last three collages -- all from our visit down the shore. (Clicking will take you to the gallery for that particular set, in case you want more details or care to download any.)

On one of the crazy windy, rainy days, we decided to go to a lighthouse. It has a long pier, which some of the braver among us ventured out on. (Just to clear things up, Lavella and I were not among the brave.) My gosh it was cold. Notice my dad (in bottom right corner) trying to make due without hat or hoodie. He was the one who told us to pack for cold weather. Hmm.


After freezing at the lighthouse, the only logical stop was an ice cream stand.

I've never met anyone like Joy. I don't suppose anyone ever has.

Finally, the last day we were there was (sort of) warm enough to visit the beach. Some of us actually swam (I dipped my toes in and when they instantly turned to ice I decided not to be one of them.) All in all, we had a sandy good time.


Well my friends, that wraps up the trip pictures. Thank you once again to Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Bob for hosting us, and to Aunt Terry for letting us stay there for a few days as well.

Missing you all! Much love, hugs and kisses.

Tuckerton

On one of the rainy, cold days down the shore, we went to visit the Tuckerton Museum/fisherman's village:


I don't think that it was supposed to be as interactive as we made it, but we did have a lot of fun, and we didn't break anything, so it was a successful day, I think.

(Click the collage for gallery and more details.)

Down the shore

In the third week of August, my three Littles and I went with my parents and most of the siblings down the shore to visit Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Bob and their gorgeous new house. Well, I guess they've had it for about a year now or so, but I'd never seen it, so it was new to me.

I loved their new layout, the decor, and the way that they incorporated old pieces that I remember always seeing in Aunt Mary Ann's former condo into the new one.

They were very gracious hosts, and somehow found a place for each of us to sleep. We had intended to spend a good deal of time at the beach to try and stay out of their hair during the day, but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate with that plan. I have more pictures of things that we ended up doing instead, but here are shots taken inside the house.


Click on the picture to go to the gallery for more info.

Uncle Bob said that Lavella reminds him of his daughter as a baby; the two of them hit it off quite well, as you can see in the top of the collage.

Aunt Mary Ann -- so sorry that I didn't get more shots of you! I only realized it after we'd left and I was sorting through them all. You do make a cameo appearance in the third picture down from the top on the left. Whoops!

Thank you so much to Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary Ann for a beautiful get-away, fun visiting, incredible food, meeting cousins that we never knew we had, and for agreeing to have us all. I don't know if you'll want take us in full force again in the future, but we certainly had a wonderful time.

All kinds of fun

Well, I think that we might be finally over our jet lag. Since I can read the clock, I was able to figure out what should be day and night. The boys, on the other hand, weren't waking up in the morning until I got them out of bed. Tempting as it was to let them sleep until they saw fit, it wasn't a good way to get us back on schedule. I started getting them up at around 9am, and now Elijah's back to his usual 7:30 business. Sadly. I was really hoping that he'd just rewire himself to the later time, but no such luck.

Since I have so many pictures to blog about from our trip, I'm going to start today with a collage of misc stuff from all different parts of the trip that didn't fit in anywhere else. (Click for the gallery that this set belongs to.)



The top four pics are from Joy's birthday. Hannah, Grace, Joy and I went out together to Dinosaur BBQ to celebrate. There was much good food, dancing, and Lavella missed the entire event (check out her face in the second photo down from the top). If you're ever within driving distance of the joint, you must check it out. The food is fabulous, the service good and quick, and prices are low. I love it!

Next are from when Caleb was at my parents. He managed to squeeze in a one week visit with us, and the boys had lots of fun running around outside, climbing trees, wrestling and playing football with him.

Right in the middle there are some shots from our morning of blueberry picking. So much fun! While the boys napped later on that day, my mom and I made blueberry muffins, blueberry shortcake, and blueberry...something. I can't remember. Tasty!

The blurry "concept" photo is Sean, performing as bass guitarist in his band, "losing.fate". Hannah, Caleb, Grace and I went to see them do a show at Magic City Music Hall.

One row up from the bottom is our visit with Aunt Terry and Grandma Annette. Lavella was a little doll and let herself get hugged and squeezed by everyone. Aunt Terry won big points with the boys by giving them a bunch of dinosaurs, "shooting cars", and ice cream bars. They talk about her fondly.

Bottom left are the socks that I started spinning the yarn for in the week after Lavella was born, and finally finished up on the way home from Aunt Mary Ann's and Uncle Bob's beach house.

Birthday guy!

We're home! We arrived back in Germany at 6:30 last night, and finally got to our house at around 10:30 or so. It was a long trip back, and I'm just glad that it's done. We had a wonderful visit back in the states with friends and family, and I've got tons of pictures that I've been uploading to my Flickr account, but I'll blog about all of that in chunks. There's way too much to catch up on for one post.

I feel like this was one of the best visits that I've ever had with my younger siblings, especially. Between cherry pipes shared with Christopher and Joel, cuddling out on the porch on a chilly evening with Grace and Joy, interesting talks with Caleb, visiting the biker bar Hannah works at, cooking with my mom, hanging out with my dad, and doing a little shopping with Rachel, I feel like there was a lot of life that happened, packed into those four weeks. I even got to hang out with Grandma Claire a few times -- she has the shopping stamina of 10 women! We also got to see some of the Roselle side of the family in NJ, and had a lovely time.

But for today, first things first -- it's Andrew's 4th birthday!

We are so glad to be back home with Greg. We've all missed him so much. Even Lavella has been watching him like she knows who he is with smiles and gurgles and such.

Instead of a cake, I got some big chocolate-dipped cookies from the bakery down the street, and piled some whipped cream next to it. Since Elijah is two and would have been mad otherwise, I put a candle in both of their cookies to blow out.

Happy birthday Andrew!

The children are all in bed now, so it's Mojito time. =)