Church at the park

Last Sunday, we decided to have church at a nearby state park.  One of the girls in our church wanted to be baptized, so we decided to combine it with a picnic/potluck.

Here are some random photos from the day:

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Little Lawn-Chair Queen

Last week Hannah bought a little pool for my children to play in. Joel and Lavella oversaw the set up on their respective lawn-chair thrones:









Here's a video of the puppies (19 days old today). They play and bite at each other now, although they were kind of just waking up in this clip. I'll try to get some more active footage in a few days.

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Random snapshots

Since there's still no new baby to report on, here's some random shots from the past few days.

Hannah, cuddling on the couch with Lavella.


Grace and Lavella creating art on the white board.


Grace had been in a bit of a funk yesterday, until Christopher realized that the only cure was to help her into the kiddie pool.


This morning, I asked Elijah to put his shorts on.  He thought that he should still wear pants.  Apparently, he felt this should be an acceptable compromise. 


Today I took Rachel, Christopher and my three little guys to the nearby library, and then to a playground.


Lavella, being a little monkey.


King of the playground.


There's nothing like the joy of a little child on a swing.


There were tons of these little red bugs in the one part of the playground.  I have no idea what they were, but I've seen them in Germany too.  Gross, and strange.


After we were done playing, we went and got some pizza, and then ice cream.

It's naptime now.  Should be a nice, quiet afternoon.  =)

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Independence Day (and, of course, puppies)

Well, I promised these pictures several days ago, and everyone is home now to actually see them in person, but for those of you who are interested, here's a few pictures of the pups at 5 days.









Penny, the puppy that my parents kept from last year's litter (she'll have her first set of puppies next year), thinks that she should be considered a second mom. All that this does is confuse the puppies, and she's not allowed in the whelping box anymore, but I had to take this picture before she was kicked out (she's the one on the left, with the darker puppy thinking he's going to nurse):


What a head case.

Caleb and Jonathan flew in on Independence Day and my parents and all of the rest of our siblings drove back here from New Jersey. While they were en route, Hannah and I cooked a big dinner for everyone (well, I baked, Hannah cooked.)

Lavella helped me with the baking:








We made pound cake (pictured above, in batter form), zucchini bread, strawberry shortcakes and honey whole-wheat bread.

It was the first time we'd all been together in a very long time.





(The only people missing from this picture are Greg and I)

Happy Independence Day to all of our American readers!

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Happy birthday Lavella!

Today, Lavella turned one year old. I know, we can't really believe it either.

We started our day at the library on post, for reading hour. Lavella tried to help everyone else out with their craft projects.



Elijah would not take off his hat, but ended up being kind of friendly in spite of himself.


Andrew interacted very well with all of the other children, because he says that he's "a big guy now -- I wasn't talkin' to people before, 'cause that was when I was a little guy." (Very seriously, deep voice tones.)


We also had to get the mail, pick up some stuff at the grocery store and get the mail, so by the time we were halfway home, Lavella looked like this:


She revived once we'd gotten into the house, and we set about opening some gifts that had come in the mail from Poppy, Nana and Keith (Greg's parents and brother).


The pink spiky ball was a hit with everyone.


Included was also some gifts for my birthday (I turn 28 in exactly a week), and the very best part was this stuff:


While we're at it, here's a box that we got from Aunt Terry last week (the cookbook was for me, of course. I love Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen. Those cookbooks are the best ever!!)



Her first doll!

We'd stopped at the bakery on the way home, and I let each person pick out their own thing. We put candles in each (of course!) so that everyone would have something to blow out.


After singing Happy Birthday, Lavella spent a good chunk of time demolishing (but not necessarily eating) her Pudding Plunder (a sweet pastry/bread twist filled with piped swirls of custard).

Happy Birthday, my sweet little girl! You've completely changed my life, and I love you like crazy. You're already such a character; it will be very cool to see who you grow up to be.

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Untitled

I was taking these pictures to post on my fiber blog, but they turned out so cute that I had to post them here as well.  In this set, the small people pose with their hat/mitten sets that I knit (mostly) on the way to Italy:







Here is Lavella in a sweater that I just finished up a few days ago (in case you are the kind of person who cares about such things: I spun the yarn myself before knitting it.)



I think she looks like a character in a Richard Scary book, or maybe Dr, Seuss.  (Action shots, since there was no chance of her sitting still, even with scotch tape on her fingers to distract her as in the first of the set.)

Lavella has 6 teeth now, and yesterday stood on her own for the first time.  She still thinks it's a pretty bad idea, but can stand without wobbling if she decides to.  She has started walking while holding onto my fingers.  The boys thought that she should walk holding their fingers too, but this ended with her shouting at them.



And just because this is a cute picture, here's one from today:

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