The last few from Shann's.

 Saturday morning I woke up to this cutie boy in my bed.  As cute as he is normally, he is even SWEETER first thing in the morning.

The bedroom we were in was just above the level of Shannon's bird feeders.  Beck was amazed watching all the birds so closely! 

 Waffles al fresco!

Shannon snapped the next few pics! Beck LOVES to let Lucy lick all over his face. It is so hilarious how hard he will start giggling.  Then Lucy licks INSIDE his open, giggly mouth.  Kinda gross, but ridiculously funny.

 Shannon snapping a pic of me taking a pic of my two kids.  Sleeping next to each other.  Amazing.

 Sunday morning in Shannon's bed:

 Having some block fun (the petals are fire) with Shann while Q and I slept in a bit:

the nightowl

Quinn's big proud moment at Shann's was that she got to stay up until midnight.  By the time we swam, showered off, packed a few things for the weekend, got some dinner, got back to Shann's, it was LATE!  Beck fell asleep in the car, but Quinn, of course, did not.  She was thrilled we let her stay up a few extra minutes to make it to Saturday!

Pool With Shann

Friday night we went to the pool with Shann.  We stayed forever--we had almost the whole pool to ourselves and it was so nice out!  I enjoyed an extra hand to help watch kiddos and even got to put my head under water a couple times!

 Beck has discovered noodles and loves tooling around on them!

 Do you like Beck's bikini?  He got a good laugh out of that.

More From Shann's

Did I tell you that a couple weekends ago me and the kiddos went to Shannon's for the weekend?  The Matts took a roadtrip to OKC for a boys' weekend, so we had a Girls+Beck weekend at Shann's.  My kids were literally more excited about this than they would be about a trip to Disneyworld.  They love the Meredith's house, and the Meredith's pets.  So many fun things to do over there, I don't blame them!

Shannon has the greatest yard, complete with a fully-stocked mudpie kitchen and a sandbox.  There's a baby pool that Lucy shares with the kiddos and plenty of shade.  Lovely.  The highlight for Beck was when Shannon made him a "jail" out of some removable fencing.  He still asks to go to Shann's and play jail.   

 Lucy and Jack got more attention than they probably wanted.  Kids made poor Lucy tired.  :)

 Beck was gunning for ice cream all weekend.  We went Saturday night.  In true Beck fashion he ate two bites of his.  Quinn chowed hers and then had a tummyache.

 And Lucy's cage is always amusing....

Visiting Grandsue

Grandsue had surgery on her foot a few weeks back and one day we got to take her lunch.  Quinn was very proud that she learned to use adult-sized crutches.  You can imagine how that went..... 

 And here's Beck's favorite thing at Grandsue's:

At the library...

I know boring ole library pictures have been appearing a lot around here lately, but that's been a big part of our summer.  Quinn goes through Magic Treehouse audiobooks like crazy....she has now finished them all and is a little nervous about what she is going to listen to next.  We also always have a handful of titles on reserve to pick up that are on our "want to read" list.  That's our first stop when we walk in the library--well after we drop our books in the outside book drops.  The reserve shelf holds the books in giant manilla folders, and the kids sit down and remove our reserves from the envelopes.  They get as excited as if they are opening a gift!  So cute.  Then Beck takes the whole armfull to the spot where the keep the empty envelopes.  He's proud to be a good helper.  

I have pulled out my "Great Books for Babies and Toddlers" (Kathleen Odean) guide to help me with some books for Beck.  He's in a tricky stage where he's ready for more of a plot than most board books have, but he still needs books where the illustrations really support the story.  So the booklists in this guide have worked well for hitting some books on his level.   

 Quinn is no-business at the library.  She knows exactly how many books and cd's she has returned and thus can now replace with new check-outs.  She first heads for the cds and looks for those, then she knows the various areas of the picture books and easy readers to find her favorites--Curious George, Amelia Bedelia, Pinkilicious, Fancy Nancy, George and Martha, Berenstein Bears, etc.  It's pretty fun to watch her in action, going from spot to spot to see if any titles she's been wanting to read are in stock.  We now go straight to the librarians instead of self check out, because then they can renew the books two more times so we get 6 weeks on all our books.  We get very attached to books around here.  Quinn actually mourns some of her books when her time's up with them.  :)

 And this is my favorite part--they both get their books out the second they get back in the truck and happily pour through their new titles!  I know the feeling...there's nothing like a fresh stack of books.

And Beck being Beck.

He loves to take one of his phones everywhere he goes.  And let me introduce his son, Carrot/Moe (depending on his mood).  He has a cloth diaper with a safety pin.  Beck can tell you all about it.  And though he is super cute when he tells you about "his son" (who he insists was born out of his tummy...and Quinn insists is adopted) and he can do cute Daddy stuff, he has no problem dropping that baby on its head and running over to play with balloons or something else.  Babies are only interesting about 2 minutes.  :)

Just Quinn being Quinn.

Wearing her flower crown to church cause it looked festive with her dress and trying hard to figure out how to do word searches.  Anything letter or number-related is a huge hit with this girl these days!  She is so proud she can count to 150.  Don't get stuck listening to her do it.  Takes a while.  :)  

Cousin Craziness!

My two nephews got to stay with us for a few days.  The kids all had so much fun together!   My nephews were super well-behaved and sweet, and the kids all played (mostly) well together.
 I had to learn a little bit about logistics of being 4:1 parent-wise, but we got it figured out!  Luckily my brother-in-law let me borrow their van and so we zoomed around town having fun and keeping busy!  I *might* have even loved that van a little bit, though I probably wouldn't fully admit it.  ;)

Here are some pics (all cameraphone pics, believe me, my hands never had a moment to find a real camera....)

Monday was a trip to the splashpad!

 A little picnic!

 We stopped by Sonic on the way home.  Here I am rockin' the minivan!

 We had lots of playdough time.  Kallan made a sculpture he added to the whole time he was with us.  He is a very creative artist!  I was impressed by his work!

 Luke doing playdough:

 Dinner: We had Kallan's favorite meal one night and Luke's the other!

 Tuesday we went to the food pantry we volunteer at to help put away food.  There were a CRAZY amount of kiddos there, but it was a beautiful thing.  Kiddos crawling under our feet while we put cans away.  Some kiddos shelving food, some kiddos riding in boxes around the room, pushed by other kiddos.  The food got put away, there was a whole lotta joy in that room, and many hungry tummies will be fed in the upcoming weeks.  And lollipops for all, after the work was done!

 Afterward we ran off energy at a shady park...it was HOT but we needed to run!

 

Tuesday afternoon we went to the pool.  We mostly stayed in the baby pool because I was so outnumbered.  Regardless they had a blast!

 My kids and I have a favorite cd from the summer we've been jamming to, and we introduced it to my nephews while we were in the car.  My favorite moments of our time together were definitely our jam sessions in the car singing, "Gonna give all the glory, all the GLORY TO THE KING!" at the top of our lungs.  :)

At Shann's.

Flea By Night

Saturday night the kids, Shannon and I drove downtown to Discovery Green for Flea By Night.  I love our city at sunset!!

 

The kids loved the band and the barefoot dancing!  Beck has been asking to go to a concert every day since then!

 They came home and both insisted on sleeping in Shannon's bed because:
Beck: "If I don't sleep with Shann I'll lose my mind."
Quinn: "I've never wanted anything more in my whole life."
 Amazingly they fell asleep in the same bed.  I moved Quinn after they fell asleep so Shannon could fit in her own bed.