Summer-time = Cousin-time

We are blessed to live surrounded by family. Literally, we're surrounded. 3 of Joey's 5 siblings live in the houses "next" door and most of the other neighborhood houses are filled with Joey's cousins, Uncles and their families. Every Friday night our immediate family gathers together for Pizza and chaos. Its one of my favorite days of the week. 

Now remember I said we were blessed, and we really are. While a lot of people don't like their family, or certain members of their family, we all seem to blend together well. Praise the Lord! The most important thing we get along on is Nap time. Nap time is sacred. Don't mess with it. Everyone knows that between the hours of 12:30 and 2ish you don't call, you don't stop by, and if you are forced to, then keep it quiet! 

But as soon as nap time is over then cousin-time begins. This being summer (although the weather didn't quite get the notice) we have an over abundance of cousin-time. There are 16 cousins, counting 2 almost born and when they get together it...is...crazy! I love it. Looking out through the windows and seeing adventure, games and fun being had. Well, it just adds to the blessing!

Sheba has figured out the best way to handle the craziness is to take a nap. I think that is some really good, excellent advice!

The 2009 rug-rats. Too much cuteness! 

A Little of This, A Little of That

One day leads into the next and suddenly its officially summer, and before you know it we're half way through June. Seriously, how does that happen?! 

We've finished up school officially, although we are trying to read a lot to keep in the rhythm of things. Lucky for us there are loads of cool summer reading plans out there, and our Library actually has one! We sure are blessed to have the Library this year.

Father's Day was this last weekend and we celebrated by getting Donuts for our Dad! Nothing says "We Love You!" like a donut covered in chocolate and sprinkles.

We got Dad a few shirts and this amazing chair. Since Joey goes to work all day, I got to use this wonderful chair the other day to enjoy the sun. I'm so glad we got him this great chair ;-)

The girls got all decked out for Father's Day trying their best to look extra cute!

With all this nice weather we've been trying to take a walk each day. Not only do I want to be more active and healthy, but it is a life saver for bored little men. The big boys ride their bikes and William and Isabelle ride in the stroller. Phoebe rides in a carrier and tries to take a nap. Its pretty fun. My favorite part is when William decides he'd like to run along side as I push the stroller. He'll run as fast as he can for quite a while. I love watching him run and being so serious about the whole thing. Too cute!

I am hoping that we'll get in the habit and keep this up once we hit fall and start school again. Hopefully wearing them out will make it easier to pay attention to math :-)

Yesterday during nap time Josiah lost his 3rd tooth. Pretty exciting stuff. The tooth fairy was able to remove the tooth from under the pillow and deposit $1. Inflation is getting hard on the poor tooth fairy! I do love how excited they are to get a dollar under their pillow. I can hear them talking about how the tooth fairy got in their room and why they didn't see her. I LOVE it!