Hay Day

Man, today was awesome! A real hay day, but I didn't realize how much of an actual "hay day" it really was until the end of the day... I'll get to that.

First,  I went for a fun bike ride with Baby in tow with my friend so that we could ride around the neighborhood to visit a few other friends. It was a nice bike ride and good exercise since I didn't fit it in today...

Then, Baby's speech therapist came to work with her and gave me some new goals to work on. But, the best part of that was reminiscing about some of the things that Brother did when he was Baby's age. I love thinking back to when he was first learning how to walk, talk, point, express feelings... it was all later than typical but, maybe that was part of what makes it all so dear to my heart. Baby and Sister have hit many, if not all, of their milestones before Brother ever did. One of the things that Brother used to do, that I just loved, was when we were trying to teach him a new phrase and he would only say the last word. For example we would tell him to say ""I love you" and we would say it slowly hoping he would say it along with us and eventually say the whole thing together with us, or rather, to us.

This is how it went:

We: "I..."

Brother: ...

We: "love..."

Brother: ...

We: "you"

Brother: "you"

We: "OK, now say it all. I... Love...

Brother: "you"

We: "OK, say 'I love..."

Brother: "you"

We: "I..."

Brother (quick and proud interruption): "you!"

We: "OK..."

Brother (again, interrupting): "you!"

Oh, he made me laugh. He tried so hard but, echolalia sometimes got the best of him.

After speech was over I got me and the kids ready for family pictures.

I was so excited to be getting pictures done again. This time we had Point Digital come take our pictures and video. While we waited for re-enforcements to come help with the kids Rochelle took some individual pictures of the kids just in our back yard. We have a cool hay stack so why not take advantage of that, right? My kids were so excited to climb onto the hay stack because it is typically off limits so they thought it was exciting to be rebels. I couldn't get Baby down. I think she would have stayed up there all afternoon if I would let her.

Then we were off to our location for an adventure. My kids are always quite interesting when it comes to family pictures and today Brother wasn't going to disappoint. Let's just say that Rochelle and Doug did a LOT of running and Clifford Playing to get my kids (mostly Brother) to cooperate. But, honestly, I am happy if we got one good picture out of it all, seriously. I am so excited to see how it all turned out... they funny, bad and great of the whole afternoon. Doug was a trooper running around with the kids getting them on film, especially considering he hasn't really been in the best of health lately.

After pictures and video we all (Rochelle and Doug plus 5 kids, my aunt Rosanne plus 3 grandkids, my sister Jessie and her 3 kids and us) roasted hotdogs and marshmallows, ate (snarfed) cream cheese with raspberry chipotle sauce smothered over the top and then spread on RITZ crackers (thanks aunt Becky), chips and salsa, strawberries, s'mores... ah it was a smorgasbord of fun outdoor food.

Then we came inside for ice cream and banana splits and then sat around and talked for an hour.

It was a blast.

My kids were tired.

I figured I should change baby's diaper before I put her in bed since I hadn't changed her since before pictures.

Good thing, because her diaper was FULL of hay!

Yup, a hay day!

Oh and here is a preview of our new family pictures:

It was that much fun! More to come...