Standing up!

 

In which Graham and Inga sing different songs at the same time

Fink Four PoD 5.24.2011

Ways to burn calories

Climb the steps.

Go for a walk.

Hunt roly-poly bugs (and burn a few extra calories for dramatic pleading to keep them as pets).

Stand up, sit down. Stand up, sit down. Beg for m&m's.

Pull yourself up to the coffee table and chew vigorously.

Laugh, laugh, laugh.

Chase the children around all day long.

Awana Sparkie Awards

We went to awards night tonight. Graham finished his first year as a Spark in Awana and received his first book award for memorizing lots of verses and all of the New Testament books this year. I'm so proud of our little Sparkie!

William and Bop

Bop and William spent some quality time together this weekend. Here they are: William, and William when he's 62. He's Bop's mini-me!

Ice Cream Cones

It was the perfect night for ice cream cones outside: blue skies, slight breeze, and no bugs.

Good to the last bite.

Spring

Monkey Man

Mother's Day Mud

The kids love to play behind our shed in our backyard. There are three pine trees back there and a few piles of lawn compost, so it makes the perfect place to hide from bad pirates, hunt naughty bunnies, or turn out super oozy mud pies. Today was mud pie day.

This was Bea's second outfit of the day after her first one got sufficiently drenched. She picked it out herself. Don't judge.

Nasty hands! And yes, Inga is eating a graham cracker with her hands like that.
I'm that kind of a mother.

William can crawl!

Tundra Lodge

We drove four hours north to Green Bay this past weekend. David was asked to officiate a wedding for two members of his reserve unit so we decided to make a weekend of it. Some of you may remember the WFH '09. We are happy to report that this past weekend, though equally exhausting, was better than THAT one. Nobody threw up on this trip.
We stayed at Tundra Lodge, home to an indoor water park, numerous dead deer heads mounted on the walls, and a very friendly man dressed as a moose (the current love of Bea's short life).

The water park opened at 9 am Saturday morning, so we had PLENTY of time to eat pop tarts for breakfast in front of the Disney channel.

William worked on his crawling moves over the weekend and can move his fat little body a lot faster, now.

Water park time!

The kids loved watching the fish

and petting the bears.

William loved the mirror.

Saturday afternoon David left for the ceremony and I stayed in the hotel with the kids. We were all invited to the wedding but we like the bride and groom and wanted them to still like us after their big day. The first few hours were fine. The girls slept and Graham, William, and I played with toys and watched tv. We had a family suite, but suite or not, we were all feeling a little cramped by the end of the afternoon. We went on lots of hotel walks, races, hops, etc to see the dead deer, dead bears, fish (one of them was also dead), and ride the elevators.
Finally, it was time to get dressed for the wedding.

The kids were so cute in their outfits and I tried really hard to get a good picture, but it didn't work.

Then Inga started standing on her head, and I felt like I might have to do that, too.

Finally Daddy came to pick us up and we went to the National Railroad Museum for the wedding reception. First, we went on a train ride.

Then, we ate salad. The kids thought this was the meal and kept asking for cake the second they finished their last croutons.

This was the second wedding this month for our family, and Bea and Inga started asking questions about getting married. Earlier this week Graham asked if we were going to the royal wedding (ha!). They got to meet the bride and see her beautiful dress. Then Bea announced that she was going to marry Grandma. (Surprise, Peggy!)

There were lots of train engines and cars to explore - so fun!

Here's the highlight of the whole trip for Bea and Inga, and maybe even Graham:

All in all, it was a good trip. But we left exhausted.