I can't think of a creative post title

So, for all of you bloggers who can witty and funny on all of your posts ... I'm jealous! I barely have time to upload pictures and type out a few sentences. There is no way I can be funny too. You'll just have to bare with this humor-less yet informative post. Here's what we've been up to:

Kate had her first real haircut! Yes, she has beautiful blond curly hair. And, yes it seems a crime to cut it. But it only seems fair that the person who washes it, brushes it, fixes it, and battles the daily hair battle should get to pick the length. It still looks beautiful. I mean, look at that face ... any length of hair with that face will look cute.

We took a trip to the beach as a family a few weeks ago. It's probably half-insane to go to the beach with a (then) 5 week old, but we did it anyway. I bought this tent thinking it would be great to shade Elaine at the beach. But, it just couldn't hold up to the beach wind. Either one of us had to be sitting inside of it or we had to weigh it down with all of our stuff. We need longer tent stakes .. or we need to bring some bricks next time. But, the kids had a great time anyway. They always do. And, yes, that's our baby in the laundry basket.
Hayden continues to be a great big brother. He is such a helper with Elaine and can calm her down with his voice. He even has the "baby bounce" down and can get her to stop crying by holding her and walking around. I found him multi-tasking here and took a quick picture before I rescued the baby.


Elaine is such a sweet baby and we all compete to see who can get her to smile. She loves being outside!

Kate loves helping her dad in the garden. Her favorite activity is picking the potato bugs off of our plants, putting them in a plastic sandwich bag and then squishing their guts out. I don't see the appeal, but she loves it. Here she is with .. well, a tomato cage on her head, of course.

Hayden finished yet another year of piano lessons. He continues to do a great job and is getting really good. His recital was a bit traumatic because I drove him to the wrong church building, realized what I had done, raced him over to the right building to arrive 30 minutes late. Poor kid. His mother is a bit distracted and flustered. Thanks for being such a great piano teacher, Leah!


And, finally, Elaine was blessed in church this Sunday and was surrounded by LOTS of family and friends. I don't think I've ever seen that many men standing in the blessing circle before. She sure is lucky.

We had a few quick pictures taken after we got home from church. I liked this one the best. Cletus and I are about to celebrate 11 years together ... it just gets better (and busier) all the time.

Other than the squinting, this one is also a good picture. I'm squinting the worst, but everyone else looks pretty cute. When I asked Cletus if he was nervous about blessing Elaine or if he was use to doing a baby blessing after the first two, he said: "no, I'm not nervous. I'm just trying to decide what to name her". Ha! For any of you who know us well, you know that we had a ridiculously hard time naming Elaine. My great-grandpa actually did surprise everyone - especially his wife - in the baby blessing and named the baby something different than what they'd decided on together. Cletus wasn't quite that brave. Smart man.