Family + Beach House = Awesome

How much fun can you cram into a one day vacation with your whole family? Turns out, a lot. We were excited to be invited to join Lisa and her family for the weekend at the beach house they rented for their first ever real family vacation. I'll admit, I wondered if it was going to be worth the effort to pack all eight of us and drive seven hours to have only one full day of family togetherness, but in the end it totally was. In the end I might have even tried to figure out how to "forget" to load myself up in the car to come home. The house was beautiful. The weather was more perfect than you would even think to ask for in June. And the family fun was abundant.
Thanks for letting us crash the beginning of your vacation, Arnolds! A fabulous time was had by all. (and I don't even think Ron threw any fits when he didn't come in first during our Olympics. Sanctification is a beautiful thing.)

The Olympics are coming!

Way back in the day, when Ron and I were little people ourselves, our family hosted our own Neighborhood Olympic Games. There were events and construction paper flags. There were gold, silver and bronze medals. There were winners and losers. And since Ron was there I'm sure there were some temper tantrums after lost events.
Though the real Olympic games are played every four years, the Babington Family Olympics are so special that it takes a good 25 years for them to come around again. The excitement was mounting as everyone got involved in the details of such an event. Though all might get to paint a gold medal, only the victorious will get to wear one home....

Yummy

Whatever it was that Eli was eating at this moment couldn't possibly have been sweeter than those kisses MawMaw wasn't too proud to steal. Sweet little lumps of sugar on that neck of his!

Entrepreneurs

As the boys are currently saving up for...wait for it... LEGO's (big surprise), they were excited to give their grandparents an opportunity to employ them during their visit here this week. They apparently pitched an offer that MawMaw and PawPaw couldn't even try to refuse when they offered to clean out their (packed and stuffed) car for them, because all of a sudden they were being paid (by MawMaw) to clean out my car instead. And not only did they earn a nice wad of cash, but they got a great lesson in car detailing from PawPaw, which led to the purchase of all supplies needed for their own car detailing business.
I send with them my glowing referral; you would never know that our car lugs lots of little people around with how clean and shiny and fresh smelling it is!

Vintage toys

Ok, so they might not be actually vintage, but any toy that is still alive and thriving on kid number six deserves some sort of special title. This little car takes me all the way back to 208 Dolphin Drive, base housing, Oceanside, CA. Pre-walking Travis and I would cruise along the sidewalks on and behind this car.every evening while we waited for daddy to come home. Later it became a get-away car in our Tallahassee living room when Jimmy would play chase games with Travis and baby Sam. When it moved here with us it had no idea all of the adventures it would have (nor the number of children that would attempt to fight over it ride on it at one time). This week little Eli has discovered it and if it gets left in his line of sight out the dining room windows he can't rest until he's taken a few spins.
This little car might need to be included in some sort of family time capsule. He's the little car that could. And don't even get me started on the blue police car. That's a post for another day...

bubbles

When we made a bubble solution and got out the wands this morning I thought we were preparing for a little big brother/little brother quality time. And while the little boys certainly loved the massive bubbles created by their big brothers, I'm not sure they loved them more than Chesty did. With all of the bubbles he ate it's a wonder that he didn't float away himself! His bubble chasing antics were pretty hilarious and provided some unexpected entertainment for his boys.

Summer must be here...

... because when I called Caroline for breakfast and she didn't answer, I realized that she had never come in from getting the mail. When I looked outside to find her, I found this sweet little clump of girls loving the fact that they could be outside together, enjoying whatever it was that they were so immersed in, and all before 9am. This could only mean one thing... summer is here! And I know a few kids who are right happy about that.

Mother's Day

This Mother's Day found me holding down the fort while Ron and Jimmy tortured themselves competed in an adventure race in the N. Georgia mountains. You might be tempted to assume that since I was flying solo my Mother's Day was all work and no play, but if there's any lesson my kids have learned well from their daddy it's how to make a day special for me. So while I was absolutely delighted by all of the treats and spoiling, I can't really say that I was surprised by it.
There was breakfast in bed, decorations, letters that were far more complimentary than I deserve, Barley's pizza with cousins and there might have even been flowers and chocolate. I assumed that all of this fanfare was my gift (and it would have been perfect!), so you can imagine my surprise when I unwrapped a toaster oven, something I had mentioned that I'd like to have, paid for entirely by my big kids! They chose a great one, but even more precious was that they thought of it in the first place and considered the gift worth a huge chunk of their hard-earned money.
The rainy day and flat tire (for real!) couldn't have come close to putting a damper on this sweet day. I only ever wanted to be a wife and mom and now I'm living the dream with the best husband and sweetest kids I could have ever asked for.

States and capitals

Sweet tooth

Having a kid who is old enough to bake cookies, from start to finish, all by himself does bad things for my sweet tooth. Or maybe it does really good things for it, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I'm not complaining (and neither are the six other people who live in our house and get to enjoy those baking whims).