Labor Day - Day 2

Sunday started out with kids playing and waiting patiently for boating/beach time. Marcus terrorized Rocky for a while...what a good dog! He didn't seem to mind at all!

Emma and Reed terrorized Raymond for a while...he didn't seem to mind either :-)

The boys are ready to go...let's get this thing moving!

Marcus had a good time in the sand...oh my!

Julie and I had a great time just relaxing and watching the kids...this is the life!

The boys had a pretty good time too...hi Chad and Marc!

Olivia spent most of the weekend playing with the babies. She is such a little mommy. That is one thing she is really going to miss at daycare...not sure what she will do without her baby fix everyday.

Emma had a pretty good time in the sand too.

We walked along the beach and had a little run in with the law...apparently we are not allowed to have drinks on the beach away from the water. We assume it's because they don't want the 4-wheelers drinking and driving which makes sense. Raymond and Chad just got a "warning"...few.

They had this great slide set up. This is Chad...look at how much air he got!

Marc took Olivia down.

She came up smiling.

Then it was Marcus' turn. He looks a little worried...maybe it's excitement?

Victory!

Raymond let Olivia have the wheel the whole way back. She took her driving job very seriously.

She did pretty good overall...Raymond only had to correct her steering a few times. Emma did keep saying "I don't want her to drive anymore"...I think Olivia was scaring her a bit :-)

Labor Day - Day 1

We originally planned on going to Sun Lakes but only made it as far as Moses Lake. Raymond called us as we were driving and told us his cousin had a great place right on the lake. So we decided that was a better option for us. The bonus was his cousin has a 3-year old for Marcus to play with! This is Reed. These two hit it off right away.

Saturday morning, we hopped on the boats and headed for the sandy beach.

Olivia was ready to go.

We ate lunch on the way...yummy.

When we got there Emma checked out the water. It was perfect to play in.

Then she rolled in the hot sand.

It was perfect sand to play in and we had lots of sand toys.

Emma wanted to see if she could get a sun tan.

Here are all the kids (minus a couple of babies). The Stark girls were with us too. Strange to think they used to be the little ones when we started these Labor Day weekend get togethers...now they are all teens (well almost all of them...Courtney is only 12).

The boys really did play well together. It was nice for Marcus to have a friend. He kept calling Reed his "little buddy".

Quick family photo. Say cheese!

We took the Starks boat out for a little tubing. The kids worked really hard helping to pull the tube in. They were very helpful.

Emma still didn't want to tube behind the boats. She would only float on it off the beach.

This area was actually big sand dunes. There were 4-wheelers behind us and LOTS of sand. We were sitting on hills by the water. The kids thought it was so fun to run and rull down the sandy hills.

It was perfect!

Quick Stark Family Photo.

On our way back in, Raymond let Emma drive the boat.

Olivia got to drive too.

And even Marcus got to drive!

We stopped real quick for the little boys to go tubing. They did awesome and had a blast. Too cute...such little boys on such a big tube...so brave (Chad did go on with them so they weren't totally by themselves).

Pig Out

Marc took the kids to Riverfront Park for Pig Out in the Park on Friday. They have all sorts of food booths from the different area restaurants and lots of fun stuff for kids to do. Marc got some shots of the kids on the big slide with his cell phone...I just wanted to share.

Looks like a lot of fun!

Marc said Marcus was tumbling down most of the time and laughing the whole time.

They went down it over and over again...so fun!

More tumbling by Marcus. Ouch...looks like that one hurt; Marc said he continued to laugh though.

By the time I got off work and joined them all they could talk about was this big blue slide. What great memories :-)

DeeDee's Darlings

Today was the girls' last day of daycare. We made brownies to share and the girls signed Thank You cards for DeeDee and Sandi. The girls have been going to DeeDee's every work day since they were 21 months old. I remember before they started, DeeDee was so nervous to have twins. DeeDee will always be considered part of the family. We know it's not the last the girls will see of DeeDee, but it definitely will be a change for them not to be at her house every day. Marcus of course will still be there; he will actually become one of the "big" kids (DeeDee sent 5 kids to Kindergarten this year)! Thank you DeeDee for taking such good care of our girls! We Love You!

Good Morning

We are taking advantage of the cooler mornings; it's the only time to avoid the aggressive bees too. The forecast says 92 today! That's HOT! Marcus wanted to play outside this morning and I agreed that was a great idea. So I took my coffee and paper and sat on the porch to watch him play. Marc is off fishing on the coast so it's just me and the kids this weekend. Yesterday was filled with organizing the house and shopping for school clothes and shoes.

Olivia has been quite the Mommy. I got stung by a bee on my foot yesterday and for a while I couldn't even walk. I said "Olivia, what am I going to do?" Emma got me some ice and Olivia said "I think I can make dinner Mommy"...so sweet. I assured her that I would be ok though...but she was ready to step up. These are her new shoes for school. Aren't they cute?

This morning she said she was off to work. Marcus decided he needed to go to work too and he wanted to drive his motorcycle just like Daddy does every day.

Emma's had a rough morning so far. She hurt her hand on the shed door while trying to feed Tucker. She fell on the pavement while trying to get the paper. She was trying to get dressed quickly and Olivia left her...it's just not a good day so far for poor Miss Emma.

We got her dressed and ready for "work" too and the smile suddenly appeared. Here's the group ready for work.

The girls also wanted to show you all our corn. The garden actually produced pretty well this year. Even though we planted late so far we've enjoyed lettuce, squash and zucchini. Our pumpkins really took off...we've got a TON of pumpkins. I predict a fall party at our house...come one and all to pick out your pumpkins! Hope you are all having a great weekend! I need to figure out what to do now in this HOT HOT weather this afternoon. Guess there's always the pool.