party dresses and a fishing rod

Time out to stop the clock.  It is these moments of my kids that I will remember as I document them in still film.

getting her cake and eating it too

We had a "Count to 5" party a few weeks ago.  This was our incentive for Abigail to finally care enough to learn to count to 5.  At 4 years old you would imagine she could at least count to 4.  False.  At 2 years old she was counting to 3, but somewhere in there, the additional realization that there is a world of other numbers out there led to complete confusion and she regressed...counting only to 2 consistently.  This plenty bright child just was not interested in learning despite a year and a half of going over her numbers.  (however, this same child can repeat back long Bible verses weekly while the other two children stumble over the words)

As a bribe, I offered to make her a pink strawberry cake if she could learn to count to 5 consistently.  We worked on it multiple times a day.  Once she got down the first five, she could keep going to 11.  Amazing!

She was consistently counting to five and beyond so I made the cake.  We had a party celebrating the milestone, and then the time came.  I pulled out the camera to film her and here is what I got upon counting the 5 candles, "1, 2, 3, 4, 6!"  Of course!

Needless to say, she still got her cake and got to eat it too.  And now she is counting just fine (most days).  Maybe by Kindergarten she will recognize some letters too....

a beautiful day--minus the wet breeches

We had our 3rd annual Easter picnic at the Lanier property again.  The day was the most beautiful one yet.  The weather was sunny and warm but not hot.  We had a lovely time visiting with friends.  The kids enjoyed the sizable playground and the Easter egg hunt.  There was a quick trip through the "zoo."  The only mishap was a tipped canoe that resulted in wet pants, shoes, shirt, etc... (fortunately not a wet phone or wallet).  Michael and David went home to dry up and returned with one mission: to enjoy a quick kayak ride.  Thanks again to all the hard work and the Laniers for hosting.

Through the eyes of our family

Here are the best of the bunch of hundreds taken by both my talented sister and talented nephew.  Ah, well....Hard enough to capture 1-2 people.  Nearly impossible when you add two more.  Although attainable-- proven after taking pictures as a family of four--the 5th person refused to be in the pictures.  Too bad we couldn't just photoshop her in.  We have quite a nice picture of four of us!  But family of five?!  Impossible.  Leastways, confirmed so by my sister after she attempted for about an hour.  

My sister warmed up with just the girls.  They were content as long as they could blow dandelions.  

(this one had to be included, because I could swear it was E but E was in a different dress.  

Guess sisters really do look a bit alike!)

(yes, this was staged...)