And Now back To Our Regularly Scheduled Blogging

Now that summer is over, I really hope to get back in the groove of posting.  The kids had the run of the computer during the last three months, and I hardly ever got on.  But such is the way of summer.

So to get caught up on all the happenings since my last post, here is a whole slew of pictures:

 Rebecca was blessed on August 7th.  My mom made her dress, Grandma Harris did the embroidery, and the buttons on the back are from one of my dad's old work shirts.  Rebecca is really a happy baby, but she cried through the whole blessing.  Brian said twice, "We bless you to be happy."

When all 6 of us kids were here, we headed to Carmichael Hill to go ice blocking.  Everyone brought a picnic dinner, and we had a great time.

We also had a cousin talent show.

 Alyssa read an excerpt on Cleopatra from one of her books on Ancient Egypt.  She is way into Ancient Egypt right now.  

 Ethan did cartwheelish things.

 And Marcus ran around in circles for a few minutes...literally a few minutes.  Other performances were: Tegel dancing to the song, "Dynamite," Analiese singing the song "Dynamite" while dancing, multiple cousins acting out the Harry Potter "Mysterious Ticking Noise" skit, Callie telling a story, Marian drawing a picture while telling a story, Kenna and Emma performing a skit, and there were a lot more that I can't remember.

That night Dad set up the projector so we could watch "Rio" in the back yard.  Mom, Kim, and I actually sat behind the screen and watched the mirror image of the movie.  It didn't make any difference, but when I watched it the next day on the television, it was weird to see things popping up from the "wrong" side of the screen.  When the movie was over, the slugs were out, and I apparently brought one home with me on my diaper bag (how does that happen?) because I found a big brown one in the family room the next morning, and we don't have slugs like that by our house.

I think Rebecca looks like either Tweedledee or Tweedledum from Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" in this picture, or maybe the laughing guy from "Mary Poppins."  But maybe that's because I think newborns tend to look like bald old men.

I think babies look so precious when they sleep.

 If you tilt your head to left you can see that kids like to make sure that Becca is taken care of.  Sparkles (the pink dog) belongs to Alyssa, Tally-Dog (the brown) is Ethan's, and Pluto is Marcus's.  They're all sharing their toys.

Here is blurry attempt of trying to capture the cuteness of Rebecca in the baby carrier.  See how her little hands are balled up?  So cute!  She does that when she nurses, too.  She balls her hands into fists and rests them on her cheeks.

 Last weekend this pile of wood...

 ...turned...

 ...into...

...a bunch of race cars...

...and a beautiful pergola.  We're almost done filling it in with wood putty, then we'll paint it.