Happy Birthday Ben!

Our favoritest baby nephew/cousin turned ONE and we made it home from the beach in just enough time to celebrate with the family.

Love that Elvis lip!

As is family tradition, Grandma made this sampler for Ben.

Saying goodbye to summer

It may have been chilly and windy, but we snuck in one last weekend at the beach.

Eating breakfast at our favorite place... Uncle Bills! Anywhere we go to the beach there is always one nearby!

Jillian, our budding photographer, staged this picture. Sometimes it is just easier not to ask why!

Natalie's sandy piggy-toes. She fell asleep on a chair all covered up in a towel. This was the only part of her visible.

Day at the bay

Our friends invited us down to their house on the Bay Saturday and we jumped at the chance to go! So after market and picking apples, we headed to White Crystal Beach, MD for some fun in the sun! Thanks Kings!

Daddy and the girls

To Jilly the water was just another pool. She dove right in!

Natalie liked sitting in the front.

(We were just about to get off the boat, that's why she's not wearing a life vest!)

Mommy and Jilly riding on the tube.

Daddy and Eric's turn.

Beautiful Belle

You just can not beat a sunset like this one...

Apples 2009

Our third annual apple picking day at Cherry Hill Orchards. Got a little less than last year... only 80 lbs!

As we pulled in to the Orchard, these were in the driveway. They are plates to reinforce the streets and roads for the super huge generators being shipped from Port Deposit to TMI.

Natalie piled them in her shirt!

Jill set up this picture. This is exactly what she told us to do. :)

First Night of Homework

Jillian had to choose draw and write the name of four things that start with the letter N.

Natalie had sympathy homework assigned by Teacher Mommy. She worked on drawing circles.

A Missed Parade

Being the big parade dork that she is, Mommy decided it would be fun tonight to head downtown for the parade Auntie Anne's was putting on to celebrate... well? something. Anyway, Daddy was working a game and Jill had dance so it became a Mommy/Natalie adventure!

After dinner, they rushed downtown, but unfortunately, they just caught the tail end of the parade :( After seeing McCaskey's band and spying on some stilt walkers at the Auntie Anne's private party, they decided there was still good fun to be had! They walked around the corner and spent some quality (i.e. wet!) time with the Binns Park fountain.

Near the Blind Association Natalie pointed out these blocks and said they were Lego blocks. She asked to take a picture for Daddy.

P.S. Mommy made promises to take Natalie to another parade very soon (Farm Show anyone?) and even caved in and hit the grocery store for soft pretzels to have as a special snack in celebration of the missed "pretzel parade".

Natalie Visits the Dentist

Little Natalie made her first trip the dentist on Monday. She is such a big girl!

Big sister had an appointment too and was ready to show Natalie how everything works.

Sporting the cool shades in the chair.

She did great! She let Beth count all her teeth (there are 20 of them) and even let her clean and polish them. For the record, she choose Donald Duck flavor polish. (Which would be orange, after the juice!)

Showing off her sparkly white teeth!

Jill's an old pro at this dentist stuff!

Summery September Sunday

We took advantage of the beautiful day and did some geocaching. Our adventure took us to Greider Park, the site of many a Manor Ridge softball tournament in Mommy's younger days! We found three caches in the area and got some quality playground time in too! Afterwards we took Daddy to his favoritest place, Dairy Queen and shared some Blizzards!

One of the caches was a special one: a Cache In Trash Out.

We found the cache and inside it were bags. We were encouraged to fill the bags with trash in the park. And my, was there a lot of trash! The girls were disgusted by the state of things... "People shouldn't throw trash." and "We're helping the environment."

They were just perfect!

As we pulled in to the house, Natalie states: "There are FOUR people in our family" and puts four of her little fingers out. :)

Jillian, our resident artist, hung some pictures in the front window of our house.

Kindergarten update

Mommy and Daddy visited Jillian's school tonight for their first parent's night. We saw her desk and met her teacher, Miss Brown. We learned that Jillian was not telling a fib this evening when she told us she slept through music class! Apparently, there were five of them that would not wake up after rest time, despite Miss Brown and their classmates' best attempts to wake them by singing very loud songs! But she's doing well and they are already starting to sight read words! Wow! We can't wait until she starts reading US books at bedtime!

Fun kids

Jill was getting her teeth EXTRA clean!

Fun with the Eggls

Our friends the Eggls came in to town to visit us! OK, so mostly they came in to visit her parents... but we got to spend quite a bit of time with them too!

Friday night was the Great Escape II.

This year we actually got grandparental consent to watch the kids :) before we took off for some adult time at Marion Court.

Saturday afternoon we joined the Goods and Eggls at Nonna & Tof's for some chilly pool time and a picnic dinner.

They were rollin' down the hill..

Cooper, Jack, Jillian and Natalie

A little red light green light.

Jillian helping her daddy with his Corona. "I'll get you a lime!"

Jack and Jill

And???

The verdict is in. School is cool. When Mommy met Jillian at the playground after her first day, there were smiles! YAY!

She was a bit sketchy on the details. The only info Mommy could get out of her on the walk to the office was that she had chocolate milk THREE times! Later that evening as Mommy and Daddy did their "homework" (signing the dozen or so forms she brought home) we tag-teamed the interrogation and found out that they read a story, drew a picture and had a hot dog and applesauce for lunch in the gym. Miss Brown was nice and when it is cold they won't go outside for recess. And she apparently made no friends, or at least any she wanted to discuss. :) And that's about all we got out of her.

But the super good news was that she was excited to go back for Day 2. Whether it was just for the chocolate milk remains to be seen... We'll keep you posted!

Here's more smiles as she talks to Daddy afterschool.