Rub-a-dub, 3 Boys in a Tub

We were pressed for time so I decided to throw Charlie into the tub with his brothers rather than draw a separate bath for him. It was a lot of fun for the three of them to be in there, and the bonus is that Louie and Benny were a bit more relaxed in there because of Charlie--not as much splashing and fighting like they normally do. Normally Charlie is confined into the baby tub, so he was all sorts of excited to move about the tub, which made me a bit nervous as he tried on a number of occasions to stand up in the slippery tub.

Introducing the future UNCLE Josh!

Joanie's birthday was July 2nd and that night, after her softball game and Josh's baseball game, Josh asked Joanie if she was interested in getting hitched. She said...YES! The date of the nuptials will probably be in October of '09--we'll keep you posted! They announced their big news at the Independence Eve party my parents throw. Here is a picture of the very happy couple:

The boys must have know it was coming because they've been calling him Uncle Josh for a while now :)

Reminiscing...

Already Lou and Ben realize how great it is to be young: they climbed into Charlie's crib and pretended to be babies again. Charlie does get a lot of attention, but I don't think they realized how much attention they got when they were younger. A whole heck of a lot more than poor Bear does! Back then we actually cared if they fell down or were really concerned if they started crying. Oh, well. Charlie will be better for it. (I hope.)

Happy Birthday, Aunt Joanie (and Uncle Nate...and Uncle Jeff)!

July is a great month for birthdays and in our family we always start off with three. Aunt Joanie, Uncle Nate, and Uncle Jeff all share July 2nd for the date of their births. The Uncles are vacationing in Myrtle Beach (they're thirty now) and we celebrated Aunt Joanie's on Monday because Wednesday is filled with baseball and softball games.

Here's a picture from the Quarter-of-a-Century Gal's B-Day:

The Future Thunderbolts!

Kevin doesn't get to see his two best buds from high school too often, so when Jon's wife Marcie organized a gathering of the guys and their families we jumped on it. While the Daddies went golfing the Mommies and boys went to the museum, then back to Brian's house for a cook out. The kids all got along, and Benny made a new friend!

Charlie, with Adam, who is about a month older than him.

Cooper, who showed Louie he wasn't the only one who could swing a bat.

Having some fun with the cornhole set

A common sight that day--Benny & Olivia hanging out.

They played really cute together!

Our Friend Lexi

June is already over and last Friday was the first time we went swimming with our buddy, Lexi! Here are a couple of pictures. Miss Lexi has already had a very exciting summer--a trip to Disney and traveling in the RV for a week! Hopefully we'll have more fun afternoons in the sun with her before the summer is over.

Little Grease Monkeys

Uncle Jeff came down yesterday to help Daddy put new brakes on the vehicle. Louie and Benny were going to help and learn how to do this manly task. I was getting dinner ready while all this was going on and it was hilarious to see the two little guys sitting on their haunches watching the two big guys figure out how to take off the brake pads. Lou and Ben had their own plastic tools, but eventually decided that this was too important and picked up Daddy's tools.

They were so quiet and attentive, taking in all the action of what was going on under the jacked-up truck. But Daddy and Uncle Jeff's deliberation on what to do got to be too much for them, so they decided to do something else while they figured things out. I heard a little knock at the kitchen door and Lou stood there with a fistful of tiger lilies from our yard. A nice surprise! A moment later there was another knock and Ben stood there with a couple of the lilies. This happened one more time for each of them before I had to let them know that as much as I loved the (crudely ripped off the stem) flowers, I thought we better leave some to make our yard look pretty. It became a nice centerpiece for our supper.

Unfortunately, a storm blew in and the job wasn't able to be finished, so the boys had their first lesson cut short. I did get a couple of pictures of them before they came in the house: