Fun times for the boys

Grandma and Grandpa came on Sunday to pick up the boys for a fun visit in Columbus. They were ready two hours before the grandparents arrived. Ben, in fact, had his jacket and backpack on, wandering around the house asking when they were going to get there!

Finally, I had them sitting on the porch steps and when the boys heard Grandpa honking and saw the van they ran out to them while the van was trying to pull into the driveway. Needless to say, they get a bit excited to go to their grandparents' house!

We'll miss our little guys this week, but Mommy and Daddy are looking forward to spend some Q.T. with their little girl. And maybe when Grandma and Grandpa bring the boys back, they'll get to see their granddaughter's eyes for the first time!

Happy Independence Day!

I tried to get a picture of Meredith in her cute outfit with the boys, but they were interested in everything but taking a good picture!

We celebrated my grandpa's 90th birthday on the 4th of July and were greeted with one of the rainiest days of the summer. Luckily it was a steady drizzle and no flash-floods or lightning. Lou and Ben even went in the pool with my cousin Katie and her boyfriend! But by halfway through the afternoon people were putting on jackets. Not your typical Independence Day celebration, but everyone had a good time!

Happy Birthday, America, and Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Buddies

I have a feeling that these two will be good friends. I know that Charlie will play with his brothers, but Lou and Ben are pretty much inseparable and so by default these two will hang out and become close. Not a bad thing. Charlie is so cute with her.

Charlie's Self Portraits

Charlie loves the camera. He likes to see what he looks like after his picture is taken, and he likes to take pictures of other people with it. This is what happens when he gets a hold of the camera without Mommy realizing it:

Good Morning, Grandpa!

Grandpa came to drop something off and this is how we greeted him. We move a little slow in the morning around these parts as of late!

4 for 4

In honor of Aunt Joanie's birthday, Meredith was able to go to her first Reds game! There was a lot of pressure because all three of her older brothers helped the Reds to win on their first visit! And how lucky for Miss Meredith, Mario Lopez [a.k.a. A(lbert) C(lifford) Slater] was there promoting some show he's doing.

Here he is doing the "Skyline Scramble" or whatever they call it. I got really excited to have a "famous person from my childhood" at the game and when I turned to Lou to tell him I realized that he had no idea who he was, nor would he ever care.

The lady and her husband won cheese coneys for their entire row. And Meredith didn't get her picture taken with Slater. Oh well.

The game didn't start off so well and the boys put their rally hats on really, really early.

Aunt Joanie came down to say hi and we tried to get this group picture, but Ben was being a ham and poor Meredith got her head blocked out.

Grandma and Miss Meredith. I should take a minute to address the clothes situation. I had a really cute outfit from my friend Missy (red and white stripes with stars) that I was going to have Meredith wear...until it was only going to be 70 degrees that day! Can you imagine? Seventy in July! So I pulled out some of the boys clothes and tried to make her look a little bit like a girl: I put a white bow in her hair. Almost all of her clothes are pastel, so we had to make due!

A precursor to the end of the game: fan favorite, Joey Votto is up to bat and gets a big hit!

The game was lasting a long time and the boys were asking to go home. They were tired, but there was no way I was going to go without getting Meredith her win...so I started loading the boys up on sugar.

Probably the most amazing thing about the whole day, Miss Meredith slept through the ENTIRE game. We left our house at 11:45am and were on the road to go home by 5pm. She's been such an incredibly good baby!

Here are some cheese balls in their rally hats. Can you see Lou doing the whole "I'm Five Now And Not So Into Your Photo Shoots Anymore" pose?

I guess I should give some substance to the game: It was pretty frustrating for the fans because the Reds left a total of 16 players on base. How ridiculous. So it wasn't like they weren't given opportunities to score, and yet they were behind the entire game. They trailed 2-1 going into the bottom of the ninth and scored with two outs to send it into extra innings. (In the picture: the team in jumping on top of Votto after he hits in the winning run.)

The Reds were about to blow it in the top of the 10th when our closer Cordero loaded the bases and the next batter hit a shot out to right field. Jay Bruce ran down the ball, caught it, and fired a bullet into Hanigan who tagged the guy out, stopping the Diamondbacks' rally. The Reds were back up to bat and it looked like it wasn't going to be hard to win the game, although they have a record of 1-34 when trailing after 8 innings.

The fans were standing and cheering and although I almost lost my voice and was jumping up, Meredith continued to sleep through the game! Dickerson, Hernandez and Bruce got on base and then the Reds got two out before Votto got up to hit a blooper and score Dickerson. What an exciting way to end the game!

Really, they were a lot happier than this picture shows! They were tired of taking pictures, and like I said, it was 5pm and we had been there a long time. On top of they were probably coming down from their sugar high!

Here are some memorable moments from the day:

• Lou was concerned because he wore his Jay Bruce jersey to the game and Bruce wasn't starting. Baker must have heard Lou and put Bruce in at the end of the game, and the right fielder almost single-handedly stopped the Diamondbacks from winning the game.
  
• When the Diamondbacks are trying to take the win away from us Ben yells, "You're killin' me...the other team!"
  

Of the game, manager Dusty Baker said, "That was the best comeback, the most exciting, most thrilling and most up-and-down emotional game we've played all year." So glad Meredith was there to bring them the luck they needed!

The Elephant in the Room

Almost since the moment we found out we had indeed had a little girl, I have been wondering what the boys would think. Specifically, what the conversation would be like when they found out that a girl is different than a boy--more than just different types of hair, which was blown out the water when she wasn't born with long, flowing locks.

That first week I assumed we'd have some sort of discussion, but they were so much more concerned with Little Meredith's belly button that it didn't come up. For whatever reason nothing has been said since, until Thursday.

I was changing Meredith when Benny came up and stood next to me. He started laughing, "Ha-ha-ha! She hasn't grown her pee-pee yet!" and then he ran away. I guess it's another conversation put on hold.