Molly's gymnastics award

So proud of Molly getting her award today at gymnastics!! She has come such a long way, is one of the best in her class, and she just LOVES doing gymnastics. I hope that she continues to enjoy it for many years!!

At the gym

Molly, Potter and Caleb all fool around at the gym today.

Molly's obstacle course

Each week Rosie makes a new obstacle course for them. This one was really good! Molly did a super job. She always does!!

Molly's last day of preschool gymnastics

Today was Molly's last day of preschool gymnastics. She will be moving up to Level I next year which is where the big girls are!! She has spent three years under the direction of Miss Rosie; one year in the Mommy and Me class and then the last two years in the preschool class. Once she starts UPK in the fall, she'll be taking gymnastics in the afternoon or evening rather than in the morning. Here are some of the warm up exercise that they do each meeting. The middle photo is Molly getting pretty close to a hand stand on her own!

Lila does the army crawl

Lila came to visit us again and this time she did a cool trick!!

Caleb climbs a tree himself

Caleb displayed his excellent climbing skills to me last night!!

Ozzy Osbourne video

Mollyariotti, please forgive me but this was too cute to not post. :)

Mollyariotti comes and rocks the house

Mollyariotti came for dinner last night and the kids wanted to jam to Ozzy Osbourne. They wet their hair, put on their shades and cranked the music. Riotti was none too happy to see me bound in with the camera in tow. Caleb, on the other hand, freely let me take his picture. That doesn't happen too often. I usually have to sneak up on him like I am hunting wild animals.

Awards Ceremony at CFJ

Monday morning we attended the CFJ awards ceremony, knowing ahead of time that Potter was going to receive at least one award. He did not know he was getting any award and also didn't know that we would be there. We were so proud of him for receiving an award for having one of the highest scores on the 3rd grade math assessment exam!! This was presented to him by his classroom teacher, Mr. Henderson, who has done a wonderful job this year with Potter. Additionally, he received an art award from Mr. B. called the Golden Paintbrush Award. This recognizes students who show great thought, patience and creativity in art and are progressing in their art studies. We know he loves school and having him receive awards in a variety of areas makes us extremely proud. We love you Potter!!!

Happy Father's Day

A bleary Dave greets his children on Sunday morning for Father's Day gifts. Now Dave has his own Red Sox shirt and a picture of the kids all in their Red Sox shirts. Why don't I have a Red Sox shirt???

Kids, kids, and more kids

Shannon holding a happy, but camera shy, Caleb. Angie and Meredith chillin' with Caleb (see how he manages to get around to all the ladies??? this may be an issue when he is 14). Kids glued to the movie of 'Annie'. We didn't finish it, so I have been trying to check it out of the library. No success with that yet.

My favorite shot in this series is the last one of Potter, Mike and Maddie, one atop the other.

Climbing playground

At the front of the grounds, hidden in the woods, is the coolest climbing playground ever, and I don't think too many people realize it is tucked away there. A short walk from the cottage, me, Meredith, Aunt Jean and Holly took an assortment of kids with us on Saturday afternoon, waiting patiently for the barbeque to be ready. As we knew, the kids were all excellent climbers and even little Caleb and Odin seemed fearless in trying something totally new to them.

Crazy train

(I wanted to figure out how to have Ozzy Osbourne's song playing, but I haven't figured that out yet, so I am just listening to the lyrics on YouTube as I type this post.) This is one of Potter's FAVORITE songs. Let's just hope he likes the music and not how Ozzy looks. Ugh.

Bacon explosion coming together

Dave is in the kitchen, wearing one of Mom's aprons. Although you can see what the text reads, Mom never in her life burned anything in the kitchen!! Dave then prepares the bacon weave, pork sausage, and then, yeah, more fried bacon in the center. OINK!!!

Courtney, Angie and Maddie hard at work picking out the right bling attachments.

Shannon, Doris and Granddad (with Mac) putting together the right look for their socks.

Making Granny socks

Any of you who knew Granny well remembers all of her crazy socks!! She had socks for every holiday and occasion, as well as her everyday funky socks! Meredith came up with the fabulous idea that everyone bring a pair of socks to decorate in Granny's memory. There were paints, ribbon, buttons, glitter, thread, beads, you name it we had it for adhering to socks!!! Below, you'll see Potter hard at work on his Mars socks, Odin separating the beads (an important job!), Aunt Carol doing a masterpiece of pansies on socks, Doris waiting patiently to glue the eyeballs on her button socks, and Bill proudly holding his beer coozie sock with a hammer on it, get hammered - get it?? Quite funny, I won't mention what else he put on there, this is after all a family friendly blog!

More monster tag, getting serious!

The kids were getting serious about tag and it was kids vs. adults. Mike displays the correct techniques for freezing the adults in place. Listening intently are Caleb, Maddie, Molly, Odin, Anderson and Potter. They were really good! The adults, as you can see in the video, were often frozen. Meredith had a hard time getting away from Caleb!!

Smokin'

Dave teaches Taylor the fine art of rubbing the meat and placing it in the smoker. There were 4 pork shoulders, 2 bacon explosions, and scads of chicken on the smoker Friday night into Saturday afternoon. Taylor loved seasoning the meat and helping Dave get it going. As you can see, it is sort of like workmen on the interstate - 2 people do all the work while the other look on after them. Buddy, Alan, Pokey and Che offer expert advice while sipping beer.