Please enjoy the next six posts...

I am caught up from the last month of craziness...

Birthdays, traveling for work, vacation, and more birthdays...

And, did I mention the two weeks of strep throat and pink eye that traveled through our house?

Bathtime...again

Because I know you all enjoy the bathtime pictures so much, I thought I would share some more with you.

You see, Frances loves the soapy bath foam. She "shaves" with it, decorates the shower door with it, and creates cupcakes.

Lily likes the cupcake part best...

A very special project

It has become an annual tradition during our week at the Lake that the kids complete an art project for Grammy to display. This year, they painted canvases and place hand and footprints on them.

The face of concentration.

That is a big yellow foot.

Grammy helps Rawlins paint his hand.

Frances signs her name.

What the hell mom?

What a good big sister to sign Lily's name for her.

The awesome final products.

The real birthDAY

Some highlights of the actual day when the 10 days of Frances' birthday came to an end.

The day begins with a big girl bike.

Just a few presents to open.

Lily was enjoying the presents as well.

Poppy...not so much.

And, the highlight of the whole day was the WONDERFUL Ariel cake that her very devoted cousins decorated for her all by themselves!

Ear Piercing

A very grown up girl got her ears pierced for her 4th birthday.

Before

After

No flinching, no tears...just a "can I go look at the Hannah Montana stuff now?"

The Backyardigans party

Little Miss Frances had her 4th birthday party with her friends on Sunday, August 3...which kicked off the 10 days of birthday for Frances. She perused the Birthday Express catalog for quite some time before she finally settled on the Backyardigans.

I will spare all of you who don't really need the details of the party, but I will share some of the highlights. First, we had the BEST face painter ever, as you can see from the princess face that Frances, and then one of her best friends, Sofi, selected.
And, oh yes, Daddy got in on the action...

What a lucky little girl to have her favorite teachers ever join her on her special day!

A beautiful party room for lunch and cake.
And, a great source of entertainment at the end of the table.
Suffice it to say that a great time was had by all!

P.S. Meg, what exactly are you doing down there?

Playground construction

It is finally complete! After a long construction period, the playground at the Lake House is done. Let me tell you, if we ever were to decide to build another one of these crazy things, I would seriously consider paying someone to build it.

It all started the weekend of July 26-27. I took the girls up to the Lake without Jesse, so it was just Dad, Mom and me available to build. Luckily, my Mom was willing to babysit while my Dad and I did most of the major construction. She did pop in a few times to drill some screws when my hands and muscles had just had enough.

Fortunately, as we promised Frances all weekend, we did get the swings up before we left.


The "instructions" contained only 28 steps, the first 12 of which were what we dubbed MAJOR construction, the end was the "accessories." UGH...I swear we felt like we had built a house. Oh, and did I mention that it was probably the hottest temperatures on record up there that weekend?!?!

Then, luckily, the rest of the family was up for the annual week at the Lake, August 9-17. Thank God for that. Chris and Jesse stepped in to do a lot of the accessory installation. I just couldn't face much more drilling.

Anyway, all is well, the playground is done, and it is FABULOUS!!!