***Darden Adventures***: 2013

Here are a few snapshots of us at our local park yesterday.

My kids love the swings and make the craziest faces.

It's funny to hear Isaac hold his breath and make a little grunt when his tummy tickles from the motion.

The faces say everything, don't they?

Isaac signing more and then realizing his sister is having fun in the sand box...

A little water goes a long way in the happiness of a child's day!

Yes, Zack still has a high school shirt. Many of them, in fact.

Isaac relishes the dirt, sand, grit. Anywhere. On his hands, hair, face, in his mouth. We usually find remnants in his diaper. Both direct and passed through the body. Haha.

In all his brilliance, he deduced that of the play set that has 3 slides, a staircase and a rock wall, that THIS was the one to slide down. And he'd do it over and over again, not caring what was getting racked. Poor baby balls.

Whatcha' doing big sister? That's now how the rock slide works.

What are you looking at?

Mara is spending more time on the "big kid" side of the park - the one that says ages 5-10. It scares me to watch her climb so high... and then it scares HER, but Daddy coaches her through it.

The fam, watching Isaac go dirt diving.

He also practiced walking down some hills, which he was very proud of! See his sly little grin?

Oops.

Here's Mara typing:

,,lfikkfkooore
amara
jrutrujrjuritiitiiritiiir9559toojlhllk;glh[k;lgglfkplklkgkogjoektkrj

Oh, I have Isaac's stats from his 15 month visit. He was 29 inches tall (4%), 18 pounds 6 ounces ( less than 3%) and 46.5 cm head (31%). Mara is now 3 years and 9 months and clocking in at 30.5 pounds and 36.5 inches tall.

Gotta go because someone wants to claim the computer to watch a few cartoons. Happy Weekend!

It's been a lonnnng time since the last post. But nobody has commented on it, or the last post, so perhaps such a hiatus is excusable?

I just have a little bit of time to make up for it, so I'm afraid this won't be a long wordy post.

July was a busy month. Some of us got lip injections.

(of pancakes)...

Fell asleep during the party after talking all day about dancing it up...

My handsome men, waiting for my (Chrissy's) cousin Julie to get married.

Isn't she a beautiful bride??

Our kids were actually very well behaved and we got to see my Mom, Dad, and my sisters and their families for a few hours.

Darden Fam.

Collier men.

Collier Fam.

Chrissy's beautiful cousins (Ellen, Lilly, Megan, Kara)

Muckian love. (Sorry, Sue - you weren't in these pics.)

Darden Love.

After the wedding, we took a 2 week vacation to Holden Beach!

Yep, used up any PTO I had built up since having Isaac.

But it was a great two weeks.

The first week with my sisters and their families, the second week with some friends and their kids. And then Cherry and Grahampa came for few days at the end.

The babies kinda had to feel each other out...

They traded paci's, saliva, crying, pooping... yep.

My adorablenesses.

Kelly/Sean - too much PDA for the family beach... okay? Tone it down next time.

Sand sand and more sand.

Wild hair! (What's new)

Uncle Mike just didn't cook enough good food for all of us... and we succumbed to this.

Although some of us were much more interested in the round things that makes it go.

There were art projects to be done.

Brownies to be made (and eaten).

Delicious food to consume.

Kayaking a few of the days.

Lounging around for others...

Making sand angels, with our FACE.

Kids to be buried.

Brothers to annoy.

Dogs to oogle over.

Cousins to try to pose awkwardly with when we really just wanted the hammock to ourselves.

Did I mention art projects?

Views to enjoy.

Books to read and games to play.

Some of us are not amused.

Some of us are binky stealers. And that cute innocent look is nullified by the evidence in the hand!

Trying to get in some knitting.

Uhh something wacky happened to my layout.

I don't think we got ANY good pictures of our family... having 1 kid who didn't want to take pictures and another who was squirmy whiney... yeah.. oh well.

The next week was the family-->friend trade off.

Isaac tried to pack himself up.

We had many great beach days.

Ocie's hat cracked me up. No way my kids woulda kept that on their heads.

We went on lots of walks/rides (Elam's custom wheels are in the background).

Which clearly had him spoiled b/c wagon-pooling was not to his liking... ;)

We fought with the AC for a couple of days... one of which was the boys' golfing day. The mommies did their best to keep the babies cool. It was a naked madhouse.