Family photo

Here is my a photo of about half my family.

We have all four of my brothers and sister (Mark and CA with Rebecca, Reed and Ross; Molly - minus Jason; David and Candy with Macki - minus David's son, John; and Bruce - minus his children, William and Virginia); my Aunt Betty and her children, Cousin Scott and Ann with Caroline, Elizabeth, Emily and Page and Cousin Sarah and son Ben - minus her husband, Joe; and my Uncle Bill. No Thomas Cousins and no Aunt Ellie. So, it's about half (not even counting Mike's family, of which there are at least 100 people!) Wow. What is even more amazing is that this was after lunch, and Colin still has his shirt tucked in. :-)

First Day of School!

Wow, who can believe I have a 1st grader and a 2nd grader? Both of whom cried this morning when I dropped them off. Here they are!

They just look like such big boys in their backpacks. And something dorky is going on with Colin's pants, but who cares? So, We start school last week and They both go on Tuesday. It went well. They started at different times - but it went pretty well. I expected Andrew to cry, he didn't. I didn't expect Colin to cry, he did. Then Andrew went on Wednesday, Colin went to daycare. Elementary school calls at noon, Andrew has thrown up. I think it's nerves, it's not. He stays home on Thursday, which is the day Colin is scheduled to go. Andrew goes back to school on Friday, and Colin is scheduled for daycare. Nobody cried on Friday. Whoo-hoo!

And then today...... Andrew clings as we walk into school (yes, I am walking them to their classrooms - just for the remainder of the week). But he gets to school and sits outside of class just like he is supposed to do. Gives me a high five and wasn't thrilled, but not crying. Colin is practically skipping down the hallway to get to his class. Same thing - I get a high five, he sits down and I turn around to leave. I get halfway down the hallway and I hear feet and a ROAR, "MMOOMMMMMAAAA!!!!!!!" Colin has burst into tears and has run down the hallway to grab me around my waist. The clinging walk back to his classroom begins. We get there, and a nice little girl tells me that he cried last week, but did okay after a while. A teacher assistant from one of the other classes comes and tells me we can go to the teacher workroom. I tell her it won't really help and she offers up the helpful advice, "Then you just need to leave." Great, I'd love to do that, but I have a 50 lb. 6 year old wrapped around my waist. How, exactly, do you expect me to extricate myself and leave when he is clinging on to me? She finally got the idea and took his hand and said, "Let's walk Mom to the door." And he happily clung to her and cried, but I was able to get out the door. And no one has thrown up (yet). Another happy Monday. :-)

"Staycation"

We went for a crabbing trip out to Dewees Island. We didn't catch anything, but the captain was smart and had a bushel or two of crabs already bought for us and he steamed them and we ate them on the beach!
This is the boys with their third cousin, Ben.
This is one of my favorites. These are my second cousins, Caroline and Elizabeth are the twins, rounded out by Emily and Paige. Colin calls them the "beautiful girls." I swear, I don't think he knows that they have "real" names.

All of the above are from our trip up to Myrtle Beach. We saw a great show at the Palace Theatre - Le Grand Cirque. It was a Cirque du Soleil type of show, and I LOVE the Cirque du Soleil. Ticket prices were much cheaper at the Palace than at a real Cirque show, so for waht we paid it was GREAT. I'd go again, even!

This video is kind of dark, but it's just so sweet because my boys say they love me!

I can't get any more of my videos to work, so maybe in another post I'll add them.