Welcome Baby Poppy!

Poppy has arrived as our biggest baby yet...!

9 pounds, 12 ounces
21 inches long

Originally I thought I'd name her Marigold but she's got jet black hair. Plus a Marigold would not likely scream for 2 straight hours! :)

Pictures to be added later.

Hmmmm

Sometimes I am truly rendered speechless. There simply is no caption that can capture this.

Ready and Waiting....

.......... of course we use the term "ready and waiting" loosely since there is always some other project to work on.

Other Goings On

Somehow we inherited a free trampoline

The children absolutely love it!

Bilbo does more of a bouncy walk...

St. Claire

St. Francis

If you have never read the book "The Perfect Joy of St. Francis" now is the time. It is a wonderful book!

The big dog watching frogs in the pond. Pippin tried his hand at catching frogs but instead ended up with a rather limp frog!

Playing with the bunnies. They both now have names. The girls is Flopsy and the boy is George.

Aren't those the cutest feet?

Astronomy experiment. Let me just say I don't remember doing yummy expriments like melting chocolate in the sunshine when I was in school, I like these experiments much better!

If you look closely you can see that the bar of chocolate started on fire. We thoroughly enjoyed this. There is this genetic strain in our household that seems to delight in fire. (And it isn't my side of the gene pool!) The end result to this experiment is that chocolate is good melted and solid!

Baby Shower

We (that is the extended family) had a lovely shower for one of my SILs.

The party favors were absolutely adorable.

Each bag contained a pair of baby socks with candies in one and bath salts in the other. A nest filled with "eggs" and a few other little things.

The tables were beautifully set up. (I was not in charge of decorating... certainly not one of my skills!)

Food Glorious Food!

More food!

The dessert table.

These adorable cupcakes were topped with little coconut nests and these wee little birdies.

Welcome Baby!

Gifts galore.

We had four games. One was to build a scrapbook page with advice for the new mommy. The I Spy game in a baby bottle. There were 27 tiny items hidden inside rice inside the bottle. A mother-father who's who game and baby animals. Did you know that a baby dinosaure is a juvenile? Me neither...

Prizes

The new mother, we look forward to November when we can meet the new baby GIRL!

Galadriel and Eowyn working on a scrapbook page.

Gift opening and my what a generous lot of gifts!

August Went Where?!

I had this tremendous privlege (why does that word never look correct?!) to join a lovely group of ladies for lunch. Unfortunately the "new" batteries my son put in my camera were old batteries... I can see how easily that could happen.......... so this is the one and only picture.

Way back in April a friend of mine gave me this balloon for my birthday... I told the children *not* to take the ribbons off so off came the ribbons and up went my balloon (no I did not cry) So up stayed that balloon in the beams for 4 months!! It finally came down.

Yes, can you believe it?! The Good Year Blimp actually flew over our property.

Ok, so we are easily entertained.

Picnic at the park.

Eleanor and another young lady.

It's not the heat it's the humidity.

Sooooooooo.... why exactly do we buy toys for our children when pebbles are just as fun or funner.

Why howdy!

Same said friend who had given me the balloon had a nice little brunch... I might add... delicious.... brunch in honor of a 10th baby. It was such an enjoyable morning... and afternoon... at least until my dear husband called wondering how a brunch could last 5 hours.....

Boys.... and big boys.... like toys too......

Up...up...up

What started out as a plan to fix our main windmill ended up a plan to work on something else. No sooner Aragorn got this almost up to the windmill the wind began to blow.... I don't think I need to explain that one cannot fix a windmill when the wind is blowing? haha

It is true that we had a rather unseasonably chilly summer.......... that is to those who are not in their 8 and 9th month.... but this is a bit absurd. (I might add that I thought it was plenty warm)

The boys lost their privlege for the time being to tending to the chickens, due to a bit of *ahem* irresponsibility. So the girls have taken over the hen house, as a little added incentive Aragorn took the too big girls to pick out a couple bunnies to tend to. They are so cute... but BIG. Good grief, they are going to be the size of large watermelons some day. The tan one is a girl named Flopsy (we are very original) and the boy has not yet been named.

Admiring the bunnies.

This plant grows up the side of the house behind our Mary Statue and this is the 3rd year it has been growing and we finally have a flower!!

Where did summer go?!

These pictures are from back in July.... this is a picture from our favorite swimming spot to which I am able to spy on my friend M clear across the lake :)

Note that Merry has grown a tail.

A better picture of Merry with is tail.

Bilbo isn't much impressed with the water.

But I don't mind those irresistable curls for company.

He's not heavy, he's my brother. Obviously Bilbo isn't enjoying this over-much.

There used to be a short cut home but that road is entirely impassible... except by canoe and you may be surprised to learn that a 15 passenger van doesn't fit in a canoe.

I do delight in a rainbow.

Our Tuesday Girls' and Boys' groups lasted for 3 months through the summer.

This was another baking day. Here is the pizza making crew.

I went into this pizza day thinking normal pizzas and toppings. I forgot we had craft-loving girls who could even make a craft out of pizza decorating. Here's the heart pizza.

This pizza is getting a face-lift.

Here's the Puppy Chow crew. Now what was that other new-fangled name I learned for Puppy Chow. It was something like dingle dangle or something equally as cute (not that that was cute but with a little creativity you might imagine it was)

Bag diggers.... I'm really not sure what these ladies were up to but they were caught none-the-less.

The patiently-waiting-for-the-cookies crew.

The face lift complete.

This modern version of pla-doh is always a hit.

Your guess is as good as mine but I would venture to guess I was having a better day getting out of bed than this fellow!

Check out these curls!

And check out the hair on this little guy. No, it isn't a wig, it's for real. He's the cutest little wee man!

I'm not sure many can resist the irresistable Calico Critters.

Good thing there is a new baby coming along, Bilbo is getting too big. I wonder what a household does without a baby in the house?

You can bet if there is a baby to be held that Eleanor is nearly by to hold her!

Finally those cookies are out. Notice also those fine loaves of bread! :)

This Blue Heron was just walking on by our window.

A friend of mine sent this picture from her trip "ground buffalo chip used as baby powder". I finally have a one-of-a-kind gift for new mothers. :)