Jackson and the Bees

Here are some pictures of Jackson and his Great-Aunt Cathy tending to her bees. He loved it and came home with lots of honey and no bee stings, although his Aunt Cathy did not fare as well..... St. Ambrose, Patron Saint of Beekeepers, Pray for us!

Franics and his kite

As I explained in the Halloween post, Francis came up with and then made his own costume this year. He used a box and some construction paper and it came out really cute. He had the chance to wear it for a Halloween party and a cub scout Halloween bowling party and won each time for "most creative." His prize for the last one was this kite, which he was pretty excited about. Here are some shots of him flying it and one of the winning costume.

Jack Connolly Memorial Golf Outing

This year the golf outing had to be postponed due to storms, so it was rescheduled for September. Casey took Jackson and met his friends Dylan and Jeff  there. Here are some pictures of the team: Pay particular attention to the signs....

Man on Stilts

Nicky confronts Grandpa on stilts . . .

The Many faces of Miss Maggie

Maggie never fails to entertain us. I am not sure if it is all the attention she get from her brothers or just her nature, but she is a total ham. She is super friendly and every time we come within 20 ft of anyone under the age of 6 she starts screaming "Hi baby, Hi!" and waving emphatically. She loves to imitate things her brothers do (a blessing and a curse) so she can already count to ten and is trying to potty train herself. She will also growl and loves to use the expression "oh, yeah!" She is obsessed with the color pink and points out every pink thing we walk by, usually at the top of her lungs. She still loves music and loves to dance. She loves animals, cats (meow, meows) and dogs (woof, woofs) in particular. She is immediately drawn to anything girly and Minnie, Hello Kitty and Dora are her current favorites. During the day she is my little shadow, following me around helping with Nicholas and picking things up. She is also the world's best napper! My boys were horrible nappers. They wanted to catnap 45 minutes here or there and you could never count on it. This girl would sleep three hours mid-day, if you let her. Unfortunately, we rarely do let her, because we have boys to drop off and pick up every couple of hours. Anyway, she is a little doll and has made adjusting to a girl so easy and fun.

 

Treasure Hunt!

Nicholas, Maggie and Francis have been all about pirates lately, so the last time we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, we decided it would be fun to have a treasure hunt. There is a beach a short boat ride from them that is pretty quiet during the week so we shuttled supplies out there for a campfire and cookout earlier in the day and then around dinner time we all headed over. We had the beach to ourselves and the kids had a great time swimming, skipping rocks, following the treasure map, digging up the treasure chest, and cooking hot dogs and s'mores over the fire.

Arriving

Jumping off the boat

Skipping rocks

Treasure map

Checking out the map

Let the hunt begin!

The pirate princess

X marks the spot

Carrying their haul

Treasure!

Hoisting the pirate flag

our campsite

Not so far from civilization...

Pirate Nicky

Yankees!

Back in May my Dad had invited Jackson to attend a Yankees game the week school got out. As time approached he had been looking forward to it for a month and was pretty excited but his own baseball team which had a great Spring season, still had not had their division playoffs due to weather, etc. So of course, we started the  last week of school with the collision of the two biggest things in the mind of my baseball obsessed nine-year-old. Monday we got word that Thursday was going to be the semi-finals. All indications pointed to a championship game on Friday, the same night as the Yankees game! Of course, we had no idea if they would advance beyond the semi-finals and wouldn't know until late Thursday evening, so Jackson had to agree that Nana and Pops would buy his ticket and if he had to miss it to play in the finals he would send Francis in his place. Not an easy decision for a boy who hates to miss anything, but in the end  Francis went to the Yankees game and Jackson stayed home to help his team win the championship. (more on that here)

As a consolation, we promised him the chance to go to a game later in the summer and so a couple of weeks ago he picked out a game (based on the probable pitchers, of course) and he and I took the train into the city. I stumbled upon some seats that were affordable and looked okay and we were pleasantly surprised to find they were only one row back from the field. We spent the game just 20 ft from Alphonso Soriano, who with a grand slam, home run and seven RBI's was easily that night's MVP.

Anyway, we had such a good time we barely got up to get food. He and I haven't been anywhere without the little kids, since Francis was born.  (except the ER)  You can see us in this clip http://wapc.mlb.com/nyy/play/?content_id=29721947&topic_id=8879110&c_id=nyy just above the "A" and "R" in "celebrate" around the 1:37 mark.

Here are some pictures that we took: