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Before I dive into our vacation photos I thought I’d post some of my favorites from June. Here goes!

Quinn and his friend Luke hiking at the Sheep Pasture (notice Quinn’s inside out shirt – mind you, I’m not complaining, I just find it amusing! The previous day Miles got himself dressed and put everything on backward. Fun times here, oh yeah.)

Testing out the slip’n’slide for the first time (we bought at the church fair last fall so it’s been a long wait!)

Testing out the new camera, too!

First dip in the pool for 2010! Don’t worry, the water is crystal clear now – we just couldn’t wait that long to take a dip. Think the boys like the water?

We celebrated Father’s Day and Becca’s birthday by going to a Brockton Rox game. It was SO HOT that the seats were difficult to sit down on! But before the game we got to go out on the field and toss tennis balls around. Check out Miles’s great catching form in the picture below – I guess his feet have to be off the ground to catch the ball! After we were done with our game of catch, Miles said to Becca, “that was a fun baseball game!” I think he thought we were leaving even though the game hadn’t even started yet. Oops! Luckily he still had a good time, despite the heat. We were all really happy to jump in the pool once we got back from the game!

Quinn also finished up kindergarten in June and is already looking forward to first grade in the fall. Yikes! Miles is starting preschool in the fall and is having fun playing school with Quinn this summer.

There are lots more photos in the June album! Go check them out!

Here’s some recent artwork from the boys. Miles drew his first people! Quinn wanted to know why their arms are coming out of their heads. Not too supportive, but at least he recognized them as people! (Sorry for the less than stellar scan quality.)

And here’s Quinn’s drawing of baby bear (the one on his blanket):

This is what a 14 oz. jar of Aquaphor lotion can do in the hands of a 3-year-old (for those of you unfamiliar with Aquaphor, think Vaseline):

This is the only evidence of the mess I have left – the timing of the incident didn’t allow me to take further photos (we had to get to the bus stop!) Not sure if you can see how gooped up the jar is, but trust me, it’s a mess! The rest of the mess included the sheet and most of the blankets (of which there were at least 5) on Miles’s bed, as well as all of his clothing including his sodden socks. Thankfully he avoided most of the stuffed animals! When asked what he was doing, he responded: “I’m putting on lotion, Mommy!” And yes he was – a half inch layer from his toes all the way up into his hair.

I spent the 10 minutes I had before we had to run to the bus stop peeling off his clothes and using paper towels to pull some of the goop off him. Then I tossed him into clean clothes and we sped off to the bus stop. Our next stop was the playground where he proceed to get lots of wood chips stuck in his hair since it was still goopy! When we got home he got tossed in the shower and then I threw everything in the laundry. While he was getting his pj’s on I discovered that the front of his bed was goopy and some of the floor was still goopy, but that baby wipes work very well on Aquaphor! Finally when I thought everything was all set, I tried to leave the room and realized that the doorknob had a half-inch coating of goop, too!

What can I say, I’ve got the most lubricated child on the block today!

Eric surprised the heck out of me with my Mother’s Day gift this year (well, apparently it’s my Mother’s Day, Birthday, and Fill-in-the-blank-day present since it certainly exceeded the Mother’s Day budget!) – a new camera! Apparently I need to take a bit better care with this one and not drop it on the floor and crack the screen like I did with the old one. Of course, the new one won’t fit in my pocket, so perhaps that won’t be an issue! Anyway, he kindly gave me my gift at breakfast time so that the battery could charge while I was at church and I could then play with it in the afternoon. We went to visit Becca and Sean, so the photos are mostly of their apartment and surroundings.

Here’s me with my new toy!

I practiced taking a few portraits…

Close ups…

Action shots (don’t ask me what Miles is doing here!)…

…and discovered that it’s going to quite a bit of practice to be able to use this new camera! Well, I guess I knew that would be the case. Just what I need – a new project! We had a fun Mother’s Day with a climb up the Bunker Hill Monument…

(well, most of us climbed, anyway!)

…a delicious dinner, and lots of fun.

Thanks for having us over, Becca and Sean!

To see more of my lovely photos (ha!) check out the Mother’s Day album.

This year some fellow moms club members conned me into … er … talked me into running in a local 5k race in which many of them had participated the year before. I was pretty diligent about running for 5 weeks before the race and was feeling pretty good about doing it. Then the weather changed. On the morning of the run it was 80 degrees, sunny and sticky – a far cry from the 40 degrees and rainy that we’d had for our last practice run a few days prior. But we all made it to the finish line!!!
Ready to run:

At the finish line: Here are some of the moms who ran (I think at least 9 of our club members ran – a great showing!) – Liz, me, Holly, and Sara:

They also had a kids’ race in which both the boys participated. Miles was enthusiastic but had no idea where he was supposed to run. He and his best bud Ellie brought up the rear of the pack but they made it all the way through the race!

Gathering the kids to get ready to race:

Beribboned at the finish line:

There are a few more photos in the May album.