ketchup

Yes yes, I know it's been a while. I'm sorry but here are photos to catch you up a bit. The following are photos taken from the past month, June was busy busy busy! We just spent a week at the beach with the Venable clan (AWESOME TIME - and gazillion photos) and are pooped from traveling. Stick a fork in us. So forgive me for my lack of my usual rapier-like wit in this post, I am totally mailing it in. Later this week I'll post from the trip, Matt took the BEST photo of Lottie Sue on the beach. It is great! We've never seen her happier, she absolutely LOVES to run on the beach and kick in the water - she was giddy. It was awesome...

These were taken one afternoon when Harlan was in town, he and Lottie Sue had some major pool time that week.

uh yeah, she's cute

mr. harlan filled up the pitcher and emptied it about 100 times

lottie sue taking a moment

shoving match

happy kids

Here we are after dinner, Daddy/Uncle Matt read a few books to the kiddos.

books r good

Here is a photo of Lottie Sue taken one day on our way to MDO at church. She loves her backpacks (she has two that she uses) and will tell me she has one like Dora all the time.

puppy/babbit in buggy with backpack ready for school

Here is a photo of Lottie putting raisins up her nose one morning.

what class

For Papaw's birthday we took a stroll through the UT trail gardens and then went down to the river walk. Here are lots of photos, you'll feel like you were there.

happy birthday, papaw

If it is quiet then you know Lottie Sue is into something, this is a RULE. During a silent moment I found her in the study with Matt's drawings, notice the pencil mark on her nose. Caught red-handed or black-nosed, if you will (hahahahaha).

busted

The Carsons also stopped by for dinner a few weeks ago. They were traveling to Michigan to visit family and made a pit stop here. The kids are GROWING (eek, so fast - please stop). We didn't take many photos but I hope to steal some from Lara or Josh.

lottie sue pushes claire around while tommy pushes max

a hug that we made them do for a photo

mr. max, he is now a little boy

I will end with photos from lunch with Patterson, Cassady and Carrie a few weeks ago. I have to steal some photos from Carrie's page. She has a photo of me and you need to see my nose, it has grown with this pregnancy again. It happened with LS but after she was here it went back to normal size. I think it's funny, but I'll post a photo later. Anywho...

lottie sue tends to cassady, she is giving him his pacifier here

and she's ready to take him to the car

lottie shares a laugh with carrie and cassady

carrie (having a very good hair day) with cassady

And one last photo of hubby extraordinaire driving the boat around Norris one weekend.

captain mowmow

And a few headlines for your reading pleasure:

• Blink Twice If You Like Me, I had no idea I had a meat market going on in my backyard.
• I now have the evidence I need to cut down on exercising, think of the extra time I'll have: The NY Times did a story on getting fit in just minutes a day. Sounds good to me! But all kidding aside, there really is a science to working out getting results. I read a lot about it. The more I read lately reinforces the idea that an hour of cardio just isn't that great. I spend wayyyyy more time working with weights that I do cardio. If you want to change your body (trim up, lose weight) it seems it's all in strength training. Here's another article on it: Iron Maiden, Weight Training Secrets.
  
• Here's a list of the The Best Kids' Books Ever from a columnist from the NY Times.
• Food and Water, and article on how to refuel your body after a workout.

OK, have a great Sunday! We are going to settle back into life at home today. We made a pit stop at Ikea on our way to the beach and bought furniture for Lottie Sue's new bedroom. She's getting kicked out of the nursery very soon for baby brother's arrival. We are very excited for her to move into her new cool room. I'm making the curtains and we almost have everything put together. I see a "before & after" post coming up...

Over and OUT.