Jamie and Catherine: Pennsylvania Mania

Here is the long awaited update on the Friday before last...and unexpected bonus information on this past Friday!

The Thursday before last, we drove down (up?...yes, up) to PA to visit our super wonderful friends. (Those of you reading on facebook might have already seen the photos. Just skip em if you want!) We arrive on Thursday just in time to eat dinner before Celeste and I headed out to see Izabella's orchestra and chorus concert. We were late (quite a bit:-/) so we missed the orchestra part, but we had a blast watching the chorus. What fun it is to watch 4th-6th graders sing the oldies! We laughed and sang along and generally got almost, but not quite, annoying.

The next (FRIDAY) morning, we intended to wake up in time to take the older kids to school, but accidently slept right through it. But Jamie did still get some cuddle time with Johnny in his jammies! And I showed Joshua how to make a photo book online that can then be printed. Ha ha. The only pictures he picked to be in the book were the ones of himself. Ugh. I think thats what I can be like on the inside too. Praise God Who is changing my selfishness to selflessness (slowly.)

I wish this one had better lighting because I think it is SUCH a cute one! ->

Here's Jon and John.

For a lot of the day we just played outside in the back and front yard with whatever kids were home. Joshua wanted me to pitch the ball so he could practice his batting. Oh man, I was bad...I couldn't even get it from the pitching mound over the plate. But he was a good teacher. He taught me how to throw the ball (under not over) and encouraged me ("I'm not that good at baseball either, but I practice so I can get better.") and let me step closer. :) It was really sweet and humbling in a way (but not at all humiliating - maybe because we were the only two over the age of two in the backyard.) The boys played in a bucket of water and the dirt, and a good time was had by all!

One of the major things that I learned by example from Celeste this weekend was that it is ok to let boys play in the dirt - and even eat it! And to just let them have their freedom within safe boundaries.

We also took Joshua to kindergarten and picked all three older kids up from school.

Jamie played catch in the front yard with Caleb while I took pictures of Johnny crawling on hands and feet (no knees) because he doesn't want to scrape his knees!

After a yummy dinner we went to Caleb's baseball game. It was dusty, small-towny, and wonderful. Johnny amused us all by "cheering" in a babble and clapping whenever we did. And Caleb's team won, of course!