I love when the camera catches a look of unabashed joy on a child's face. On my child's face especially. It makes one feel that all is right in the world.

Penfield Beach June 2010

Jill's final dance class

I got such a kick out of watching Jill repeat after her teacher.

The girls performed the most adorable dance that they had been working on.

Hmm...going the opposite direction as the rest of the group. I think she got this from me. In the videos from my dance recitals as a kid I am always doing everything the wrong way.

Sweet little feet

MacFam

John and Karisa were visiting family in Boston and stole away one morning to have breakfast with us. It was SO fun to see them and their new baby Cole!

My beach bum

I wanted to include these swing pictures so I can look back and see how much he's grown since last summer!

Peter just plopped down as we were walking from point A to point B and wiggled his toes in the sand for a good five minutes, totally enjoying the moment. I love that about children. So spontaneous and not a care in the world except what they are doing just then.

Usually he lays with the top of his body off of his towel, with his head in the sand:) I love how much this boy loves the beach. A boy after my own heart! There was never a time when he asked to go home and EVERY time we went he was upset to leave. Given a choice between the beach and anywhere else, he would always choose the beach. Maybe someday we'll live by the beach again for my boy. Okay, and maybe I would enjoy it too.

I wanted to take some artsy pictures of the kids at the beach...
obviously no one else was into it...

St. V's

Navin and Michal

Dr. Apaloo

Maribel and Kathy

Biban, Kevin, Liz, Kinza

Rudy

Here are some of Kevin's colleagues from last year, the only pictures he has to show for his intern year:) besides a conference where he presented a poster. As you can tell, they ranked him so he could add a little diversity to the program:) There were tons of people from both Ghana and India in the program. He loved his experience at St. V's and the people with whom he got to work with briefly.

Memorial Day Weekend

Hadley, Mom and Dad came up to Connecticut for Memorial Day Weekend. It's so fun we can just run to the beach. These pictures are from the evening they got in. We also went on Memorial Day, even though it was a little chilly and windy.

What a handsome husband I have!

Too many

There are just too many funny things and funny ways Jill and Pete say things everyday to record them all. 100 times a day I think, "I should write that down." And it usually just isn't the same on paper as it is coming from their little mouths. Anyway, today they said a few funny things I wanted to record. First of all, recently they have made praying a part of their play. They just plop down and pray in the middle of their play together. Jill will say to Peter "Let's say a prayer" and then they'll say one. I'm careful to watch that they aren't being disrespectful or sacrilegious about the whole thing and so far they haven't been. It's very sweet and cute to overhear.

Tonight Jillian was upstairs going to the bathroom. Kevin came up and she said seriously "I was wondering if that smell was my poop but then I realized it's the dinner you guys are making downstairs." Nothing like that to raise your confidence:)

Peter had checked out an African Atlas at the library. Over the past three weeks he had become very attached to this book, and particular about who read it when, etc. Today I had to return it. I wasn't sneaky enough, he saw it, and as I put the books in the slot I could hear him screaming "MY AFRICA" frantically. He seemed to understand that our turn was over when I explained but it just made me laugh that he loved that little factual book about Africa so much.

It usually takes some talking into to get Peter interested in new foods. We call a lot of things chicken because he loves chicken. I try to just place food in front of him and just ignore whether or not he's eating because sometimes that works, but usually I get stressed out enough about the whole thing that I try and cajole him into eating something. Usually, once he's tried something, he likes it and will eat the whole plate but you have to catch his window of about 15 minutes before he gets destructive and starts mashing the food, or flipping it off his plate, or just throwing the whole plate on the floor. He can be very pleasant to dine with if he decides he's interested early enough and you take his plate away before he goes nuts. (I know he sounds totally out of control. I swore I would never have a child who did things like this. Now I have one;) Anyway, tonight we made a Costa Rican beef dish that has lots of vegetables and that I knew he would like if he tried it. FINALLY, we got him to take a bite and he shouted "EVERYBODY...GOOD!" Thanks for the approval, Little Guy. He then ate almost his whole plate of food.

Love her!

I just love this little chicken. And you know me, I love swings:) This first few look A LOT like I did as a little girl.

A few Jilly funnies and quotes:

Feel my arms. They're all sweaty from playing HARD!

I want the little hat to put my dolly in because everyone thought it was so cute.

Convo with Mom: "What did you play at Emmas?" "We played dress-ups without makeup." uh-oh!

This morning I said my prayers all by myself. I knelt like this facing my rocking chair. (demonstrates and makes a reverent face)

I feel righteous.

p.s. Did you know that you can move an entire post to another blog? For example, I have journals for Jill and Pete in other blogs. I've been copy/pasting the text and then uploading ALL the pictures twice. Silly me, all you have to do is change to "edit html" and then copy/paste that whole thing, and viola! You're set. You probably all already knew this!

Love this girl

It was such a treat to live by my good friend and missionary trainer Britney last year. She and her hubby are in Harlem and although we only got together twice it felt just like yesterday that we had been together 24/7. Right before we left they took the train up for the day, not an easy feat with a tiny guy, and we went to the beach for the afternoon.