Book Club Babies

Some of my closest friends are the 8 women I met out in Colorado known fondly as my Book Club girls. We're now scattered across the U.S. (as far as Maui!) and mainly get to watch each other's kids grow up online on their blogs.

Sunday was a treat because we got 4 families in one location. The Clarks, the Cobbs and the Shertzers were inseparable when they lived together in Colorado and decided to take a vacation together. Lucky for the McGee's, they picked the Poconos as their vacation spot which is less than 2 hours away. Since we're turned into professional day-trippers recently, we loaded into our car after church and spent the day with them.

All 8 kiddos!

I was mostly too busy gabbing to take photos, but here are a few pics of the kids playing together. We had fun!

PS. When we first became friends in 2006, we had 3 kids between the 9 of us. Miss Kelly was number 16, Baby Ben came along in May, and Liz's newest is coming soon. Crazy, huh?

Happy Birthday Shannon!

We've been doing lots of celebrating around here (and we've still got more to do!). Here are some of my favorite pics from birthday number 2!

We made a special zoo visit with Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kathy. Guess what? Shannon shares a birthday with a penguin named Shawn!

Happy Birthday, you Elmo-loving maniac!

Kelly: Four Months

Where is my little girl going?!?!? All of a sudden, Kelly seems so, so BIG!

She is our little acrobat. She is a master roller. She flips from her back to belly about 2 seconds after you put her down and can spin herself like a helicopter. Give her a few minutes and she'll even scootch a few inches (mostly backward).

She's found her feet and loves to chew on her toes.

When she's not busy chewing on her toes, she's trying to grab anything and everything in the hopes that it might be tasty. Including Sadie.

She is still the happiest baby ever... smiley and giggly all of the time. You can make her laugh by just looking at her, although she seems to really like it when I talk about "diamonds and rubies and gold" (she was trying to eat my ring one night which is what prompted these words the first time).

Jet Set

What a busy weekend we had: New York on Saturday and Baltimore on Sunday!

Our Saturday jaunt to NYC was to see Uncle Mike and Aunt Hanna. We've been good about getting up there to see them in the fall and winter, but hadn't been to see them during the summer. We had absolutely p-e-r-f-e-c-t weather which made for a great afternoon in Central Park and on the ferry.

(see the teeny Statue of Liberty?)

Then on Sunday, we made an impromtu trip to Baltimore. Grammy and Papa were in town for a wedding. We met up with them for breakfast and a quick visit before they had to catch their flight home.

(I need the SJA paparazzi to send pics... our camera battery was dead from the day before!)

New York photos: © 2009 Michael Joseph Leo Nally. All Rights Reserved.

Happy 4th of July

Hope you had a great 4th... we did! The whole McGee crew came over to our place. The weather was perfect for...

...swimming! Shannon is a huge fan of getting wet and it didn't hurt that her super-cool big cousin Amy wanted to go in too.

...celebrating birthdays. Grandpa is a Yankee Doodle Dandy ("born on the fourth of July") and Aunt Kathy's was last week. Shannon helped put the sprinkles on the patriotic cupcakes we baked.

...making s'mores. Yum!

We're old... didn't go to see any fireworks but watched the Boston Pops on TV. Hey, compared to the last couple years, I'm proud that I was awake to even see fireworks on TV!

Shannon's Animals

Been meaning to get Shannon on camera doing her animal sounds for awhile now. Here she is!