Eaker family pics

While we were celebrating Mimi & Grandad's 40th anniversary at Kiawah Island, we got some family pictures done. They turned out nice!!

New cousin!

Allie & I are in Charlotte helping Aunt Jen & Uncle Dan adjust to their new sweet baby girl, Ashlyn Claire. She was born on Friday and they've been home since that evening. Jenny has a lot of neat pics of her on their blog - HERE.

Allie & Ari are just playing, eating and napping. We've had lots of fun.

Movie-watching:

Sprinkler-playing

And hanging with the new baby

Flag Football

We signed Zachary up for flag football. The team was supposed to be a 6 & under team and we thought that'd be great for him, since he's 5. HOWEVER, they changed it to a 10 & under team, which we know is not great for him, SINCE HE'S 5.

Here's who he is supposed to block while playing defense:

Here he is, again (the furthest kid in red), lined up playing defense against the other team:

Here's his coach helping him understand where to go & what to do. He gets a little confused because of all the motion on the field, but the kid still runs his little heart out wherever the coach told him to run!

Here he is using proper Right Arm Up (RAU as his coach refers to it) for a hand off (he's #7). He ran across the field well on this play, but as he cut to move forward, those giant boys came after him and he (instinctively?) started to run the other way!

Overall, it's a great learning experience. I'm disappointed it's a more difficult learning experience since he's playing with/against kids who have played for 4 years. That is a HUGE difference in ability. But he likes it a lot and is having fun, so it's all good!

Summa-time

In honor of the first day of summer, here are some pics of the kids enjoying the pool. Now that they have the jeep, I walk to the pool with my hands free! Everything fits in the trunk.

This is a nice view for momma!:

Love her little mind

Allie came downstairs yesterday wearing her tinkerbell back pack (she says, "packpack" and I love it). She said to me, "On Friday, I'm going to college."

I smiled and said, "Enjoy college. Will you come visit me while you're in college?"

She said, "Yes. And after college, I will go to first grade."

She cracks me up. But I laughed even harder when I saw that she had packed that "packpack" with her version of necessities for college.

1)a t-shirt
2)a comb
3)a toy
4)2 pairs of boy's underwear

Oh. My. Goodness. This girl is so funny!

Cousin Ella

We are visiting family in Florida this week. We spent the weekend at Aunt Shell's house and the kids finally got to meet baby Ella. They had a good time hanging out with her. She's a lil' cutie!

Enjoying sweet Ella while she's cuddled up sleeping with Aunt Bex:

We made it over to Grammy & Grandpa's this afternoon and played in the pool. Lotsa fun!!

A cure for thumb-sucking

A few weeks ago, I was doing my sandal-season pedicure and Allie asked if I would paint her fingernails. I don't love fingernail polish, so I was trying to come up with a plausible excuse to convince her not to paint her nails. So I said, "Well, Allie, you won't be able to suck your thumb if you have fingernail polish on it."
Being the quick-thinking highly-motivated little girl she is, she immediately said, "Well, I won't suck my thumb." So, after a few minutes of negotiating, my girl & I came up with a plan.
Every day that she didn't suck her thumb, I'd put a new color of fingernail polish on her nails. I was pretty sure this deal wouldn't last long.
15 days later, she's still going strong.
Ladies & Gentlemen, I found a cure for thumb-sucking.
Get yourself a highly-motivated, driven girl who knows what she wants and is willing to work for it!

I let her pick out 2 colors.

Every night & every nap, she'd habitually bring her hand to her face as she laid down, and then I'd see her remember her goal & stop her hand before it got to her face. I found her asleep like this several times -

This experience showed me a great side to Allie's personality. She recognized her goal, really worked hard and she was determined to be successful. Good traits.

Beach entertainment

We had lots to do on the beach last weekend. For starters, Zachary got to fly a kite! There was a family spending their weekend at Kiawah Island as well and we kept seeing them at the beach. They have little girls the same age as Zach & Allie. The kids played together two days and they loved it. The girls' grandpa was flying a kite, which Zachary loves to do, so he asked to help.

The grandpa was doing lots of fun tricks & loops with the kite and was helping Zachary have some fun with it too. Once Zach got the hang of it, the grandpa let him have the reigns and walked over to me and whispered, "Oh to have a grandson..." I thought it was super sweet how he enjoyed Zachary.

This is the little girl who is also 3 years old. Her & Allie both have beautiful curls and they were super cute together.

We also brought Crayola colorful bubbles, which are great ONLY for the beach. They are a huge mess and drip everywhere. But the beach is the best place for something like that.

Believe it or not, this mess was gone after 1 dip in the ocean. I was very relieved. Props to Crayola for making a wonderfully kid-friendly beach mess-maker.

Allie also enjoyed "painting" Aunt Meredith's feet with the colorful bubbles.