The Longest Post in the World.

Hello friends. It's been a while. I don't know how any of you with three kids have any time to do ANYTHING. Maybe it's just a baby thing. I hope it's just a baby thing because I seriously can't find the time to do anything that isn't kids or cleaning or cooking!

Aaron told me to stop posting pictures because no one will read it if it's too long. Well, it is long. But don't worry, I'm not putting in much text so pretend it's a picture book.

In July my side of the family had a reunion at Lake Siskyou in Northern California.

Nana and Grandpa Duck playing with 9 out of the 11 grandkids.

The kids were really into catching these enormous bullfrog tadpoles. Hence the hand in the bucket. They didn't usually survive after being handled by little kids ;)

Brett and Luke tadpole hunting.

Besides hanging out at the lake, we visited the head-quarters of the Sacramento river. It comes out of the bottom of a hill!

My brothers and their wives. And one baby. Twelve of us are missing, not counting Nana and Grandpa Duck.

Search drinking the water. People come and fill huge water bottles with this water because it's so pure and tasty! Oh, and it's free.

There is a Great Grandma behind these three chunks!

The cute photogenic girl cousins :) They actually like to have their picture taken. Imagine that!

Gone fishin'.

Cutie boy.

I guess the older kids got a little bored :)

But the younger kids were just fine.

Some of us did some caving. I mean spelunking to be exact.

My bro Jake and his family. I didn't have a pic of Dave and his family. They just left for Germany for three years! We'll miss them lots :(

A rare family picture!
Three cousins.

Five cousins.

Dad and kid.

Huh? What's going on here? What's up cuz?

Grandpa Duck fishing in the drift boat with two of his grandkids.

We rented a patio boat one day and did some jumping and diving!

And floating around...

This is how Baby B spend his time at the lake. Happy as a... uh... crawdad.

The kids probably caught at least a hundred little frogs. They were everywhere!

Search and Destroy even learned how to kayak all by themselves!

but it's much more fun with a cousin in the boat!

Next post... going to Chico to visit Aaron's fam. All car trips should involve getting kicked in the face by your baby brother while trying to sleep. Take that!

The end. 32 pictures. Good night.

We've been...

...just trying to survive. And not even doing very well at that. Search got in a bike accident yesterday and ended up with a broken hand, a fat lip, a loose tooth and a gnarly looking face. Yes, being the blogger that I am, I took a picture before we cleaned him up. Aaron said I was, what was the word? Oh yes. Sadistic. I can't help but agree I guess. Bad Mom.So here's what happened: Aaron took the two boys on a bike ride. He and Search were racing and Search was gaining on Dad but looking back at Destroy. Meanwhile, looking behind him, he got into a fight with a parked car. The car won. He flew forward off his bike and got into fight #2 with the road. The road won. Luckily he had his helmet on... it must have slid up after the initial impact. Poor kid. I just hope he still wants to ride his bike.

He looks much better today and is much happier. Although the most traumatizing part of the whole experience for him was having to wear the dreaded arm brace. He was so mad about wearing it that he opted out of getting ice cream on the way home from X-rays and wouldn't stop screaming. He locked himself in a room (to which we conveniently don't have a key) and promptly fell asleep. But we had to get in there (you know because he could be comatose from hitting his head) so we took the doorknob off. Love being married to a medical guy :)

Now he's ok with the brace because we call it his "blaster" and he pretends to shoot bullets out of it.

Destroy took pictures like an annoying reporter.

We've also been creatively making Spider-Man's webs with thread from Mom's sewing machine.
Ok, Mom had nothing to do with that.

Here's Spider-Man's leg jammed into the top dresser drawer holding the web for all the other Spider-Men. And animals.

It was too funny to just clean up. I had to take pictures first. And lucky you, you get to enjoy them :)
We've also been stealing Mom's camera and taking random pictures.

"Look Mom, I got my hand and my foot!"

Creatively celebrating. I can't take the credit for this idea. It was all Stacey. The kids loved decorating their own cupcakes.

Complete with those little spinner thingys.

Isn't she the cutest? Where's the pic of Olivia???

We've also been getting haircuts. Some turning out better than others. Mine was a not-so-better. It's ok now though. I'll spare you the pictures of mine.

THE MULLET: now you see it.

Now you don't. Now we're not as white trash.Look at those neck rolls! I can't keep this kid from stinking because those neck rolls grow cheese. And I'm pretty sure the neck cheese grows mold.

Every baby needs a pair of sweet slip-ons with whales on them. Look at me I'm standing!

And then I fell so I'm crying. Bad Mom.

We've been really tired.

We've been swimming in our new pool!

We've been bumbo-ing.

And being a third child. Dumped wherever is convenient. Good thing we're so easy going, or at least one of us is :)

We've started learning how to play the piano. With mix feelings.

And playing outside ALL THE TIME. Even when it's raining. Because even superheros have to save lives in the rain too.

And now we're getting ready to go on vacay! And we're all going! West coast here we come!