here she is.....

tessa christine...
21 inches long....and wrapped around my finger.....
adored by her new big sister....
and the cutest little thing who looks just like her daddy... and her grandma christine (jason's mom). shannon did very well, once things got started. went from 6 cm. to birthing her in 40 minutes. too bad it took almost 24 hours to get to that point. she went in wednesday night and tessa was born on friday at 12:06 pm. two pushes and she was out. with a fuzzy head of black curls. and is just adorable. congratulations shannon, jason and scarlett and thank you for another adorable granddaughter.

this is it.....

she is going to have a baby tomorrow......
they are going to be a family of four.....
and she can't wait to be the big sister.....

who knew that she was such a tomboy...

such a pretty little thing. you really can dress her up... i had the china tea set before she was even born.
but she will grab her best froggin' friend and...
finds her frog in the pond which she happily showed off to me. we always thought that scarlett would be a princess. tea parties, frou-frou dresses and baby dolls. but not her, no sir...she likes frogs, bugs, snakes, dirt, jeans and ratty t-shirts. you can fix up her hair but soon after she is wiping her falling down hairstyle out of her sweaty face with her dirty, pudgy hands.
does the reverse work??? if she kisses this frog will it turn her into a princess? i don't think so. i guess we'll have to work on her baby sister.

...and even more of my two beauties...

could you just eat them up??

just a few from last night.....

we went over to shannon's for father's day dinner and afterward we did a photo shoot for her. l love the way these pictures turned out. i love the evening light...it makes everything glow.


gotta run to austen's baseball game now....i'll post some more later.

bay sail 2007......

i never had a field trip as good as these kids have them these days. 3 days ago, i went on a field trip with austen's class to bay city to sail in this schooner. i don't think we could have had a more perfect day weather wise. about 83 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

the kids had so much fun and so did i. we sailed up and back the saginaw river which was not very attractive on the shores. lots and lots of factories and mills that were spewing smoke, steam and god knows what else. but once we got into the bay, it was beautiful. the kids got to raise the sail with the crew once we were in the bay. it was really hard work, but they got to say "heave-ho", in it's correct context, just like pirates. the ride lasted for 2 1/2 hours and for the afternoon we went to a beautiful park in bay city with large shade trees and a playscape for the kids to hang out on.
two drawbridges opened for us and stopped traffic on the bridge. it was a pretty cool trip and i even volunteered my services for next year's 4th grade trip there.
we all got to go to mcdonald's for lunch after the boat trip. you should have seen the faces of the people behind the counter when we strolled in with 27 4th graders and 8 chaperones. eyes as wide as saucers.....like a deer in the headlights. each kid got to order whatever they wanted. imagine 13 orders of chicken selects, 10 orders of chicken mcnugges, chicken wraps, kids meals, salads, 27 orders of fries and on and on. austen's teacher approached the counter to order everything and the kid behind the register looked to be about 16 years old. she asked if there was someone more experienced there but the staff assured her that this kid could handle it.....and he did. the food was done fast and we were out of there in about 45 minutes...great trip and great fun.

baby love.....

i love me some brand new baby skin...so wrinkly and soft. just like a shar-pei puppy.
this is london grace at 9 days old...so sweet and this one looks just like her mamma...who is my friend tina...and she is just too sweet for words. she is a good baby who for the first week home slept 6 hours at night. you can't get much better than that.
she was very cooperative for the photo shoot. awake for most of it and then fell asleep at the end of the shoot. it's nice to have a new neighbor...especially when it is a beautiful little baby girl.



it makes me so anxious for shannon's baby to be born. i went to the doctor's with shannon yesterday. her doctor wanted her to have another ultrasound because her belly is so big. at 37 weeks, the baby is measuring at around 8.5 lbs already and she still has 3 weeks to go. babies generally gain about 1/2 lb per week at this stage so shannon is concerned about another big baby. scarlett was 9 lbs 10 oz and shannon does not want to go throught that again but the nurse practitioner told shannon that they will check her again in 2 weeks. which brings her to 39 weeks. they will not let her go over this time like she did with scarlett. so if she does not go into labor sooner, she will have the baby on or near her due date. she is soooooo ready. hang, in there kiddo.

i guess don is not the only michigan fan in the house....

i came into the kitchen the other morning and saw that champers had absconded with austen's u of m football into his cage....
...hugging it like it was his security blanket...
and not willing to give it up easily...i don't know if i can stand another michigan football fan in the house. don is bad enough and if you are my family or close friends reading this, you know what i mean.

it isn't all fun and games.....

when you are up against the first place team and you let a grounder go through your legs. oooh...he was not happy with himself. austen tends to be pretty intense when he plays and is really very hard on himself when he doesn't play well.. the thing is, he does play well and we have to remind him that every ball isn't a home run or even a hit and every ball fielded isn't a double play or even an out.
he shook it off pretty good and got back into the game.....
but as little league goes, it always keeps you hoppin'.
in a funny side note, the team was asked to vote for two boys on the team to send to an all star team in july. the boys would vote and then the coaches would take that into account and then pick two boys based on the votes and their own recommendations. i asked austen who he voted for...he told me "i voted for myself". geez...did i raise an egotist?? so i went to my neighbor's house (her son nick is on austen's team) and asked nick who he voted for and he said "i voted for myself". i don't feel so bad anymore.....

this was creepy....

on saturday night the neighborhood kids put together a bonfire in our fire pit. they arranged the whole thing and had tables and chairs set up with s'mores and pop and hotdogs. they were so cute.

but the weather turned pretty ugly at the end and this was what we saw above us. it turned out to be pretty tame though, no big thunderboomers and just a tiny bit of lightening

he got the game ball with this hit.....

after each game, the coach awards the game ball to the player who did an outstanding job during that particular game. this one was a triple and austen runs so fast that when he slid into 3rd base he overslid and had to double back...
he made it, though and was safe... and just so pleased with himself. he was named in our local paper for this game and got a big kick out of that. we have had lots and lots of baseball around here. austen has games every wednesday night and saturday. don is playing softball on tuesday nights and so our weeknights are pretty full. we enjoy it though and austen's friend nick is on his team so that makes it doubly fun. austen has a great field trip coming up next week that i am going on with him. we go to bay city and sail on a huge boat. they call it "the bay sail" and i can't wait. i will be sure to post pictures about that trip. last week we went on another field trip to the flint county courthouse and jail. his class got to sit in the juror's box and watch actual court cases. prisoners being brought into court in orange jumpsuits and chains. policemen being cross examined in the witness chair. a young man being sentenced to 2 years in the county jail for drug possession and use. lawyers...judges....defendants...the whole shebang. we then took the bus to the county jail and got a tour of that facility. lots and lots of cold, hard surfaces...hard chairs, metal doors, clanking and echoing noises all of the time. tiny cots with thin mattresses. the kids didn't seem too fazed by this until i mentioned to them as we watched the security monitors that looked directly into the prisoners rooms that they had to go to the bathroom...every time....with someone watching them...pee and poo. no privacy. most of the kids stared at me in disbelief when i mentioned this and then a slight realization came over them. i heard lots of ugh's and eeeeww's and yuck's....we were going to actually go into the common areas while the prisoners were in lockdown but the jail was over crowded and they could not lock everyone down while we were there. i would have liked them to see the people in the cells close up instead of just behind the glass like we ended up doing. in the end, i hope that that tour of the jail will deter at least my kid from any kind of life of crime.