June, part I

The month of June started with our big move into our new house!  We are very excited to have a bigger house with lots of room for the boys to run around.  The basement is finished and contains 95% of our toys.  The boys love to play down there and in our shady yard.  We took this picture one night right before Jim and I left for a Cardinals game.

 

After the picture, we were leaving for the game when we saw this:

A tree from our yard fell on a car in the neighbor's driveway!  Welcome to the neighborhood!

In mid-June, we went to Gulf Shores for a week with our friends Jason and Elizabeth and their boys Andrew and Evan.  Elizabeth and I left Friday morning in our minivan with the 5 boys (ages 5, 5, 2.5, 1.5, and 9 months).  It was quite a car ride!  We stopped in Tuscaloosa to stay with my friend Brooklyn for the night.  She and her husband have 3 kids ages 4.5 and younger.  It was a perfect place for us to stay - lots of room and tons of toys!  Here are the kids, lined up from youngest to oldest.

I didn't take too many pictures in Gulf Shores, but I did manage to enjoy a lot of relaxing!

I did bring my camera to LuLu's one night.  As we waited for our table, we played a ring toss game. 

Patrick used the two-hand technique. 

Jack used the stick-out-your-tongue technique.

Jason used the Elvis impersonator technique.

We also played in the sand as we waited.

There was water to play with, too!  Thank goodness - water and sand is never messy.  We wouldn't want these kids to be clean by the time they sat down to eat.

We also listened to some live music.  

Charlie had macaroni and cheese for the first time.  He loved it!

Storytime:

Our condo was right across the street from the beach!  There was also a pool.  The daddies took the boys to the beach one day.

One evening we walked over to get some family pictures:

We only took Charlie to the beach once.  We didn't really want him just sitting in the blazing sun and there wasn't a lot for him to do (besides eat sand).  One of us usually stayed back with Charlie (and he usually napped) and the other took the kids to the beach or pool.

We watched all 5 boys one night so Jason and Elizabeth could go on a date, and then they watch all 5 boys another night so Jim and I could go on a date!

Date night at Flora-Bama.

An attempted family picture before a trip to the pool: