CHEETO HEAD!

Will survived his first lock in last night. He is currently sleeping- has some catching up to do since he didn't come home until 9:00 this morning. For those of you who know Will very well, you know that this is a HUGE accomplishment for him to keep his eyelids open all night...I don't think I could do it- a sign of aging I guess. Anyway, we had about 40 kids and it seemed to be a great success. We pulled some "camp games" into the mix of games last night and had a "battle of the genders" competition. It was all tied up at the end so we had a tie breaker with a game called "cheeto head." It was quite entertaining. Gaines was screaming "go, go, go"...he really got into the excitement. The object was to get as many cheetos to stick to the shaving cream (that was piled on top of two team members heads) as possible within an alloted time. The girls won by two cheetos- we had some very dissapointed young men:) Gaines and I headed home after the games, but the rest of the gang spent the evening rollar skating, chowing on banana splits, playing video games, watching movies and playing cards. It sounds like everybody had fun, but I'm sure Will is glad this is a once-a-year event!The cheeto heads are now prepared to catch the cheetos
This is Sarah Calvert ready to aim and shoot her cheeto:)
It really takes some skill to toss a cheeto
the winners!
Gaines ready for bed

Our little neighborhood...plus some cute pictures of Gaines!

Gaines cashed out on the couchGaines reading to Barclay
The back of our house
You can see the roof of our house in the middle of this picture
Here's the little creek that Gaines and Rudy stomp around in

Gaines and I walk up and down this street several times a day
This is the drive that winds up to our house
Gaines can't go anywhere without this ball...he has even been sleeping with it lately!

Continued...

I couldn't fit these two pictures on my last post- so I'm tackin' em on... I LOVE pictures of Gaines sleeping. He fell asleep in Will's lap while at some friend's house. Have I mentioned how OBSESSED he is with his dad! I'll admit it makes me a bit jealous, but it's pretty cute. He has to do everything just like him- he'll watch how Will is sitting and then cross his legs or prop up his feet to be just like him. Tonight on the couch, Will was proping up his head with his elbow and Gaines tried to mock him- gotta be like dad...dad,dad,dad! Here is a picture of the front of our house from a distance- the one in the middle. No up close shots yet- we are living like red necks, our front porch is full of stuff- This week the construction begins as we build on a storage area and carport. It will be so nice to put everything away!

A Day at Camp...

Well, the bad news is our camera broke...again! The GREAT news is, Best Buy said that because the camera was so old they didn't have the parts to fix it, so they gave us a credit that payed for a better camera, a memory card and a 4 year warrenty! No complaining here:) After picking out our new camera, we headed to camp for the afternoon. I dropped Rudy off yesterday to play with Bruno, and she came running as soon as we pulled in. Will showed Gaines how to skip rocks at the Mills River, we splashed around at the blob dock and got a chance to visit with Philip, Rhonda and their boys, Mason and Jordan for a while. They let us pick as much sweet corn as we liked...we came home with quite a bit. My new assignment is to come up with a good creamed corn recipe...Will's favorite!

Lake Hartwell

Today we took the youth group to Lake Hartwell (2 hrs south of us in SC). A girl in a YG has a lake house there, and their sweet family invited us up for the day. It was perfect weather and everybody got a chance to get behind a boat...even Gaines.

Kitchen Fun

Gaines and Charlie are loving their new kitchen set! Eva, our old neighbor from camp handed down her kitchen set to Gaines a couple of weeks ago...ever since Gaines and Charlie have been cooking up a storm. They have me sit in the little house and serve me up their finest dishes!

"No...Please..."

Well, we had our first youth get together at our house last night. We had nearly the whole youth group show up and some parents. The guys played football in the yard (Gaines couldn't take his eyes of them), we ate tacos and had a devo. It was great weather and turned out to be a great night. Will rode his bike to work this morning, feeling the pressure to get in shape. Uncle Terry called and said he and Peggy are headed down this way in a couple of weeks and wants Will to be ready to ride! Hopefully we'll get some kayaking in too. Gaines is down for a nap now, but has been BUSY all morning. After breakfast this morning he brought me my shoes and went to the door, saying "outside." So, I tried to get him dressed but when I attempted to put on his pants, he wasn't pleased...He kept saying "No...Please...No" So, we headed outside with a t-shirt, jacket and crocs...who needs pants anyway. We took Rudy down to the creek, found a huge crawfish and took a ride on the mower. I don't think it will be long before he'll be cutting the grass by himself. He seems to know exactly what to do- scary!

Gaines' Trip to Michigan

Grandpa and Grandma just couldn't take it anymore...they were having Gaines withdrawls! So, Gaines and I hopped on a plane fairly last minute to go visit the grandchild deprived grandparents for Labor Day weekend. Gaines did pretty well on the plane...making friends with everyone he met. His new thing is giving everybody "nuckles"...some found that to be pretty entertaining. Uncle Brandon picked us up late on Saturday at the Detroit airport. Brandon has recently returned from a pretty amazing mission trip to Honduras. He organized a group of medical and dental students from Detroit Mercy to meet up with a missionary dentist and other Honduran dental students. During their five day medical brigade, they treated around 3,000 patients in all. Brandon spent the majority of his time pulling teeth. I am so proud of him! Anyway...we headed to Battle Creek to meet up with everybody. We stayed in BC until Monday night and then headed to Grand Rapids for a few days. It was great to see everybody, but unfortunately the little man got pretty sick. Thank goodness for antibiotics...

Grandpa and the Dare Devil.

GG and a sick little boy!

I think this picture is so funny, bc Gaines resembles Dennis the Mennis!

Gaines wasn't sure about having three boys in the bath at once...it didn't take long before he was outa there!
J coaching Gaines...a scary thought!

Marc, Me and Danny

The proud Grandma!

Gaines Has Turned Country

We've found that Gaines' favorite outfit these days is a diaper and his crocks. The first thing he mentions in the morning is his "shoes." He asks for them as I walk into his bedroom to get him out of the crib. They've caused a couple stumbles (notice the skinned knee) but he doesn't seem to mind. They're great for walking down to the creek with Rudy and splashing around.

To Share Or Not To Share

Here are Gaines and Charlie, sitting around just cracking eachother up! They are pretty funny together...one moment doing very well as they practice their sharing skills...the next moment, not so good.