Busy days with that Hawkins fam

Scenes of mealtime and playtime craziness...

Breakfast! Look how calmly all these kids are waiting to eat their Cheerios. And look at all those plastic cups on the table. We all labelled our cups with masking tape (Jenny Hawkins style) and used them the entire time.

 Yes, there are a lot of boy cousins in this family! Eight of them, from age 8 months to 8 years old.

the upstairs hallway/playroom area for the AMAZING fisher-price toy collection!!

Timo was quite enamored of Lillian, and she was very patient and sweet with him. Throughout the day he would repeat, "Where's Lillian?" and "Look, Lillian, look!" to draw her attention to whatever he was doing. It reminded both Jim and I of how much Gemma had adored Lillian, following her around and wanting to sit on her lap.

Mattias is the youngest cousin, and his older boy cousins in particular were gentle and kind with him, paying attention to him. Unfortunately he's a bit heavy to be carried around ... but watch out, soon enough he'll be running after them, too!

Samuel (5) and Daniel (4 1/2) with Mattias

Adella driving while Abram (10 months) rides in back - good balance! - and Adah Joy pushes

Lunch! Mom/Jaja was amazing at having SO much food and so many options on hand for our meals. Lunchtime we had all kinds of sandwich and salad fixings, fruit, plus chips & salsa and a variety of cold salads. Yes, those pickles were hand-sliced. With love. In a small batch.

Afternoon playtime usually meant a game of baseball or tag in the yard, or a trip to the river for wading. Timo discovered t-ball for the first time, and was surprisingly good at it. He would hit again and again and didn't want to stop. Since coming home he has continued to ask to play... I need to look for a t-ball stand at a yard sale. 

At his own initiative, he bats left-handed.

Grandpa pitching for the baseball game

Another grilled dinner - this time Craig and Kyle laboriously cut up and grilled RABBIT (previously slaughtered) from the Frey's "urban farm"

The men got in a couple of basketball sessions - Dunkball and Horse games - over at the church next to the house. Amazingly, none of them complained about being sore after these sessions... Maybe we aren't too old for this yet.

In the evenings after the kids were all in bed, the adults talked and ate dessert and played games. One night was Men vs Women in Charades. We were all a bit rusty... and it was hilarious.

"Small word"