Outside

Elaina has a newfound love for being outside. She wants to be wherever her brothers are and if I don't head out with her she throws a back arching baby temper tantrum. There just aren't many places to put her down since she's not walking or crawling yet. Luckily for me, I've come up with another use for our winter time sleds:

A perfect little thingy for Lanie to sit in that solves her leaf eating tendencies!
Throw in a few small wiffle balls for entertainment and you've got a self-contained play area!
We've been spending quite a bit of time outside practicing our baseball skills. This guy finally has some self-motivation and has been asking to practice almost every day.
Rhett is pretty sure he's going to be the team MVP because self-confidence has never been a problem for this cat. He'll put in about seven solid minutes of practice then decides he's pretty much got it. I tried to break it to him easily that you can't be an MVP when you stink. Practice. More.
Grant puts in small increments of time as well. He needs lots of juice breaks.
Cade was practicing his hitting and I was just walking around with my camera in the field practicing some skillz of my own. Rhett was being Mr. Take My Picture Doing This and a pic of him holding Lanie was top on his list. Dear me. Rhett still hasn't mastered a safe way to be a baby holder.
He was bound and determined to get some pics with his sister. She was about over it though.
I looked over and saw this pile of kids and thought it was so cute. No wonder this gal is content most of the time. She's always got brothers to entertain her. I'm pretty sure she has her hand in a crawdad hole. Brothers are not always the best monitors.
In an unfortunate turn of events, this tender moment turned violent. I was by no means surprised.

Tenderness quickly turns to tackling at the Morgan's. It's just a fact of life.

Tenderness and testosterone. Antonyms. Elaina will probably be the first one year old that can apply a successful chokehold if her brothers' example sinks in. I'll make sure she's wearing a bow on the wrestling team. That you can be sure of.

Wilderness Weekend

This weekend we trekked up to East Tennessee for the Morgan Fam mini-vacay. We hit the Wilderness Lodge on Friday afternoon and headed straight for the indoor water park. The boys were so pumped about this weekend they could hardly stand it! Once we got there I rarely even saw these four. They were hitting the slides together and didn't slow down.

These two buddied up since they were just shy of the height requirement to ride the slides without an adult. Rhett's enthusiasm was uncontainable. If he screamed "OH YEAH, BABYYYY!!!" once, he screamed it a thousand times.
Someone had less than stellar enthusiasm about the water park:
She felt much more comfortable with someone holding her. In her defense, there were some sketchy people there. I was actually a little afraid myself at times:) After a couple hours she decided to warm up to the water a bit. I think she realized it was quite like her bathtime at home, only on a MUCH larger, louder, more public scale.....and she wasn't naked.
Then she saw her brother.....

and decided she really DID like it!
Yea!! Fear: conquered!
I happened to see Cade come off the yellow slide once and was able to snap a quick pic. He should have been in boy heaven this weekend being that there was a cheerleading competition going on with more 7-12 year old girls than I could count. Thankfully, however, he's still pretty clueless about the female species and probably had no idea. I personally think it should remain that way until college. Don't get me wrong.....I definitely want him to like girls....just not too much :) And, despite what you may think after seeing this picture, the child really does eat.
I made the observation that at least 80% of the water park attendees were sporting one or more tattoos. Some had tats from the neck to the ankles with no pink skin between. I'm glad that I had inked Rhett a few days before leaving so he didn't feel left out.
Rhett loved going in the wave pool. Me? I loathed it. Here he is trying to convince me that I really WOULD love it if I'd just get out there. I personally didn't like the idea of trying to keep myself from being forced under water by either a) a huge wave of water or b) some bafoon on a float with no regards to a woman trying to maintain her child's safety.
After flopping around in the waves Rhett headed back to make sure Elaina remembered that he really loves her a whole bunch. It had been an entire 7 minutes since he had kissed her.
I hope she relishes this time in her bikini. It will be the only time in her life that a tiny pot belly, rolly polly thighs, and a bikini can come together in total cuteness!
Bobby took her out in the waves for a while and just to make myself feel better I needed to yell out, "make sure you don't drop her!". It's the mom in me. So, Mr. Smart Aleck did this:
Of course, even after that she loved him. Even cupped his chest in love. That cracked me up for some reason.
Brothers in the pool:
And, some sweet pics of my baby girl's smile:

I know Bobby's mom enjoyed getting some QT with LanieBugs.
We finished off the weekend with a meal at Old Mill or what I like to call Cracker Barrel on steroids. Every portion was at least doubled and automatically came with fritters. I always avoid anything with the word "fritter". You should too unless you like the idea of a very rapid and painful colon cleanse.
We had a great time spending the weekend with cousins. We'll be looking forward to the next Wilderness Weekend!