{pretty, happy, funny, real} Friends are friends forever

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

{pretty}

I got a new camera lens!  My Mother's Day present.

These are mostly taken in Auto mode though, so I still have to work on settings.

Here's my pretty baby girl at 3 months old

And another pretty beauty called Mary Margaret who we had with us over the weekend...

{happy}

They were about to leave for home in this photo, but these were some HAPPY kids!

Our dear friends came to visit for Memorial Day weekend.  It is such a gift to have close friends who we can share our home and our holiday weekend with!  Our kids are all close in age and have a great time together.  We really treasure the wonderful friendships God has given us, and we try not to take that for granted.

They only have one son, their oldest, and he was such a sweet guy to my boys, playing with them all weekend.  Steven Joseph really looks up to Patrick.

We had of course planned for a beach outing, but in the end just the dads and kids went while the moms and babies stayed home.  I was sad to miss out on some great beach photos with my new lens, and fun times with everyone, but it really was a lovely quiet night to spend with my friend.  And at least I got these pictures at the park!

The girls had so much fun together.  Ellie and Catherine are close in age.

 She'll probably get mad at me for posting this, but isn't she gorgeous?  With their new puppy Billy.

Little Agnes is such a doll.

The dads love hanging out too.  In fact their daddy came to visit for a hunting-turned-fishing trip in January.  Kiernan is a very talented writer and shares beautiful family stories and thoughts about life on his blog, Old Soldiers.  He and Steven both grew up as the babies of big Catholic families, him being #9 and Steven #7!

Billy is their new distinguished black lab.  He came from far away in Mississippi and is going to be quite a well behaved dog with all the intensive training they are doing with him! Our kids really enjoyed having a dog here for the weekend!

Thomas could be very sweet with little Agnes when he wanted to!

The crew walking back to our house

{funny}

Tommy is a funny kid.  He snuck out of the house the other day!

Can you tell what he's missing?

He keeps sneaking outside without pants!

I'm not kidding, this kid is really giving me a run for my money.  

 I've bought about five different parenting books over the past couple months.  I don't think they're helping.

I love the few minutes the boys actually play together during the day, because most of the day Thomas is just trying to climb on me.  It's like having another infant.  One who almost weighs 50 pounds and is solid as a rock.

 So yesterday I set up a "car wash" after seeing something similar on Facebook.

 One glorious hour of total concentration as I prepared for the phone call with my homeschool consultant.  

I will be collecting ideas, if anyone has similar things that little boys might enjoy this summer!

The boys are scared of monsters upstairs, so they won't go up and play with their toys in their room or playroom together.  They usually won't go in the backyard without a sister or adult, either.  It makes life a little difficult.  But we are finding new ideas like this!  Maybe they will start to play upstairs soon, and the girls have a new "chore" for their daily summer allowance to do something nice for a younger sibling.  It has been a hard week but hopefully we will all survive the summer, or else homeschool will start early this year!

{real}

Real special moments with sisters.

 And I'll end with this really nice photo of Steven Joseph, since my 50 pound infant has woken up now at 1:00am and wants to sit in my lap!!!