"Mom, You Walked by Ten, but Only Saw Two."

Jeff baptized Luke today.

Luke and his siblings sang the song about rainbows.  It's my favorite.  Marcia snuck this picture, as I was behind the piano.

We had a wonderful morning.

Ben was very interested in the refreshments.  While he wanted one of everything, he was especially interested in the vanilla cupcake.  It was a biggie, and I ended up assisting.  We both had frosting on our fingers by the time the cupcake was consumed.  Fortunately, Ella grabbed my camera, because this was a hilarious moment.

Everyone wanted to pose with Aunt Corinne.

Well, I guess not exactly everyone.

It's always great to see Sammie and Melissa.

These three love to spend time together.  Bradley's suit is in his backpack by the front door at home.  These clothes were bought late last night.

Julia met a lot of new cousins today.

One of the new cousins is Lilah.  Many of Marcia's children and grandchildren attended Luke's baptism.  Then we all spent much of the day together.  We had a blast.

Lilah was quite a popular attraction.

While the adults made lunch, many of us headed for Jeff's pool. I asked the kids to wave at me.

Austin and I are getting to be good friends.

Julia is learning to swim, but today she just played in the water.

Nathan has fun no matter where he is.

I thought Bradley's googles would make him easy to spot, but he kept sharing them with the Brown cousins.

I'm thinking this might have been the best birthday Luke has ever had.

Ben's suit got left at home.  While Mom retrieved it, Ben stayed busy with Cousin Elliot.

These two were the lifeguards.

Ben and Austin shifted from jumping on tramps last night to jumping in water today.

The higher the jump, the bigger the splash.

I'm not sure how Jacob went in the pool this way, but it happened.

Why kids like a hot tub when the temperature is 97 degrees is beyond me.

Austin saw Jacob and Ben jumping.  Watch how fast he moved.

Only my camera knew he was one second behind them.

Marcia and I talked about our favorite grandchildren today.  Isaac's name may or may not have come up.

He found a sweet spot in the hot tub and parked himself there for quite awhile.

Julia is always busy, wet or dry.

Ben's swimming paraphernalia finally arrived.

My camera makes kids want to do tricks.  Ben Brown's legs are the best!

You are thinking there were a lot of kids in the pool. I'm telling you, there were more in the house.

And we kept our eyes on all of them.  There were plenty of adults around.

I had a fun day chatting with these three.

Lunch was scrumptious.

So was dessert. Ben got plenty of sugar.  No worries.

Marcia's peanut butter bars were my favorite.

After lunch, Jeff's kids relocated to the middle school, where they had been in play practice all week.  The rest of us had some quiet time until the play started.  Julia is on the right.  Ainsley is on the left.

Papa and I walked in the school with Jacob, who wondered aloud if that was a pencil stuck in the ceiling two stories up.  My camera confirmed his guess.

Jeff and Jill enjoyed the results of this week-long theater camp.

Ella had a lot of speaking parts.

Ben was in almost every scene.  He told Bee-jokes.  Papa Ben later quipped that he was bien.

Luke and Jane played aliens from another planet.

While all the kids had speaking parts, Luke and Jane also had singing parts.

Kate was the stage manager and stayed behind the scenes most of the time, but my camera caught her at the end.

Our afternoon became very quiet after the play, when some of the cousins attended a soccer game.  Hank, Sirius and Phoebe found a comfortable spot at Dave and Jeff's feet.

Julia and Ben played together for awhile.

Ben then joined Jacob.

At some point we ended up back in the pool. Jacob showed Aunt Corinne his starfish pose.

Corinne showed him her wheel pose.

Carolyn showed them her comfortable pose.

This is Julia's normal pose.

Nate preferred having the pool practically to himself.

It's easier to find a good place to splash.

Jacob is going to live with Papa and me this summer.  He can't wait.  Neither can I.

Dave borrowed Jeff's guitar and played some gentle music while we chatted.

Have I mentioned that sometimes I laugh out loud when I go through my pictures?

Sometimes everyone is laughing out loud.

Jeff and Jill brought the kids home after the second performance and cooked us dinner.

For the record, I ate more chips today that I ate all last year.

Luke enjoyed a second birthday party.

I missed all the present-opening because I was hunting for his gift, which Amazon said had been delivered but was nowhere.  I found it in the mailbox, just in time.

Luke was happy.  I was happy.

He had to pause to study a few details.

That didn't stop the rest of us from eating Tuxedo Cake.

Jacob wanted seconds.  Jill wasn't buying his look.

It was after 9 before Dave, Julia, Sirius and I left for a walk around the lake.  We passed a small snake, and we told Julia not to worry, that it was just a garter snake.  It probably wasn't, but Dave and I didn't discuss it and Sirius wasn't saying anything.  Later, when we were almost home, Dave spied this toad.  He picked it up for me so I could grab this shot with my cell.

Thirty seconds later, Sirius brought this snake to Dave's attention, who stepped back to take a second look.  I got this picture before it moved.  And then I pretty much flew to Jeff's house.  Dave and Jeff's words to me were, "Mom, you walked by at least ten snakes, but you only saw two."  And I used to love that walk...