the past few weeks in 100 words or less

we romped around in the creek (read: muddy water) with the cobbs...



and had an evil-knievil-of-a-time riding the monster truck in the backyard:



the kids and i hit aldridge gardens for a science lesson (really we just needed a getaway for some good mommy/kiddie time):







uncle bailey helped josh get the roof on the hand-me-down playset we got 18 months ago but just made it around to assembling (have i mentioned that josh is a total rock star for putting this thing together?  alone.  from memory.)  and all the dead grass?  see the monster truck blurp above:




while the guys were working, the little lewis ladies and their sweet cousins cuddled a bit (brayden and jack must have been off alternately wrestling and playing matchbox cars):




during the 7 minutes they were all well, some of the fanning crew came over to play on the aforementioned playset:




and in an act designed either to exhibit great love for the newest fanning or to make me insanely jealous, josh spent 30 minutes doing this:



the kids made giraffe sandwiches for lunch one day:



and then, much to my delight, asked me to take their pictures:




to be accurate, izzy requested a "sheshun":



abby and izzy worked intently on their arts and crafts:



and we had a night in with the taylors (the answer is no, i don't have a clue what abby and izzy were doing with their mouths or why jack was staring me down like i was interrupting some fine dining experience): 



and finally, josh and i took a picture of our own to celebrate baseball's opening day:



so maybe "100 pictures or less" is more like it, but there - i'm officially caught up with photo blogging.  i've got wordless wednesday ready to go for tomorrow, but i'm praying that with our agency's wednesday report from ethiopia will come some good news to trump it!