Cookout at Doug & Shelly's

Today my whole family was invited to Doug and Shelly's for a cookout and fun on the water slide. Because it was stormy and rainy, playing on the water slide was not possible. Instead, we all had fun inside. Ben, Jessica and Madeline were content to play with toys and scoot around the rooms by crawling or riding in their walkers.

Doug was the chef of the day. He did a great job grilling in the rain.

Jackson and Xander with their paper airplanes.

I brought a packet of paper airplanes with special stickers that the boys all folded and labeled and sailed around the house. Jackson could make his airplane fly up to the ceiling fan and Carl and John could make theirs fly straight at Aunt Cyndee. Xander could get his airplane to fly from the family room through the front hall and into the living room. Sam could make his airplane fly very fast across the room.
Carl and his paper airplane.
I caught John with his eyes almost closed while he was showing off with a pair of cymbals on his ears.
Sam and his big brown eyes.
Sam likes to ride on Uncle Mike's shoulders.

Wendy and Ben.
Jessica looks cute with her pig tails.
Shelly, Wendy with Ben and Terri.
Grandma Dee and Madeline.
Xander and Jackson throwing their paper airplanes into the air.

Ben crawled onto the fireplace ledge and sat there all by himself. He also took a few walking steps today and will soon be running.
There are those big brown eyes of Sam's again.
Aunt Wendy with Madeline.
Aunt Shelly put pigtails in Madeline's hair today. Here she is with Terri.
The gang enjoys playing and having fun together.

Madeline was tired from all the activity of the day.
Jessica plays with her cousins.
Jackson taking a picture of his cousin, Jessica.
The whole family (except the photographer, Aunt Cyndee) posed for a photo. Standing: Doug, Shelly with Jessica, Jim with Ben, Wendy. Seated: Jackson, Xander, Grandma Dee, Carl, John, Mike with Sam, Madeline held by Terri.

After we left Doug and Shelly's, Jim, Carl, John and Sam came to my house to help me with trimming my shrubs in the front and doing a few other things to help me out. Jim placed the cinder blocks for steps to my water spigot and replaced the light bulbs in the garage door opener. Carl, John and Sam helped clean up all the shrub cuttings and pulled weeds. They are big helpers and enjoy earning money when the help at Aunt Cyndee's house. Sam and John also enjoyed petting Seally, she likes the special attention too.

Although we had fun today, there was some sadness in the air since my Grandma Coulter took a turn for the worse this morning. She has pneumonia and is very ill. We are all praying for her.