Manes vacation 2013

 Last week we headed west of St. Louis to a little resort called Innsbrook for our annual Manes family vacation. The kids did great on the drive there. Norah's not too sure why I'm taking a picture in the car...

 We rented a house, and it exceeded our expectations. It sat on its own little pond which meant we could fish at any time of the day. Joey jumped right on that. He hasn't fished since our vacation last summer (and didn't get to do much then), so my dad gave him a little instruction and before long he was casting and reeling like a pro. He spent hours out there each day fishing. He caught quite a few blue gill and even a few bass. 

He was in heaven.

Kylah got in a on a little fishing too. She wasn't as in to it as Joey was, but she enjoyed the Papa time. :)

I'm not sure if she caught this one, but she held it!

Kylah was so excited to see Aunt Esther and was even more excited to find out that she had a baby girl in her tummy! (I wish I would have gotten a baby bump picture!)

Joe and Aaron enjoyed relaxing and chatting.

The pond at the house was good for fishing, but there was a lot of algae on it, which didn't make us to keen on swimming in it. So, the next morning we headed a few minutes away to a beach on one of the larger lakes. 

Joey loved the beach.

And he especially loved getting thrown in the water by his uncles.

I don't think Aaron needed to work out this weekend because he threw Joey in the air about a hundred times.

Kylah wanted in on the action too!

I love him!

 (and don't let this picture fool you...we relaxed on the beach together for about 0.5 seconds).

My dad calls her the Mad Scientist with her getup. Yep, pretty accurate.

 

 Esther and I decided we could lay out at the beach all day. Apparently not everyone felt that way. Something about the crowds and noise...  And can you see that we have the same swim suit in different colors? And it is NOT a maternity swimsuit, in case you were wondering...

Brothers.

Andy brought a few fireworks to shoot of on the 4th. They make me a little nervous, but Aaron held the fireworks in a bottle and let them fly.

Uncle T and the kids watched. Kylah is always plugging her ears.

We had a fun game of Pictionary that night after the kids were in bed. The girls won! This was supposed to be our winners' picture, but some of the boys sneaked in behind us...

The kids were up bright and early every morning. Especially Joey. The first morning we were there he was up at 6 ready to go fishing. Thank goodness daddy and Papa were willing to get up with him!

Papa had some helpers with making the pancakes the next morning. So cute!

And Gramma got some early morning snuggles with Luca and Norah.

I had a few fun moments to relax and read UsWeekly (thanks to Gina for bringing the magazines!) I left my sunglasses in the house and didn't want to go back in for them so I used some of the glasses Gramma brought for the kids.

I love Norah's laugh in this picture. Apparently whatever Luca and Uncle Andy were doing was pretty funny.

Andy does this thing with his kids called Spider Pig. He lifts them up and they crawl on the ceiling. Norah was a fan.

And so was Andy! He was quite excited that the other guys lifted him up so he could do Spider Pig. :)

Our house had a hot tub on the deck which was wonderful. Joe loves having a hot tub and says it will be a priority when we build our house in a few years.

The kids discovered this raft under the deck and couldn't wait to get in it. Luckily there were life jackets and oars. Kylah wasn't a fan (I think she got scared after the boys told her to watch out for the fish that could bite...) Joey and Michael loved it!

Luca and Norah are so precious together.

Papa got water guns for the kids. Looks like that wasn't such a good idea...

I love that all my brothers rough house and have fun with the kids. Uncle T took on all five of the kids here.

We had a lot of yummy food while we were there. Aaron decided to combine some of our meals and is eating a brat covered with pulled pork and baked beans. He said it was good, but I wasn't about to try it...

The resort had their own fireworks show on Saturday night. We didn't get quite as close as we probably should have, but it was still fun. Gramma brought glow sticks for the kids.

Joey and Michale were having fun with them!

Norah cuddled with Uncle Aaron.

The kids thought it was fun because we let them all pile in the back of our Pilot on the way there and back without seat belts. 

We had such a fun and relaxing vacation. This will definitely be a place to return to next year!!

iPhone pictures

Every once in a while I capture some great pictures on my iPhone. Some of you have seen this on Facebook, but for the purposes of documenting (and hopefully one day printing out this whole blog!), I wanted to put this sweet picture on here. 

That picture was on the way home from church on Sunday. Joey is always so sweet to Norah. She's not always sweet back to him (poking him in the face, frowning at him, pushing him away...), but he is always the first to comfort her and make sure she is happy and ok.  He even feels bad for her when she's crying and throwing a fit, and I have to remind him that she doesn't get what she wants when she throws a fit! 

Sweet brother!!

Kylah actually took this next picture. She sometimes grabs my phone and I find a ton of pictures on it that she took. Well, I saw this one, and I thought it was beautiful. Somehow she got Norah in pretty good focus while the rest of the background is blurry. I love it!

Baseball

 Joey got the opportunity to play on the all star team this year. He is having a really fun time. Joe is coaching his team, and Joey loves this!

 Instead of buying (overpriced) t-shirts, I got some simple gray t-shirts at Walmart and made the backs of the shirts. A little cutting and ironing and we were good to go! I have a gray shirt like this too, but I haven't gotten a picture of it yet.

Sno cones are always a fun treat while cheering on big brother.

How cute does he look out there?!

Huddle up!

The Adair's came to cheer on Joey on Saturday. Matty and Norah were, once again, being adorable.

And again.

Joey got one of the game balls on Saturday for being the birthday boy!

Being daddy and coach at the same time while giving the end of the game talk. Precious. :)

birthday boy!

 It's hard to believe our "little" boy is seven! His birthday was on Saturday, so he got to have his birthday party on his actual birthday. Fun!

We started out in the morning with his presents from us. He got a fish tank and accessories and got to go pick out his own beta fish after breakfast at Krispy Kreme. He named the fish CJ (for Joey and Connor.) Pretty cute! :)

 A glance back at the birthday boy on his first birthday.

Joey wanted to have a baseball swimming party so we had his birthday at the same hotel we had it last year. It worked out so well.

Jumping in together.

It's always fun to have the daddies around to swim. The kids were being thrown around like popcorn! :)

A break with best friends for pizza and juice.

So cute.

The happy birthday boy anxiously awaiting cake and presents.

I completely forgot to get a good picture of the cake I made for Joey before I cut into it. This is the only one that really shows his baseball cake. He had cute baseball cupcakes too. 

We love our birthday boy!

Why are pictures of these two always so cute?!

This purple life jacket has been so great this year. Norah can literally jump in the deep end with it and swim all by herself. It is awesome! Now if I can only teach her how to properly jump into the pool. She likes to jump as close to the side as possible and give her mommy a heart attack!

The day ended with Joe taking Joey, Connor and Kylah back to the hotel to swim some more and then get ice cream at Braums. Then they got to spend the night in the hotel. Fun for the kids. Probably not as fun for Joe... :)

Happy Birthday Joey Bear!!

We love summer!

We have really been enjoying our summer around here. Joey and Kylah made a "Summer List" with their babysitter, and we've already gotten to mark off some things!

Last week when the girls were gone, I took Joey and a few of his friends to the new water park in a nearby town.  It was fun to be able to go on the slides and swim with the boys since they were all knew how to swim.

 See?! Lunch again in the back of my car! :) 

We've done a little "tap dancing". :)

 Norah gets a hold of my phone quite often, and I love to randomly find self portraits of her like this.

Fun with friends Kennedy and Trinity at the splash park.

Earlier this week the kids and I went blueberry picking. We did this last summer, and wanted to do it again this year. Joey was an awesome picker. Kylah did well at the beginning and then got a little tired and hot. Norah lasted about 10 minutes and then had had enough! 

 But we came home with about 10 pounds of blueberries, so I think it was a success!

I'm looking forward to more fun times with my kiddos this summer and marking more things off our list!