Memorial Day Weekend 2009

We had a busy, but fun-filled long weekend. Matt's friend, Devin, came up from Louisville this year and got to spend some time with Cassie & Linc before the guys left for their annual camping trip.

Here's a pic of Cassie wondering who this hairy guy is that's holding her.

And here is Linc leading Devin on a walk around our neighborhood. Thanks to Devin for being a good sport and playing follow-the-leader with bossy Lincoln.

Friday, Linc got to show Cassie the ropes at the Detroit Zoo. This year, Linc's favorite things were the giraffes, the train ride, and the giant inflated dinosaur.

Here's a pic of Yia Yia and Papou taking a rest with the kids after the train ride.

Saturday, we had a great day at Uncle John & Aunt Suzette's house. Linc went for a swim in the pool. Uncle John took him in because I didn't bring my swimsuit. I'm not sure that Linc was really digging it. He was basically stiff as a board and had a frown on his face the entire time. It was pretty funny. Next we went for a boat ride. Linc got to drive the boat! He did a great job. He was very much into turning the steering wheel and checking out all of the gauges. The best part of the day for Linc was playing with all of the cool toys that Riley, Sam, and Zoe have.

Here he is acting like a total bad a-- on the motorcycle. Seriously, check out his face.

And here's Uncle John taking him for a ride on the bigger motor bike. Note that Linc's tongue is sticking out. This is a sign that he is in full concentration mode.

This is Linc the next day. He completely passed out on the couch mid-morning. I guess all of the activity at Uncle John's was too much for him!

Here we are enjoying some more slow-paced family time. Linc is such a big helper. He loves dragging the hose around to help water my flowers. He also likes to spray his lawnmower off to keep it nice and clean -- he doesn't want it all grassy like daddy's mower.

And finally, here is big brother showing some love to little sister...

mmm...toes

I just thought this was a funny pic. Cassie has found her toes. Yum yum.

a special day

We are feeling very blessed in the Gough house today...our baby girl was baptized. Here she is, Miss Happypants, all jumbled up in her gown. Take note that this is the very same gown that I was baptized in 33 years ago. Hopefully someday (in the distant future!) I'll have a granddaughter who will wear it as well.

This is the best family pic we got. Dad is looking at another camera, Linc is pissed off, Cassie is eating her dress, but, hey, I'm ready for the pic!

Here are Cassie and Uncle John yukking it up! Here's Cassie surrounded by her 3 girl cousins. She's getting pretty good at stopping to pose for the camera.
And here is the whole Mitchell/Gough clan busy playing outside while baby Cassie napped.

Top: Riley, Nicole, Zoe

Bottom: Lincoln, Sam, Allison

Here's our little "Doodles" totally pooped at the end of the day. ..
One final picture of me and my big brothers, John & Jeff (gosh, I hope I'm not going to lose my hair soon!). I love you guys. I hope that Linc & Cassie grow up with the same kind of love that we've had. Yes, love sometimes involves fighting, shouting, tears (mostly mine), and broken trophies, but if we didn't care about one another we wouldn't bother to fight, or shout, or cry, right?

mommy, mommy

What's better than hearing your son run into the house shouting "mommy, mommy" while carrying a rose in his hand on Mother's Day?

Being called "mommy", "mom", "mama" - I'll take any of 'em -- those words make my day. Here we are -- mommy and her babies on Mother's Day 2009...

We had a great Mother's Day this year. Yia Yia and Papou and Grandpa came over for brunch. Granny was not feeling well so Grandpa served as her stand-in in the below picture.

And here are the "Mitchell" ladies celebrating Mom's day with Linc and Cassie.

I think this is the first family pic we've taken since we were in the hospital when Cassie was born. It's not easy to get one with all of us smiling. Someday, perhaps, we'll get a good one.

We had a nice dinner with Grandma, too.
Finally, here's a pic of Cassie with her "Mommy's Girl" shirt. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

All Aboard!

We had a glorious day on Saturday. Grandma, Matt, Linc, and I went to Greenfield Village and got to ride on Thomas the Tank Engine.

Here comes Thomas! His eyes moved and everything. Very cute.

Check us out with Sir Topham Hatt. As with the Easter bunny, Linc wasn't all that thrilled to have a pic taken with some weird character, but he agreed to go up as long as daddy held him. The little girl who was in line in front of us was the exact opposite - she marched right up and told Topham Hat all about her boo boo's, what she did yesterday, yadda yadda. She was a bit older than Linc though.

They had all sorts of tents set up with cool activities. Here's Lincoln scooting Thomas around on a track. He also got to ride around in an old-fashioned car, play with bubbles, listen to Thomas stories, and try to hula hoop (I showed him how it was done!).

And of course we had to stop to get a Thomas tattoo.
This Thomas was built out of Legos. Choo choo!

After the train ride with dad and Grandma. And finally, back at home, here is Linc wearing the 3D glasses that he got, looking through a catalog of Thomas & Friends trains. Hmmm...which one do I like best?

4 months

Well, Cassie is now 4 months old. The time is going quickly and she's changing every day. She likes to chat it up like her big brother. Seriously, how did we get two chatty kids? And dare I say she may actually be sleeping through the night? It's been just about a full week of her not waking up for her middle-of-the-night feeding. Of course, the fact that I just put that in writing means that she'll wake me up at 2 a.m. tonight!

Anyway, here are a few pics from this week.

Here she is trying to be a girly girl in the cute dress that Aunt Becca & Uncle Tony got for her!

And here she is practicing pat-a-cake with Grandma.

This is Cass on her 4-month birthday. I think she resembles her big brother in this pic.

Finally, here's Cassie showing off her tummy time skillz.

Spring time and winter hats.

We've been trying to get outside as much as possible since spring time has officially arrived and we're tired of being cooped up in the house! Of course, spring time in Michigan means keeping out the winter hats and gloves...




They had a real helicopter come and drop tons of giant marshmallows at school this week. All of the kids scooped up as many as they could. In return, they got a bottle of bubbles as a reward. Fun times! We had to do bubbles right away, of course, so out we went in the chilly spring air and watched the bubbles fly in the wind all the way down the street.

Here's Cassie enjoying some fresh springtime air with Yia Yia and Papou.