Who Is Having More FUN?!!

These pictures are from about a month ago. I made a plan early in the week to go hang out with Charlie and Laurel and spend the night with them (we never end up even thinking about leaving their house until like 2 a.m. and they usually end up talking us into just staying and going home in the morning, so this time we planned on staying anyway and packed appropriately, yes, "packed," I have a 3 month old, we have to pack to go anywhere) that Friday night, Sept 18th. Laur let me know a few days later that Uncle Paul (Ben's Uncle, Brad's brother) was in town and the family was getting together on Friday so we changed our plan a little bit and went to the get together at Marty's house and then back to Charlie and Laurel's house. This part of the family is not actually Ben's Mom and Dad and siblings, his Aunt and Uncle relocated here and when Ben came to visit as a teenager, he fell in love with the state and moved when he got old enough. He always thought of his Auntie Suzie as his second Mom and she treats him like he is one of her kids, we go to most family functions with them and I usually hear about it if I fail to show up and bring the kids along. We both love that he has some family close to us, we always have a lot of fun with them and Deacon loves to have so many kids to play with. I actually packed badly for this little excursion. Ben and I had talked about packing bathing suits so that he could go swimming with Deacon and what was the one thing I forgot to pack: bathing suits! I'm killin' myself, Smalls, you got nothin to do with it!

So, Ben ended up borrowing some shorts from Marty and Deacon wore his pajama shorts without a diaper and they went swimming anyway. Marlee, remember the adorable Marlee? She wanted to go swimming with Uncle Benny too but Laur must have packed as bad as I did, no bathing suit for Mar either! So, she got to swim in her shorts too.

This was so much fun to watch, I really had no idea I took so many pictures until I looked at the camera later, I just kept snapping cuz it was so great. I love the expressions on Ben's face, he was totally into it and having just as much fun as the kids were, if not more.

Laur and I were both a little nervous about Ben being responsible for two little kids who have not mastered swimming yet and wanted him to catch them when they jumped atthesametime!!! But, he was awesome, he was plucking kids out of the water and setting them back on the step like they were dolls, eh, whatever, no big deal! Are you kidding me? Deacon and Marlee together have got to be 60 pounds worth of kids!

Sometimes they gave him enough time to get the other kid back to the step before they took the next leap.....

And, sometimes, it was a race to see who could get there first!!!

They kept jumping, And he kept catching them.

It got a little hairy a few times....

But mostly, it was just a whole lot of jumping and splashing.

He was holding Deacon here, and Mar decided she was ready, good thing you are paying attention, Benny!

Here she goes again! Benny loves that little girl like she's his, they have had a special bond since she was tiny, every time she sees him her little face just lights up. They are so cute together, Ben and Charlie have joked that they will share each others kids since Bens got the boys and Charlie's got the girls.

You would think by now Ben would be worn out! It had been about 45 minutes by this time.

But, no, he is talking the kids into jumping some more.

If you ever wonder what it was that attracted me to Ben, it's right there! Those eyes are such an amazing blue, I have still never met anyone with eyes like his, not even his family, they are just a tiny bit lighter than the rest of his family. They have had me smitten since the beginning and he knows that he has some power with them. Sucks for me!

This is when it got really funny. Watching him with all those kids piled on him was hilarious! I'm not sure who climbed on first, but he couldn't shake them once they were latched on to him.

He was having all 3 of them wrap their arms around him and he was jumping up and down and swinging them in circles.

How come kids always want to be up as high as they can possibly get? Better viewpoint?

Woops, Deacon started to lose his pants when Ben was dunking him and it took a while for Ben to notice.

Isn't that the cutest little bum!

Best shot I could get of all their faces. They all had a blast, wore them out too. By the time we got Deacon to bed that night he was so tired he could barely see straight.