Cousins Group Photo, sort of

Every August since moving to Minnesota the cousins have posed for an official photo. I think I'll leave the photography to Neil or Patrick because this is what happened when I tried. Sigh.

Grillin' with Grands

It's way too late in the evening to think of anything clever but I wanted to share the latest photo (taken by Uncle Neil) of the kids. Here are Pat and Donna with their four grandchildren. We had a great visit last weekend. Good food, good company.

Happy Easter from the Colemans!

The pork shoulder is about ready to fall off the bone, so I don't have time to write, but it was a full first Easter in the new house. Although we had opportunities to spend the day with the extended family, we had some things we needed to get done, like find some of the good hiding places for eggs in our new yard and the like.

We took plenty of photos but in brief:

• All dressed up for church -- similar to what we wore to Amelia's second birthday party the day before but different enough that it deserved another photo.
• Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Cate and I banished the kids to the basement for a little while while we put the eggs out in various levels of difficult hiding places.
• Cate crocheted Easter baskets for each of the kids. You can see them in the photos. Elizabeth just said, "I really like my basket, Mom!"
  
• After the kids all found their eggs, they hid eggs for me and Cate to find. One got lost in the shuffle and another accidentally went over the fence for our neighbors to have.
• Pork shoulder has been marinating since yesterday afternoon and has been roasting in the oven since 11 a.m. today. Ready to pull it momentarily, which is why I'm being brief.
• Visited Pa, and there's a photo of him with the kids in the photos link above.
• Lots of chocolate was consumed.
• Hello to all we missed today!
  

And then some other items from today:

After Colleen got dressed this morning, she looked at the mirror in the living room and said, "Ooh, I look good!" And she did. She was twirling -- the dress is definitely made for twirling.

If you get a chance to look really closely at the photos from Amelia's second birthday (also on Facebook) and compare them to the photos from today, you'll see that Robert is missing a tooth. Cate pulled it yesterday afternoon. It had already been knocked looser in a Monopoly accident on Friday afternoon (Robert hit his own face maniacally shaking his dice) and Cate finished it off.

The kids gave a name to each of the 24 or so plastic eggs we got for hiding. So sorry that Jose didn't get to fulfill his Easter destiny of being hidden and then found. The kids were playing with him in the basement and he never got out.

Elizabeth: "We ate awesome cake that Mom made yesterday. There!"

Some of the eggs in today's hunt didn't have rewards, but challenges. I think Elizabeth was a little confused when she opened an egg that said, "Hop on one foot for a minute." She was not allowed to continue egg hunting until the minute was up. Colleen found one that said, "Do five jumping jacks," and another that said "Go kiss Daddy." I was surprised when she came tearing around the house and grabbed me around the leg and kissed me. Elizabeth also found one that said, simply, "This is a plastic egg."

We got a chance to test out just a few of the great hiding places in our yard. Elizabeth's egg was hidden on the roof of the garage, for example. Robert's was hidden out of his reach in a tree. I buried one halfway in a planter box and another underneath the chin of a decorative rabbit in the front yard. Each of the kids had one with his or her name on it and a special treat, then they were competing for the rest of the eggs.

The forsythia are in full bloom at Nonna and Da's, as well as the pussy willows.

Speaking of hats... Aunt Jeannie made these for Christmas

We three kids

The kids went to pet farm animals at the garden store, you know, just another typical Sunday. But the real purpose of this post is to introduce the newest photo of the three kids. Now if only we could have gotten them all to both smile and look at the camera at the same time.

Not so much. But at least nobody was poking anyone's eye out.

We also had brunch at Dixie's on Grand, thanks to a gift certificate from Neil and Alicia for Christmas. Thanks!

Generation next

The cousin crew got together last night, for the most part, with my cousin Rachel in town with her four boys. (Soon to be five!)

The Lahr cousins were absent, but almost all of the second cousins were there. We only lacked Amelia, who apparently has a more important social calendar. Grand times were had, not necessarily including this group portrait. This is one of the images that didn't include Connor doing the rabbit ears on one of his cousins, Daniel crying, and has Grace actually in the photo. (Alexander facing the camera never quite happened.)

Elizabeth is the oldest of this group, and always will be, of course, as she is a month older than Grant. Grant at 10-1/2 is five feet tall (a few inches short of his mom!) and Elizabeth is about 4-9. Robert and Parker are about a year apart.

Mary Catherine Coleman's great-grandchildren, from left to right, if I remember correctly: Connor Reed, Daniel Reed, Parker Linder, Colleen Coleman, Elizabeth Coleman, Michael Reed, Alexander John, Robert Coleman, Augustine Linder, Grant Linder, Matthias Linder, Grace John.

As I commented to Rachel, now I have to put some effort into remembering which Reed kid is which. Before, seeing them every couple of years, they would change so much in between visits that it wasn't worth trying to retain. The Reeds are 9, 7, and 5. Rachel and the boys are heading up to Duluth for the Hon family reunion and eventually have a 25-hour drive back to New Hampshire next week.

Mom said something to Elizabeth and a couple of the others about winning the prize for attentiveness. Predictably, Elizabeth asked what the prize was, and I told her that when she and others look at these photos in 2047 she can gloat about how attentive she was. Colleen and Grant were good photo subjects as well. And I can bet that Amelia's absence will cause some head-scratching years from now. (Was she born yet? Wasn't that after we moved to Minnesota? Did we still have the blue car? Robert, we never had a BLUE car!)

Equal time to the other cousins

Neil has just an incredible picture on his blog of our three kids and his daughter, Amelia. I suggested that we make this an annual event and he has added an alert to that effect.

I, for one, love alerts -- I have one on my phone for 2031, only because my phone calendar doesn't go any further out. If I still have Sprint service then, or TerraTelCo or whatever global megaglomerate handles whatever passes for "telephone service" then, I should get reminded.

But in going through my laptop this afternoon I stumbled on the other side of the family, a picture taken at the Brennan family reunion back in June that Cate never got a chance to blog about. Here it seems to be Colleen sporting the sad face among all of her second cousins, the children of Cate's cousins Nicole and Chip. Doesn't look like Joey's kids are here, or at least, not his oldest.

My apologies for not being Brennan-savvy enough to recognize who's who or remember everyone's name. Abby is sitting on the bottom step with a baby in her lap and Sydney is sitting next to Elizabeth and Colleen.