Our sweet family!

We had breakfast with my mom, Jess, Jack and the kids on Saturday. We went to our favorite bagel shop, the one that Jess and I worked at in high school and college. Our kids are all very comfortable there as evidenced in this picture of them staking their claim on the ledge underneath all the coffees. They really were just running around like they owned the place. Luckily the actual owner really loves them and is always so sweet to them. And we stayed to "play" for so long that most of the breakfast rush had dissipated.
Laney and Tessa thought that they were being really secretive hiding on the floor over by the drink coolers. We could see their little feet poking out on what we are certain was a pristinely clean floor! This is a picture from last weekend when I got to babysit all the kids for a little while. It was really fun....until we got locked out of their house. We were playing hide and seek and ventured outside for some hiding spots. The door closed behind us and when we tried to go back in, no dice! I had just put dinner in the oven and was a little panicked about burning their house down while the five of us sweat to death outside. The kids were unphased. Grant was impersonating a climbing dinosaur in their crepe myrtle tree. Claire was dancing on the porch while Laney and Tess sat on the bench with me observing my panic. After about 30 minutes, Claire revealed that she had to go to the bathroom. So I traipsed all four kids, three of which were shoeless, over to their neighbors house. They are the same neighbors that we grew up across the street from as kids and they welcomed us in with ice water and popsicles. My only fear now was that any minute I was going to see my sister's house go up in flames. Todd arrived and then I was able to get a hold of Jack who clued me into a secret key location! Disaster averted!!!!
Back in the house that smelled overwhelmingly like burning shrimp poppers, we all snuggled up to read some books. Tessa and Laney both had the same idea about how to occupy their hands - yuck!

The sweetest part of this crazy story is that when Uncle Todd said that Jessica would probably never let me babysit again, Grant said, "OHHHH! I would really miss Laney!!!" I love that sweet boy!