Brothers

Same shirt. Same age. Different Martin boys.

M's First Haircut

I guess it was time. Mackie's hair was looking pretty shaggy. Time for a visit to Daddy's barbershop.

Is that the same kiddo?!

We're Back

Thanks to my generous father-in-law, we have a camera and are back in business! Because, really, who are these blogposts for but the grandparents?

Lucas and Cory recently finished up their flag-football season. Cory coached the Broncos through a fantastic season! Their record (3-2) shows only part of the story.
As one parent put it to Cory, "You took them from a herd of cats to a football team." No small feat for a group of 7-8 year old boys (and one girl). Coach C and L after the last game. Cory had fun coaching these kids. If he had his druthers, he would coach football full time (not necessarily little league). A little bit o' Martin history for you...when we were first married, Cory's career path was to be a high school football coach. But, being the good man that he is, he sacrificed that dream for a career more fitting to supporting a family.
Of course, the next best thing to coaching football is to manage government relations for a major trade association...This is L's BFF, M. These two have been great friends since they met in Kindergarten.

Who is that grown up kid? Is that MINE? The end-of-season team party. These kids were on our baseball team last spring, and we rounded them up for football.

G and siblings of fellow team members (except for D at the far right, who is a team member). Cute kids my boys run around with, right? We've been lucky.


After receiving his participation medal from Coach, L poses.

If Only You Could See It...

But I'm loving the leaves right now. Spectacular. The forest behind our house alone is lovely. I asked Cory if he'd noticed a particular spot of trees that you drive by on the way into our neighborhood......
crickets chirped.

In Which I Explain Why I am not Posting

Our camera broke.
I could post without pictures, but...blah.

Plus, I don't love blogging. Have I mentioned that? Not a big fan. If I get in the groove, it's not so bad. When I'm out of the groove (like now)...

Uh, Wendi, if you're reading this, then the camera thing...yeah. I feel a little sheepish. So now not only do we need to buy a camera for ourselves, we need to replace your "loaner" (for a year +) that broke.

Yes, I am embarrassed.

Maryland Science Center

We spent a day at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore with our friends the Maney's (Wendi and her kids Jordan, Spencer, and Landon). Literally, a day. This place was so incredible we were there from around 10:45-4:30ish. Everything was hands-on and the kids had a wonderful time. Thank you to Wendi for taking pictures since I didn't have my camera.

First stop, DINOSAURS. The kids got to uncover fossils, create dinosaurs on the computer, crawl in dino footrpints, and more!

Paleontologists Gabey, Spencer, Jordan, and Lucas.

McKay loved to climb up on all the little info booths and "listen" to the information on the phones.

There was an awesome kids' room where we spent a good deal of time, and probably could've spent more. Here's McKay playing with a water playground thingy (does that paint a descriptive picture for you?), Lucas and Jordan building a run for a ball, and Gabey playing with a large pin mold. This room had everything to build, push, manipulate, engineer, dress-up, and basically have a ball.

A classic picture of Gabers. Look for this one on Cory's new profile pic on facebook.



We spent some time in the "Newton's Alley" exhibit, where there was all sorts of hands-on activities to learn about electricity, force, motion, and all that smarty pants Newton stuff. Below we all take our turn pulling our weight up using a pulley system.

In the "Wonder Warehouse" portion they used this fandangled thing to make circular air puffs. OK, so I'm not the science whiz, but it was cool and we had fun. There's G dancing in front of screens with recorded people. Why? There were sensors next to them, and the more you moved, the more they laughed. So, the "sillier" the kids got, the more the people laughed. Totally G's kind of thing. Jrdan and L are busy creating some crafts.

Here Gabey and I take our turns on the bed of nails. You laid down on the surface, then the employee pushed a button to raise the nails under you. Yikes! You see G's face in the middle picture? That's before the nails. The pic on the left is after the nails are poking through.

Jordan and L in the "Human Body" section trying to figure out how to piece together a human skeleton.

Putting L's vital organs in the right places (stomach, kidneys, liver...).

Landon and M near the end, just after M woke up from a 20-minute power nap.

Final stop, the space exhibit. I think I told the boys to pose like astronauts...I'm guessing G is demonstrating weightlessness?

So, yes, this was an amazing place to visit and we all had a lot of fun. Thanks for going with us, Maney's! Let's do it again next year!

And you're invited to join us, too.

More Mackie

Sorry, 3rd child. Your brothers got 1-year pics...
You did not.
But I got to you at 18 months!
Thanks to my friend Wendi for taking McKay's pictures for me. Here are some of my favorites: