Swimming over at Aunt Bet's house.  Partying hard for a picnic.  There was a time, even since I've been "in the family", that this party was solely about getting plastered on random beers and crazy antics.  Those were days when the booze was flowing, the "young" men would play  basketball until it was too dark to play...even with the outside lights, laughter and just all-around craziness was what it was about. 

Many of us now have small children...so their has been some "toning down", if you will, of the absolute insanity that was once the "Brooks' Family Annual Picnic".  Mind you, there was still a strong element of all of the aforementioned attributes, they were just toned down slightly so that those of us who have children could keep mindful and, dare I say, diligent, watch on our offspring.  As one might think, from looking at the attached pictures of my eldest doing his flying fish impersonation with the help of Uncle Patrick and his friends, we did keep good watch on the children.  I was there the whole time taking pictures and praying under my breath that he didn't get hurt, but he didn't and he had a blast the whole time.

Matthew, however, wasn't up for all that shenanigans.  He did arrive about 3 hours late due to his trip to Hazleton, PA, with Mommy and Nana Marianne, but he wasn't up for all that Cirque de Soleil business.  He was very content to keep hold of either Nana, Daddy, or Mommy.

Above: left to right: apparently went through all his pants at Daycare, at Ella's 1st birthday party in DE, Matthew hanging with Nana at July 4th picnic.

Below: top to bottom, then left to right: Matthew at Aunt Bet's pool, Christopher at Franklin Park in Philly for Maddy's 1st birthday, Christopher doing "tricks" on the swing, Christopher pushing Matthew in the stroller at Falls Park (this didn't last long...Matthew was thankful for that), Christopher jumping into Aunt Bet's pool, Christopher pushing Matthew on the swing (actually was very appropriate and did an awesome job pushing him).

 We've had complete craziness since our schools' summer recesses began.  Lots of crazy family parties, barbecues, friends' birthday parties, friends' childrens' birthday parties...the festivities have been countless and seemingly daily.  As it has become very difficult to keep up with the blog, I have been keeping up with the picture taking.  I usually have a camera at hip and I've been taking as many pictures as I possibly can over the last few weeks.  Here are some random shots of the kids at different summer activities.

Random photos of the boys at Falls Park in Levittown, Kid's Kingdom in Yardley, and Miss Tessa's house in the pool.

New Professional Photos of the Boys

As many of the people who are interested in pictures of my children live out of daily-physical-contact-range, especially my family and many of my close friends, I thought it would be cool to display our new pictures of the boys.  We had them taken at a place near our house by a new business and I would highly recommend them to anyone in the area who is looking for a good deal on professional photos with a photographer who works amazingly with children.  That is probably what impressed us most about the whole thing as we have Christopher (who is absolutely crazy-hyperactive and is currently presenting his "challenging" phase where he is just refusing to cooperate or making it difficult for us to facilitate his cooperation given circumstances) and Matthew, who had just woke from a nap to take these pictures (hence the difficulty in getting him to smile...he's typically a pretty smiley dude).  Regardless, we got them done, the photographer was amazing with the boys and we got a large set of pictures to choose from.  Here they are:

Mom and Marie, it is your job to pick 4 to 7 different poses that you like so that Colleen and I can select what you get from the ones you like and the ones we like. Please be very clear as there are a lot of pictures here to choose from.