This beautiful July baby’s middle name is Summer.

A little smile for her grandmother.

Welcome to the world, baby Kate! You are already much loved. Cousin Jonas has been looking over my shoulder at these photos and keeps asking to see baby Kate again.

This past weekend we ventured across Pennsylvania to spend Memorial Day weekend with my family. The main event was Beth’s shower on Saturday. It was almost exactly one year ago that Beth and Madison were married at our parents’ house. Why mess with a good thing? It’s a great time of year to be outside, so we hoped for the best, weather-wise, and held the shower there too.

Beth’s sister-in-law, Kari, had prepared some crafts for guests to work on. She’s so creative and crafty! She provided cards, markers and other supplies so that guests could create cards to go into a scrapbook for Beth.

The food was out of this world. Just about everything was prepared by Lilly’s in Doylestown. I’ve always been a big fan of their big sandwiches. Now I’m a fan of their other prepared foods, too.

I’m generally pretty take-it-or-leave-it with salmon. But not this salmon. It was just about the most tender thing I’ve ever eaten. I went back for seconds.

Fortunately the weather cooperated, so Beth opened her plethora of gifts in the courtyard, just adjacent to where she stood when she and Madison said their vows.

Beth’s nieces were very helpful carrying gifts over to Beth. Even the big ones. They’re tough girls!

That creative and industrious Kari brought a clothesline so we could admire all the cute baby clothes. And there was sure a lot of cute stuff! She is going to be a well-dressed little girl.

This next one cracks me up. For the majority of the shower, all of the boys vacated the premises. They returned as Beth opened her last few gifts. Jonas quietly made his way into the sandbox and entertained himself there. So, below, Beth opens a gift while the little urchin lays down in the sand.

That energetic, enterprising Kari provided another popular craft: she brought plain white onesies and art supplies to decorate them. Most were decorated right after we ate, before Beth opened her gifts, but a few people stayed around and decorated a few more after that.

Jonas wanted to participate, too. Fortunately for him, his cousins were there to help supervise. His final product is quite a masterpiece (and was dry two days later):

My sister and me!

Well, there you go. Brooks, if you agree too, how about a big smile?

I showed Brooks the above photo on the LCD screen on the back of my camera. He wanted to see the others I’d already taken, so I scrolled through, and we soon came to a photo I’d taken that morning of one of my boys. Brooks was not impressed, and wanted to me to shoot some more to make that other boy go away.

If you looked at the link above, you may recall that John, these boys’ dad, is a source of endless energy. That hasn’t changed. I think he could have done this all day.

Logan also enjoyed his quiet time with his mom, Deb. This lovely redhead is an old friend and former co-worker. We worked together back in the 20th century, in the B.C.P era. (Before Cell Phones)

Brooks wasn’t going to miss out on some hugs from his mom…

(Technical note: it was pretty sunny in the front yard, but we didn’t want to miss out on the colorful azaleas. I filled in some of the shadows of the overhead sun with some fill flash – a 580ex on camera, pointed directly at them, with the flash exposure compensation dialed down around -2.)

We did get your standard everyone-looking-at-the-camera family portrait. But I’m going to share this one instead, because it makes me laugh.

And last but not least, how often do the grownups get a photo to themselves without the little ones? Pretty much never. So here are John and Deb, looking just as gorgeous and happy as when I first met them so long ago.

But the highlight of the weekend was not just one, but two visits from our very good friends, the Winters family. We’ve been friends for years, and were neighbors, too, until the Winters relocated to State College over a year ago.

Their visit reminded me that in last fall’s rush, I neglected to share photos from a November session with them at Mellon Park.

Jack, the oldest.

Neva just turned two. Doesn’t she look so sweet and quiet and mellow? Well – she may be sweet – but forget about the rest! This little girl finds trouble like no one I’ve ever seen. During a visit when she was about 18 months, her mother had gone upstairs to change Neva’s little sister’s diaper, leaving her under my supervision. I went into another room to get something and when I returned I found her in the kitchen with a box of Bisquick. Feeding handfuls of said Bisquick to my dog.  On Friday night as they prepared to leave our house for their hotel, Neva managed to completely undress (except for one sock). And last night, while we were all in the basement with the trains, Neva disappeared. I went upstairs and found her on the dining room table, scurrying away from a plate of butter with an “I didn’t do it!” expression topped with a bit of “and you can’t catch me!”

And here’s Paige, who will be turn one in March.

We miss you, Winterseses!