Family Reunion 2011: Part 2

There was A LOT of playing with cousins at Grandma's house...they had a lot of fun with her toys!!

Cousin Trevor showing Annie some love:

Daddy teaching Annie how to hold and throw a ball, hilarious!

The gathering room for meal time:

Elizabeth LOVING the corn on the cob:

And Mark mostly loving the spaghetti:

Because it was on a farm in there were a lot of things for the kids to get into:

And fun toys to ride around on too:

I love this picture...can you say summer time?!!

And bubble time with the cousins?!

Mark's brother has 1 yr old twins as well and here they are giving little Mark a taste of his own medicine!!

The morning before we all left:( No makeup and squirmy tired twins!

Had to get in one last 4 wheel drive around the house, I can't even count how many kids were on there!!

On the way home we stopped at Snoqualmie Falls to let the kids run free!

We had a great time with family and at the reunion and we were sad to come home. Let's just hope we can see everyone soon!!!

2 months!!!

Our little Annie is 2 months old today!!! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this little girl!!! She has settled herself into quite the routine already. I literally mean that she settled herself, I didn't really mold her into anything, yup she's an awesome baby! She goes to bed around the same time as the twins between 7-8 pm and then sleeps around 12 hours. She will wake up once, sometimes twice to eat but goes straight back to sleep....it is heaven! She either takes 3 big naps or 3 naps with a small 4th nap every day. The only thing is, well, the thing is, she's, um....a little incapable of falling asleep on her own. Well a lot incapable actually! She loves to be walked around all snuggled in the cradle hold, or in the swing or sometimes nursing (but usually only in the middle of the night or early morning). I promise I've tried. On Saturday I tried for the morning nap and succeeded. It only took about 10 or so minutes and she really only fussed not cried...I'm going to commit to it soon, I think. It's so cute seeing her little cheeks all smooshed up on my arm and I think she has the most beautiful profile....oh boy this being in love thing is going to get me in trouble, haha!!

She has started to smile at me when I go in to get her after she wakes up, I love how immediate it is too, as soon as I walk in the room. It is impossible to be anywhere but present with this girl, she demands it by being so stinkin' smiley and cute. She talks all the time now too. The past week she's blown raspberries and just today I put her on her side and she rolled over and then rolled herself back onto her side!! She always tries to get on her stomach, I think she's going to be like the twins and be a stomach sleeper. She LOVES to look at her mobile and she kicks like CRAZY!!!!

The twins have finally, finally, finally stopped freaking out EVERY single time I nurse or even look at Annie!!! It just happened this week and it's been so nice. I would usually hold my breathe just waiting for the screaming, whining, groping, fighting or whatever shenanigans to begin and they haven't. Not every time but about half the time. They love it when I let them close to her (which is sadly not that often yet since it usually ends up in tears for Annie, have you ever tried to hold a baby and fight off two toddlers all at the same time? It' s not an easy job!) and Elizabeth is always trying to share everything with her. Mark giggles when he gets to be close to her and is ALWAYS giving her kisses, sometimes even right on her eye but usually on her head where he gets a mouthful of hair too!

We are so thankful for this little angel, we love you Annie!!!

Family Reunion 2011: Part 1

August 4th-7th was Mark's family reunion!!! We have them every 3 years and they are always SO MUCH FUN!!!!! This year they held it at his Uncle's house in Pasco, and by house I mean huge, huge, beautiful house with lots of land and beautiful views and just a short 4 wheel drive to the Columbia River! We were excited to see and visit with family and that turned out to be about the only thing that we could do with these little ones! Between naps, bed time, meals, and what not we had little time to participate in all the fun activities. Our kids are not the most flexible, they are like clocks (especially Mark)...they eat and sleep on time and don't like to go very far past the designated time! We basically pushed them to the point of meltdown almost every night, sorry kiddos but we were all having fun as you'll see in the following pictures.

Grandpa B had to meet Annie along with a bunch of her cousins:

The food was yummy, yummy, yummy!!! They cooked the meat in here:

And it was some of the best meat I've ever had! This picture cracks me up....my mother in law being super woman and doing the 'mans' job of cutting the meat while Chris eats it, haha!!

Then they went and picked corn fresh from the field:

And after dinner and activities there was a fireworks show put on by an old family friend, Mark said they were quite impressive ( I was at home with sleeping babies), especially hearing them echo in the canyon, so cool!!

And now for some of the activities. They had a HUGE waterslide, a watermelon slinger (they shot the watermelons with guns), 4 wheel drives, trampolines, toys, games, bubbles, pool, horse rides and this beauty right here:

What is that in the distance you ask?

Oh just a zip line that went across the canyon!!!!

Check out the beautiful orchards and views!

It was perfectly safe and as my niece is showing you perfectly fun too!

Oh and how could I forget the ping pong?! Go Kevin!

There was also this fun activity. I guess they were supposed to put 'shorts' on the calves:

Then walk them to the other side and whoever did it first won!

Oh and of course they had to ride the calves too:

There was definitely not a lack of things to do, no boredom at this reunion!!