Primary Talk

Olivia gave her very first talk in Primary this week. Her topic was "Temple Blessings Unite Families". So, last night on the way home from Walla Walla (we went to Jackson's birthday party there), we talked about her talk and what she should say. We asked her questions about the topic to see what she already knew and then added to it a little. We like to have our kids write it mostly, so they know all the words and are more ready to write the talks themselves in a few years. Here's what she said in the talk.
"I love my family. I want to be with them forever. Heavenly Father made a plan so we can be together. By going to the Temple, we can be together forever. I want to go to the Temple when I'm a grown up. (I made her repeat the last line to make sure everyone could understand her.) Then, she closed. I just read the lines into her ear and held up the Temple picture she chose. Before the meeting I took her to the church library to pick out a Temple picture. The librarian got down Boise and Columbia River Temples. She chose Columbia River. She did really good. I was worried that she wouldn't be loud enough, but she was. She still has her little baby voice though, so I don't know if everyone understood her, but I think most everyone did.
Last night we drove over to Walla Walla for my little sister's son's birthday party. He turned two. They had a little dinner and the kids ran around. It was fun. Then we went to K-Mart. I love K-Mart. I miss ours. Anyway, I found a shirt for $2.50 to match a skirt I have. I was looking for clothes for Elizabeth, but they didn't have modest clothes on sale for her size, so she didn't get any. She has a dresser full anyway and I did find a few things other places earlier this summer that I have saved for her.
Friday night I got my grocery cash for the week and went to Target to use the last of my birthday gift card there. I bought a few new pairs of shoes (flipflops for $2.50 and shiny red bow shoes for $6.24.) and then went across the street to WalMart to pick up a giant bag of tater tots for our easy weekend snack nights. Then on to WinCo for the groceries I needed for the week. I did really well sticking to the list and didn't go over the budget money. I'm working on that still. It's easier with cash to not overspend at the grocery store. I get to the end and if I'm a few bucks over, I take out something we don't necessarily need that week and only spend the budget. It is hard though. Easier to not overspend at WinCo since they don't take credit cards and I don't have a debit card or checks. We are doing fine, just trying to budget better.
Tuesday Andy took the girls to "Daddy/Daughter Baseball" night for work. Vincent took a late nap too, so I had an hour before he woke up to relax a little. Andy's boss took some pictures that Andy will add later. I guess they have a baseball buddy thing, so Elizabeth was the pitcher's buddy and got to run out onto the field with him. Olivia was too shy to do that, but after Elizabeth did it, I guess she wanted to the next time. They stayed until the bottom of the sixth inning, so they did better than the last time.
Oh, I forgot to write the funny things the kids said at the fair on Wednesday for that post, so here are a few.
When we went to the animal barns, Elizabeth said, "Look! A REAL cow!"
Both girls were assigning family titles to the black cows. One a mommy, daddy, baby, sister, etc.
After the girls went on their carnival ride, we ran into one of Elizabeth's classmates on the carousel who was trying to talk to Elizabeth each time she came around. Elizabeth told her that she already went on her ride and wasn't going on anymore and her friend (who was wearing a bracelet that allowed her on every ride for the day) said, "What?! One ride? That's it?" Elizabeth just said yes and it didn't really bug her. I told her if she went on another ride, I wouldn't have enough cash left for the cotton candy she wanted, so she was okay.
I like that my girls can enjoy themselves without having to spend money sometimes. They have great imaginations and like to play with toys all day setting up a whole story together. I'm glad they're friends (most of the time anyway.)

County Fair

I haven't been to the fair in years, but was given a free kid ticket and Olivia and Vincent are both free, so I just had to pay for me to get in (I really should have entered crafty things into the fair to get a free ticket for me. Next year!) Sorry, I thought I was done with summer events, but I guess not. Please, bear with another picture explosion.
Sara asked if we wanted to go, so we went with her and Sami. We parked at my brother's house a block from the fair (so we didn't have to pay for parking-Thanks, Christen!) and got to the fair about 10:15 this morning. We looked at Sara's entries first to see how she did (we already knew she did awesome, but she wanted to check out her ribbons.)

Elizabeth, Vincent (eying Sami's Oreos), Sami (eying Vincent and making sure he didn't take them), and Olivia. The group shot didn't work too well. :)We found this table with fabric squares for kids to color on. The quilt group uses the squares in quilts for sick kids. Both big girls colored them. Olivia copied Elizabeth's horse picture.Vincent and Sami had regular paper to color on. Vincent did pretty well, until he started throwing the crayons. I had a good break to do everyone's sunscreen in this cool building.
We went to the barn with birds and bunnies and a little girl brought her bunny over for Vincent. After I pet it, he would. He liked it.The girls both went through the fire house. Elizabeth came out the window. Olivia went back out the front door. She wouldn't even try the window.We collected quite an amount of free stuff. (I LOVE free stuff!)Vincent fell asleep and rested for a while. Not that comfortable, huh?Elizabeth and Olivia checking out the ducks.Elizabeth and Olivia back on the bridge.I ran into Andy's aunt in the ticket line, so she joined us and Sara took Sami home for naps. Brent and Elizabeth liked looking at the horse. (Elizabeth LOVES horses.)Olivia and Brent looking at the dirty cow. (It had poo all over it. I cropped it out of the picture.)Back to the building with drawing. Olivia drew a rainbow that just wouldn't end at the bottom. She wanted to turn the fabric over, but I told her that after she was done with the rainbow, she could draw a pot of gold there.Chris and Brent drew pictures too.Olivia as the Panda.Vincent didn't like the free hat much.Elizabeth and Olivia are in the third car. They did pretty well. We walked around and looked at all the rides before choosing the one ride they got to go on. This is the one they picked. (Yes, I'm cheap. It was $6 for one ride, after all!)A little closer, but not much better picture of the girls.
I walked with the kids over to the bigger rides after we were done. We slowly walked around to see what each of the rides did. And then ate that yummy cotton candy!Vincent really liked the cotton candy! Probably because he missed out on the fries the rest of us ate for lunch. I did give him pretzels and raisins though.Olivia as Spongebob and Elizabeth as Dora.Olivia in the ear of corn.Elizabeth asked the Army guys if they could sit in the Hummer. Elizabeth asked one of the Army guys if he knows Jeff (my brother who is in the Army). I told her that he probably doesn't know him, since he's in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth and the guy said that he had sent some people there, but he didn't know him. In the back of a different Army truck on the way out. We had a really fun time.
We are going to go on the rides at a different theme park with Andy next month, so don't feel too bad for them. They didn't even beg me to buy each of them a $25 bracelet that would have allowed them to go on all the rides because I told them on the way over that they would only have one ride. Of course, that's doesn't mean they didn't want to go on any other rides...next month!

More partying fun

Olivia is the "Dancing Queen", I think. She has had a rhythm to her step since she learned to walk at 11 months. She loves it. It was even more fun during the "freeze dance" game we played.
Olivia wanted to invite boys this year, so a few of them came to the party. They were fun. Five girls and two boys. They are all in her class at church. (I'm trying not to picture them too much even though I have cute pictures of them all too, because I don't want someone to be mad at me for posting their kid's picture and you are all here to see me and my kids, right?) In this picture the kids were playing "duck, duck, goose". They had to squish in tight to have enough room in the family room, but I think they liked it and no one got hurt either.
I printed out some pictures of musical things for the kids to color while I prepped the cake stuff. After coloring, they danced while I finished up the rainbow sherbet ice cream.
Opening presents. She loved them all, of course. She was very nice about it and took her time on each one. I controlled this situation pretty well and didn't hand her a new gift to open until she had examined the gift and I'd written down what it was (and I was stretching the out party a little too :)
Olivia was cute looking all around the table at her friends singing to her. I got all of their plates ready while they were doing other things and they all had their's while they sang. That worked out very well. It was hard enough to respond seven times to all the water requests. I was getting it, they just each had to tell me they wanted it (or thought they needed to tell me and you know how kids need to hear that you heard them? Yeah, that's what it was.)
One of her friends gave her a new set of dress up things. The earrings, gloves, purse, and Barbie shoes. She is still wearing them hours later. The mom was actually there with her daughter at the beginning of the party and I got out a few dress up shoes for some of the girls and they complained that they were all broken and mismatched, so I took them back and said no shoes then (less stepped on hurt toes too!). She had been busy all weekend, so she went and bought the present during the party. Nice. Really nice.
The picture below made me laugh SO hard this afternoon when I was tired after the party with seven four year olds. Luckily, this kid slept through the whole thing.
When he woke up, he was ready to go! Anyone know a place that has good boy dress up shoes?Andy says: "We'll dig this picture out someday when Vincent becomes a cowboy or a miner or a Marine."
Too bad it's a tiny bit blurry. I heard him coming into the living room for the second time (those heels make some noise in the kitchen and I could tell it wasn't Olivia.) The first time, I made Elizabeth run and get the camera for me, so I was all ready for this shot. Such a silly boy. He really loves shoes. He put them on the right feet and walked pretty well in them. I think he trips more in his regular shoes. But he hates hats. I don't know about this boy.
I talked to a friend this morning about Elizabeth playing at their house during the party, so when a guest's mom called to see if she could come a little early, I asked if she could take Elizabeth over to the other house across town where they both live to play. It was so nice. She even brought her back when she came to pick up her daughter. I didn't even leave the house today, but I was sure tired! I didn't even eat lunch until 4:30! Then, I called Andy to figure out something easy to make for dinner. Hamburger Helper it was. I'm tired.

Dancing, dancing, dan-cing!

Vincent started dancing to the music on Guitar Hero when Lenny Kravitz was playing. Like father, like son. Here he is rocking out. (Right before I turned on the camera, he was doing a great head bob too.)

Yeah, he's dancing on the table. He couldn't see past the people playing the guitars standing in front of the TV, so he made Uncle Brad lift him onto the table and catch him when he felt like jumping. Thanks, Brad. What a great uncle.
I think I could sit and watch this video over and over all day. He's too cute! (And I want to figure out what my mom is saying in the background too.)

Olivia's FOUR!

Tonight we did a big family party for Olivia's birthday. We had both mine and Andy's families come all at once to make for a busy, fun event.
Olivia smiling pretty for the camera. She was so excited that I fixed her hair like this Saturday night. All I did was pigtail braids and folded them under. She told me it was "the best hairdo EVER!"Olivia making a silly face.This morning though at church the Primary President came over to Olivia to ask her if it was her birthday and if they could sing to her in Primary. Olivia told her that the cake was in our laundry room though, so they wouldn't have candles to blow out. I was able to be in there (because I was subbing for the fifth week in a row in different classes) when they sang to her and she was standing up there so cute next to two other kids celebrating their birthdays. After church, we did our normal snack, rest time, dinner stuff and then our party began.
Before everyone got to our house, Andy got out Guitar Hero to get it ready to play during the party. Olivia wanted to sing, but was really too quiet. She almost got kicked off until I saved her. Then, when someone came to the door, she wanted to quit.
Andy practicing before his sisters came to play with him.
On the invitation, I wrote to come in your "coolest outfit", so I had to come up with something. I used my Ursula (from The Little Mermaid) blue eye shadow to rock out (or something.-I hadn't thought of my outfit.) I did the side ponytail too. Yeah, not really rocker, just fun dress-up.
I found these blow up guitars online and bought 24 of them for the parties. (We have another one tomorrow afternoon with some of Olivia's friends.) The kids really liked playing with them while the grown ups played Guitar Hero. Here's Sami on Grandma Shirley's lap playing her pink "air" guitar.
It was Olivia's Uncle Brad's birthday the day before, so I made him a little football cake out of the piece I cut off the other cake for the guitar.
Olivia blowing out the candles. It only took her four tries.
She had a little help opening presents....
She got the fishing pole she asked Andy's parents for. It's Hannah Montana. She requested a sparkly one, so this one really fit the bill. It even comes with a promise of a fishing trip with Grandpa George.
Olivia wanted to wear her dress up dress for the party, so I let her. It was her party afterall. She really wanted a dress up party, which is why I told everyone to dress in their coolest outfit. We are having some little boys come tomorrow and I didn't want them to think they needed to dress up in our dress up clothes and figured they wouldn't like playing princess, so we are having another rocker party tomorrow.
After everyone left, she played with some of the toys for a while and then went to bed. She had a fun day and is excited to play with her friends tomorrow.
Sorry there's so few pictures. I'll try to have even more next time.

Updates

Vincent is starting to say and do more things.
He has been yelling "Annnn-dy" for a long time. I have no idea where he got that.....
Or maybe it's "Daaaa-ddy". He says Mommy too. He yells it even louder.
He is turning into a little boy. He was such a great baby. I think it's safe to say that stage is OVER. Andy has started to tell me that "that kid needs constant supervision." Uh-huh. Yep. No kidding. He likes cords, wires, and climbing now. Enough said.On Wednesday Vincent did something pretty funny. He was sitting on Nathan's lap and pointed to the bag of cookies I made and then pointed his finger into his mouth while grunting (his favorite form of communication). I was in the middle of my turn, so I said, "I know you want a cookie. Wait a minute." Then he pointed at the cookies, and said, "Cooookies." I gave him a part of one. It was cute. It was like he forgot what to call them, so he grunted and when I said it, he remembered. I loved it.
We had to start shutting all the bedroom/bathroom doors in the house now because he'll wander in and make a big mess of anything. We have kept the bathroom door shut most of the time before, but now we really HAVE to. He especially likes to pull all of Andy's magazines and books off of his shelf and sit on them. He hasn't torn any pages yet, but I was having to clean them all up several times a day. He also likes to open his drawers in his dresser more now. He likes to pull out all the swim diapers and flip flops that won't fit him until next year from the drawer and spread them around the house. He sneaks through every open door: laundry room, front door, side door, and back door around our legs or just can hear it open and decides that now is a great time to see what's behind the door I guess. Then I have to coax him out with asking him to give me five. He likes to do that, so that's how I distract him. Now, I'm thinking maybe that's given him the idea that I enjoy him going places he shouldn't, doing things he shouldn't, etc. Hmm. New distraction technique anyone?It's Olivia's fourth birthday tomorrow. I made her cake today. Check it out. I think it's pretty awesome and so does she. She told me that she wanted a rainbow guitar cake to go with her rocker party (she really wanted a dress up princess party, but she wanted to invite boys, so I made it a dress up in your "coolest" outfit party instead and used her rocker picture with the blow up guitar and said, "Olivia wants to ROCK with you!" on the invite.Look for more fun festive pictures tomorrow. She's really a fun little girl. A friend came over tonight and asked what she'd get for her birthday and Olivia just smiled and said, "I don't know. I don't know what my friends will give me." At least she's not rattling off some list of all the things she wants. She's really happy with anything (I'd say or nothing, but that's not true. Everyone wants something.) We looked around at the store on Friday night and she saw many things she says she wants to buy with her $10 from my grandparents. We'll have to see how far $10 goes. She found something she liked though and we just say, "We'll see" and she went on to something else. While she showed Elizabeth a toy nearby, I went and made sure Andy saw a toy that I think she'd really like for him to go and pick up today. He did. She's going to be so excited. I love that she doesn't need expensive toys either. $18 bucks. Pretty good deal for us. She's still playing with a lot of the toys that she got for her birthday last year (and Christmas and Elizabeth's birthday....)
The girls like Andy's old Legos at lot lately too. They only get to play them while Vincent sleeps though, and have to pick them all up as soon as he wakes up, but today, they didn't do that, so they had to pick them all up and we put them way up, so they can't play with them for a while. Wow. I'm rambling enough now. I love blogs.

Fun Thursday!

Today, Andy's sister, Sara, asked if we wanted to join her at the sprinkler park at lunchtime so the kids could play and she'd have someone to visit with while Sami played. I packed up some sandwiches, leftover chips, carrots, cucumbers, water, and cookies for our lunch and went on over.
The girls ran right in and then helped persuade Sami to play. Vincent even gave it a try! A little while later Andy's Aunt Tricia came with her two littlest boys, Christopher and Brent, who are the same age as our girls are, to join us.
As always, here are some pictures of the kids playing.

Christopher, Elizabeth, and Olivia. I'm pretty sure the sun was right behind me and that's why Elizabeth's eyes are closed. That, or she just likes to mess up pictures. Oh, well.
Another try at the picture of Chris, Elizabeth, and Olivia.
Elizabeth and Olivia came over to check on Vincent and see if they could persuade him to run though. They couldn't. As soon as I took the picture, the water sprayed up close to his face and he backed off.See? Running away from the water!To hide behind cousin Sami. She's just as leery of it as he is.This is about the most we saw of Christopher's brother, Brent. He learned how to ride his tiny bike a few weeks ago, and boy does he ride fast!After all that fun, we drove home (Olivia and Vincent fell asleep in the car) and the girls watched "The Little Mermaid" (where Ariel is naughty and disobeys her father-that's what we told Elizabeth when it was her favorite movie a few years ago.) Then, Elizabeth went out and picked the tomatoes for a snack and we rested. It's nice to have some restful days the end of summer. We will soon be busy enough with school, ballet, and all the holidays that come with the end of the year. So, we are enjoying the lazy days of summer.
Yesterday, we were talking about what Elizabeth wants me to pack in her lunch for school. Any things you liked when you were a kid or that you pack for your kids now? I have ideas, but am always looking for more. Cheap and easy ideas are the best, you know. :)

Strange happenings

Alright, so I forgot to mention in a previous post a few fluke things that NEVER happen here that happened this week. Do I have your attention?

1. Monday, I was sitting on the couch in the living room reading next to the big front window (after cleaning the mirrors throughout the house) and a bird flew into the window. I didn't even clean it. I guess I didn't need to. I thought that only happened in Windex commercials! It really surprised me and then I was just relieved that the stupid bird didn't break the window since we aren't planning on having to pay to replace our crummy windows just yet (especially the biggest one in the house). It was with a group of four or five other birds too just flying around the trees. Very strange.

2. Elizabeth threw up only once and no one else here got sick. (I'm SO not complaining about this one!)

3. As I started reading stories to the girls tonight, I looked over at Olivia and she was slumped over fast asleep. So fast asleep, she was drooling. It wasn't even late. We didn't even go anywhere all day. I guess she was tired though. She didn't wake up when I put her into her bed either. Weird.

4. I made lasagna and no one complained and everyone (including Vincent-I decided that I HAD to start trying to make him eat real food) ate all of theirs and the girls (and Andy) all gave me two thumbs up. Elizabeth normally complains about "sauce", so for her to like (or even try) this is so great!

5. For lunch on Wednesday, I made the four of us toasty cheese sandwiches, cucumbers, and celery and everyone ate what I gave them. Even Vincent. We were healthy! (At least until I made cookies....)

So, these things might not seem very strange, but for sure the first one is, right? What out of the ordinary things happen at your house?

sickie update

Elizabeth seems to be better. She jumped out of bed and into new clothes, then ran in to wake me up to make her some breakfast. Vincent woke up right after I sent her out to the family room and she bounded back over to this side of the house to keep him entertained. Yeah, she's back to being herself with TONS of energy and asked for cheesy tortillas.
Olivia slept longer than Elizabeth, which never happens,but makes sense because Elizabeth rested the whole day yesterday. I was worried that she would be sick too, but she was up and dressed soon after that.
We hung around home all day and skipped babysitting Sami (since we didn't want to get her or her eight month pregnant mommy sick) and watched movies, played with Polly Pockets, ponies, read stories, I read in one of my books, I took a nap, Vincent took a nap, made dinner, and now I'm skipping the finance class our ward does once a month because I didn't want to hire a babysitter just in case the kids were sick and get her sick too, so Andy just left for that and I'm taking care of the kids. Last night I went to a three hour PTA training, so I had my time out too, I guess. I'll just put them to bed in an hour or so and still have time alone.
Here's Vincent's new favorite thing to do. He loves to put on the girls' shoes. Mine too. Really, any shoes he can find. He even manages to get them on the right feet most of the time.

Well, it's one of his favorite things. The other favorite things are pulling cords and eating bouncy balls. He also is liking the horse that came out of the My Little Pony bag today that the girls got out. Andy said he didn't know about little boys playing with horses. I assured him that at least Vincent picked out the boyish horse instead of a pony. He also likes to watch Popeye. That's what he's staring at mesmerized.

sickies.

Not for the faint tummies out there. A little sick here. Elizabeth was acting so strangely at dinner last night with Andy's parents. She complained of her wrist hurting and didn't want to eat much. She said her tummy didn't hurt, but then rested on the couch for an hour or so after dinner (and laid her hot little head on Sara's lap, who's 8 months pregnant-hope you don't get sick!) until she fell asleep so we let her rest a little longer before we left. We gave her some fever reducer when we got home and put her right to bed. She fell right asleep.
Monday morning she woke up at a normal time and laid on the couch watching PBS with Olivia and Vincent. She didn't want to eat (big sign here that something is wrong-she's always "starving"). I gave her more medicine. Then she asked for a sandwich for lunch and before I got around to making it, said she didn't want it anymore, wandered into the kitchen and threw up all over the floor. (Luckily, it was the kitchen and she didn't eat anything all day. Unluckily, I had just barely-like within 30 minutes-mopped the floor.) Poor little girl. I sent her to her room with a piece of gum to help her feel better and told her to nap. She came out five minutes later and said she woke up (Right.) She went into the family room (I was eating my lunch I was making when she threw up-not the same after that though). Then, Olivia came into the living room where I was and showed me the gum Elizabeth had just given her. GROSS! I told her she'd get sick if she ate that and to spit it out right now! Elizabeth and Olivia both ate the tortilla with cheese I made for Olivia. I didn't know Elizabeth was eating it either. Hopefully that stays down. Until then, she'd better keep the throw up bowl with her. Gross! I hate it when kids are sick. Guess I'm not making cookies today. They suddenly don't sound good. Now, I have to hope that Olivia and Vincent don't get sick too (or me!) and hope it goes away soon. Luckily, school doesn't start until September 1st, but Olivia's birthday is next Sunday. Gotta get through this. There's not much on the schedule the first part of the week, so we'll just be hanging out and spying on the neighbor's house (they are selling their house and we are kind of counting how many people come to look at it-they already have several offers and it's only been on the market for 4 days!)
Update: No more throwing up, but right after I wrote this, Olivia said that tomorrow she would have two pink eyes so I would take her to the doctor. I sure hope she is wrong.

Ransom Sibling Reunion

This week Andy's sister, Cindy, who lives in Utah, came to visit with her family (husband and six kids), so since the rest of Andy's sisters all live in Tri-Cities too, we had a little reunion with Andy's immediate family. Jared and Cindy and family drove over on Tuesday, so we went to visit with them at George and Shirley's that night after dinner. All the cousins love to play and play very well together. It's extra nice that Cindy has some older kids who take the younger ones under their wings (so to speak) and keep them entertained.
Wednesday, after visiting teaching, we hung around our house until after Vincent's nap and then went over to George and Shirley's for dinner. Andy met us there after he was done with work and we had a yummy barbecue dinner. I made some really good pineapple upside-down cake in the microwave. We took a few pictures and just chatted and caught up and made plans for the next day. I thought that it was just Cindy's family going up to the mountain with George and Shirley, but when I was asking Shirley which day they were going up, she got the idea that we wanted to go too. (I just wanted to know when they wouldn't be around, so if there was something else going on, I could arrange for that.) So, Andy's other sisters planned on going, so we decided to go too.
Andy and his four sisters. Suzie, Cindy, Torrie, and Sara. (I know Cindy's eyes are closed. If anyone has a better shot, I'll take one.)The In-laws, in order of seniority. Jared, Doug, me (NaDell), David, and BradThursday, Andy took the day off work and we all went up to the mountain. We had picnic lunch in the house they built and the kids played in the camping trailer coloring and doing games with Blake (Cindy's oldest). All the ladies chatted, but I was tired from staying up too late the night before and overwhelmed with all the stuff I do, so I rested in the car for a little while, which started some pregnancy talk. NOT PREGNANT! Just tired. I felt better after about a half hour on the way back home, but I was so grumpy and tired and weepy. Just the occasional woman hormone stuff, I guess. At least I only freak out like that one in two hundred days (or so) though.... I figured that all the other in-laws need their space way more often than me and are anti-social more often, so once in eight years isn't bad, right?
When we drove up the driveway to the property in the mountains, we saw Cindy's four oldest kids riding the four-wheeler with Grandpa George. They were having a great time!All twelve grandkids at the mountain. Back-Sami, Brooke, Elizabeth, Jane, Kate, Vincent, Blake. Front-Olivia, Dylan, Max, Jack, and Archer.Elizabeth and Olivia playing chess.Anyway, Andy's parents decided to take everyone out for pizza that night, so we came home and rested for an hour and a half before going over to meet everyone. By this point, I was feeling better, so I was pleasant. After dinner, we wanted to visit with Cindy's family more, so we went over to George and Shirley's to hang out while they went to visit Grandma Ellen. Andy taught the girls how to play chess. I say taught, but really he just showed them. They won't remember, but they did have fun. Olivia won. We stayed too late again visiting and letting the kids play, and Vincent fell down the stairs too. It was a result of sleepy boy, silky sports outfit, and stairs. Not a good combo. He was halfway down and then leaned back and rolled down. He just got a little bit of blood on his top gums in his mouth. We got home about 10pm, put the kids to bed, and then I went to the store to get a few groceries and to try on some new pants and things I needed (since my old jeans have holes in them and wouldn't work for the nice family picture...and I got to buy a size smaller than my smallest pair too, so the new pants fit well too). While I was there, I found a cheap red shirt for Elizabeth (the color scheme was black, red, and white for the family picture on Friday night) and a new Sunday shirt for Andy, hats for Vincent, tights for ballet, etc, etc. I got home after 11:30pm which I thought was pretty good for having to try on clothes (SO much nicer to do that without kids in the changing room, by the way.) I had already gone to Kohl's on Monday after I found out what the color scheme was to pick out a shirt for Andy, Vincent, and I. I just don't wear a lot of black and red anymore. My whole closet is full of brown, blue, and pink now, so it was nice to go and find a nice clearance, inexpensive shirt at Kohl's. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Kohl's?
Friday, we went visiting teaching in the morning again and then delivered some invitations to Olivia's birthday party in a week and a half. Then we came home to eat lunch and rest until a birthday party for two of Elizabeth's friends (twin boys). Instead, Shirley called to tell us that they were at a park down the road from us eating their lunch and that we could come play with them. We went down there and after ten minutes, I took Elizabeth to the party, then drove back to play, and after twenty minutes or so, everyone was done, so Olivia, Vincent, and I went back to the party to watch the fun. We got there just before the boys opened their presents from Elizabeth and had cake and ice cream with them. At the park with the zipline. Torrie tried it out with Olivia.Olivia swinging in her jumper. She always asks to wear a jumper. Every day. She loves those things. Good thing we have a supply.Then we went back home at 3:30pm to make Vincent take a nap and I took a nap while the girls played with Legos and Polly Pockets in the family room. I woke up about 6pm and got everything ready to go to George and Shirley's for the picture at 7pm. We took a giant picture with everyone, which we hadn't done since Elizabeth was almost two, and then individual family pictures, a grandkid picture, and a children with spouses picture. The pictures are professional ones though, so I don't have those, but I do want to see them. I can't hardly wait! After pictures, we had brownie and ice cream sundaes and the kids played and Andy set up his Guitar Hero downstairs for everyone to play. I think everyone really enjoyed that. We have two guitars and a microphone, so three people can play at a time. Everyone else was watching and singing along. Fun stuff.
Brad and Torrie teaming up on Guitar Hero.Grandpa George singing on Guitar Hero. Brooke was watching at this point, soaking it all in so she could beat her two older siblings at the duel later.Torrie and Kate jammin'.Suzie and Brooke trying it out.Torrie on vocals, Blake and his mom, Cindy playing the guitar and bass.There I am. Tearin' it up on Pat Benetar's "Heartbreaker". That's easily my favorite song on Guitar Hero (and I'm pretty good at it too.)Jack was so tired that he let Grandma Shirley hold him. Once Vincent saw that, he had to have Grandma hold him too.Vincent dancing with Torrie.
This is how the rest of the kids kept busy. Playing with the new toys Grandpa had the Utah cousins pick out to add to the toy collection. That, and running up and down the stairs. (I think this pirate ship is one they picked out on a visit a while ago though.)We didn't leave there until almost 11pm, since Cindy leave back for home Saturday morning and we probably won't see them again until the end of the year, so it's nice to hang out with them and make sure the cousins all get to know each other. It was nice that Vincent had a late nap, so he'd be able to stay up late and not be too grumpy and he even learned how to say Max and Jack and "I love you".
We love our families and it's even better that they seem to like us too!