Vacation: Michigan Reunion!

We left the Beagley's on Friday morning and made it to Logan that night for a Greencrest/Michigan Reunion! It was so much fun to get together with our "Michigan family", the Seedall's were kind enough to host all of us and everyone was there, except for Tim Johnson, who we all missed.

Nora was SO excited to see Madelyn again. She had a present for her and we left it home on accident, which was traumatic for all of us.... these two had a great time together.

Ann and Marianne

Ainsley and Eleanor

Ruth and Maddie

The Seedall's had a great playground in the backyard the kids had fun on.

The kids watched a movie on the wall with a projector. We hoped some of them would fall asleep but I don't think that happened (shocking!)

Love, love, love these amazing ladies!

Clayton and Marianne can always be counted on to get the games going!

Ruth made some awesome cinnamon rolls for breakfast

It wouldn't have been complete without some Little Tikes basketball! Although it appears here they are using the real hoop.... ?

Hula-hoopers

It also wouldn't be complete without Marianne doing the girls' nails!

We had such a fun time with everyone, it is still hard to not live by all these great families! I miss them a lot and being able to have someone to chat with, craft with, babysit swap with, go thrift shopping with, eat dinner with, etc... It was a fabulous reunion!

Thanksgiving!!

 

We were lucky to have our good friends, the Johnson's, come to stay with us for Thanksgiving! The kids were SO excited and I was reminded why we usually don't tell them when people are coming.... they were all anxiously watching out the front window and constantly asking when they going to get there for over an hour!

 

The kids all had a great time sleeping together in the family room. We kept Wesley upstairs, but even baby Bennett slept in the family room in his playpen so he could sleep by his brothers. Cute! 

Timmy telling some great stories to the kids.

 

Miles and Grant sleeping by each other. Awwww. Grant was so sweet, the first night they got here I heard Grant say, "I love you Miles!" Sweet boy.

 

Wesley was pretty nice to Bennett. I think this was the turning point when they bonded over cheese puffs and redvines....

 

Angela and Bennett loved Scooter and Scooter loved having their attention. 

 

Lots of lego playing! 

 

We took advantage of having "Timmy- the- tool-man- Johnson" here and he and Brian filled in the annoying extra door to our bathroom! He claimed that he loved doing it and I'm so thankful because it looks SO much better and I don't know when we would have gotten around to doing it. And if we had done it by ourselves there's no way it would look as good as it does now. Thanks Timmy! Please come back again when we are ready to re-do the dining room floor. :)

On Thanksgiving Day we had some more friends over: the Ross family and the Condie family. There were 13 kids and I was extremely happy that it was warm enough for them all to eat on the deck out back! We had lots and lots of yummy food and a great time. I didn't get enough pictures though!

The girl and boy tables!

Apparently it was even warm enough that Wesley didn't even need pants on! Actually he woke up from his nap right in the middle of dinner starting and I didn't take the one minute it would have taken to put his pants on. When he went outside to play later my friend Tessa was teasing me because I put his jacket on but still no pants. It was pretty warm out there :)

Wesley was tormenting poor Hallie (the cute blonde baby girl). I caught him yanking on both of her little pigtails.... so sad! I put him in his crib for a while and when I went up to get him he had climbed out and was happily playing with his train table.

 A shot of the grown-up table...

Timmy and Sophie made an apple pie again this year. Yummy! 

Angela and I went to Wal-Mart that night at 8 and had a great time. We got almost everything we wanted and were home by 9:15. That beats getting up at 5am! Although I do feel bad for the workers who had to be there on Thanksgiving... and I went to Wal-Mart today and saw one of the things there for the same price it was on Black Friday. Lame! Oh, well. We had a great time. We loved having the Johnson's come and stay with us. They are so much fun. What a great Thanksgiving! 

Neighborhood fun & a sad good-bye!

You all know how much we love our neighborhood! In warm weather it's like a party every night.

Between the five families there are 12 kids running around playing/fighting together pretty much like siblings. It has truly been a blessing to have such wonderful friends close by. They are our family out here! Here are some pictures taken in the last few weeks of some of the things that go on in our backyard:

lots of fort building by the older kids and playing "family"

These two are pretty much the only two that get along all the time! Lauren and Zach.

Look at that smile - what a cutie!

This is Miles' beloved Eleanor. She is the only child who is safe when Miles is around! He has a hard time saying her name. It's gone from "Nowa" to "wittle Nowa" to Elnowa".
She is a seriously cute little girl.

The Overson's watching one of the many little tikes basketball games

The dad's get pretty creative playing PIG and make each other do all kinds of tricks when shooting the basketball. This was a pretty awesome jump by Tim - with Ryan looking on in amazement! :)

Nora got hurt or something so I was trying to cheer her up by taking a picture with her... and it's the only one of me (which I really don't mind!) so I had to prove I was there.

Sweet baby Benny - the newest neighborhood addition!

I think that cup is empty - although she is known to eat sand.

Brian playing Spencer in basketball

Eleanor and her cute & hilarious mama Marianne

Eliza and Miles - these two are just hilarious to watch and listen to. They point their fingers at each other and say "No!" just in case the other one was considering doing anything to them. And then sometimes they can play together and have a great time!

Miles and Zach living the good life eating push pops in a wagon... what else is there?

Ice cream seems to be a staple!

Ruth and Marianne watching an intense game of PIG

E.Jay and Brian hoping whoever is shooting will miss!

The 3 amigos - Lauren, Zach and Eliza

Some of the kids eating dinner

And Wow! This is ALL of us together in one picture! We had to say good-bye to the Overson's last week. They were done with school and moved back to Utah. I hate saying good-bye. We miss them already but are excited for them to be done with school.