Like last year, the "Rocks" congregated in Peoria, AZ for Labor Day Weekend. As our families get bigger, it's getting tricky keeping everyone under the same roof, especially with so many little ones! But Pawn did a great job organizing and providing sleeping arrangements for everyone. We found this year much less stressful than last year, as far as taking care of the kids goes. One year makes such a big difference in child development, especially with so many cousins close in age.
We LOVE the Shipley's finished backyard. It was such a relief to open the sliding door and send the hoard of children outside, where they would usually cluster together in the playground or on the trampoline. Self-sustained, unlimited entertainment for hours!
Then, of course, there was the pool. Aiyana was still pretty hesitant about venturing too far outside the kidde-pool (although sometimes she'd find "courage" when she was doubled-up on life-vests with her Puddle Jumper and a inflatable ring around her waist!). The other kids did awesome!
The adults had fun as well, enjoying the hot tub in the evenings, and relaxing during the day--well, as relaxing as following or holding your kids in the water tends to be. We also had various entertainment from our men-folk, namely mine who shamelessly provided us a sample of some rather awkward and embarrassing dancing, including some cringe-worthy pelvic moves, hip swaying and belly rolling of sorts. . . and then there was some fun with the water fountains and suggestive positioning of bodies. Yep, we love our oh-so-sexy husbands!
Aaron kept stealing every toy away from Ella! (Like, "yeah, see what six-weeks-older allows ME to do!)
Aw. . . cousins gotta touch!
There was also some football happening. (Zzzzz..)
WATER-FIGHT! I steered clear. Others were not so lucky.
Our supervisor
Fun with the bottle of sun-block (like my little caucasian baby can't do with a little color!)
Couldn't get enough of Ella. She's such a little beauty!
Celebrations!
Sunday afternoon while most of the kids were napping, we gave Emily a few gifts for her little one on the way! We tried to get creative since this is her third baby and daughter. So we all pitched in and got her three gift bags with the following assortments:
1) Pamper Mama: favorite snacks, gift money for pampering activities, dry shampoo, etc.
2) Insanity Bag: New activities and snacks for toddlers to keep them occupied while mom needs a break! Or uninterrupted nursing time! (felt board, dum-dums (whose true name is "Life Saver!"), stickers, Color Wonder, etc.)
3) Date-Kit: "To keep the flame of love burning, or at least flickering. . . " (Romantic mad-libs, cards for love-notes, date ideas, etc)
Happy Birthday, Pawn!
Pawn had the idea to create childhood memory books for each kid in our family, so we've spent the year going through and putting these together. They are so fun to read together and see how different and similar our memories about each other are, and those that we're most fond of. Good laughs, great sentiment.
Jen's turn! Happy Early Birthday!
We had some definite gut-busters from Pat, who is always good for some surprising humor.
1 comment:
We loved having everyone here! It was so funny that you and I assembled books and without arranging it, bought the exact same albums at Michael's! So many laughs and fun. Thanks for always documenting the time we have together. What would we do without you?
Post a Comment