Stick a fork in me...

Yep, we have introduced the babies to forks. They are tickled to be trying to feed themselves with silverware. As you can see, they occasionally loose food in their laps (William seems to be looking for a lost bite).

They are such a joy, but also a challenge. I am glad I had one set of twins...that is enough. When Jeff and I married, I wanted to have six kids. Since I was 29 and did not want to have babies when I was in the "old folks home", I suggested at one point, maybe I could just have three sets of twins about with three years between each set. Then babies birthing would be done in 7 years, and the oldest would be in first grade when the youngest ones were born. Well, thankful that plan did not work out.

These guys are also starting on the edge of talking, which is very needful as Kristina is starting to think she only raises children who are late talkers. Although I am cautious about that because Maggie was a late talker, and she is doing pretty great so far.

2010 Family Picture with Santa Clause

OK, if you have ever tried this with young children, you will already know that Maggie (3 yr) and Rosi (1 yr) were crying. I jumped in right after they got everyone else positioned. William was not thrilled with it either.

To make matters even funnier, after we were all done and there was a huge line (we got cuts because we had kids under 2 yrs old), Maggie wanted to go back to get a candy cane from Santa. Oh the joy!

Missionary moment

Here is a picture of Clarissa with Elder Major and Elder Marino. Elder Marino is going home today back to Hawaii. We had them over for dinner last night. One of the questions we had was where did you want to serve your mission (asked to the kids).

JJ - Washington D. C. (because there are lots of people there)

Andrew - Anartica (Andrew, no people there),______, Brazil

AnnaLisa -

Clarissa - In the south, Alabama, Georgia

Kristina - Ukraine

Noodle forest

AnnaLisa enjoyed this room. It is in the Phoenix Children's museum. It is foam noodles hanging from the ceiling and you can walk through them.

It is hard to believe my big girl is getting so...well...big. She often helps out and is getting to be very responsible. She wants to do what is right, but still struggles a bit. She reminds me a lot of the internal side of me when I was a kid. I look at her and can just see the gears turning, the weighing of her emotions to make decisions. She is very capable, and a fun girl to be with. She often makes me smile and she is quick to learn. I actually have to be careful because if I don't teach her something when she asks me, she will just figure it out herself.

Casual picture

Jeff and William were hanging out and having a fun time. Jeff all of the sudden asked me to take a picture. It seems that times like this are the ones you want to remember, when you are just relaxing and hanging out and having a great time with one of your kids. Pictures will never do this justice.

"Box"ing day?...more like boxing weekend!

This weekend we drug out the washing machine and dryer boxes. The kids put them together into a club house and they started decorating it. JJ was concerned with blacking out the writing. AnnaLisa put yoga mats on top for "roofing tile". They got out a few foam mats and tried to make beds inside. Even Rosie and William seem to get involved, although beyond manager and inspector, I can't really say what their contributions were.

The kids played in it all weekend, including two over nighters in it (why anyone would voluntarily sleep on the floor is beyond me).

Amazingly enough, the boxes are still standing. Mommy did a little re-enforcing before the kids played in them and they have stood the test of 7 kids (we had a cousin over for the weekend). Mommy is even debating about sticking them in the garage for the month and pulling them back out for Christmas vacation. I wouldn't mind another week or two of the quietly playing together like this past weekend.

Double birthday for double the fun

AnnaLisa and JJ shared a birthday cake for the family birthday party. It was real tempting for both of them to blow out each other's candles!

We had lots of fun, family, and friends. JJ and AnnaLisa both got bean bags for their birthdays.

JJ Thanksgiving Feast

Here is JJ's class on their Thanksgiving Feast day. JJ is one of the "Indians" in front.

JJ and his mommy

JJ made this Oreo turkey with frosting, M & M's, and frosting. It was cute!

A soft answer...

“A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” - Proverbs 15:1

When I was younger I read this and thought, “I will try this next time someone is angry at me, and it will “turn their anger away”. Well, I tried it, and it did not work. In addition to it not working, it made me angry because they were not doing what they were suppose to, and on this point, the bible must be wrong.

As I have grown and matured over the years, I have revisted this thought and scripture. I have 6 small children at home, and sometimes we find ourselves in situations of wrath or contention. I tried this again, and still no luck. Recently I had an experience that has finally clarified this for me. As I reflected on this scripture, it hit me that it is not talking about the other person. This whole scripture applies only to reader. So next time I found myself with someone who was “in their wrath”(we have lots of opportunities to work on this) towards me, I tried to apply this new understanding. Instead of answering softly and expecting them to calm down, I answered softly and felt myself remain calm. A realization came over me that using a soft answer helps me to stay in control and helps me not to raise anger (or add to the anger) of others.

I have (at least) one child who struggles with his anger. He will get upset about something and within moments will blow up into uncontrolled rage. He has thrown objects at others with the intent to hurt them, as well as being extremely reckless with his body. This has caused a lot of harm to members of the family. When you see one child hurting other of your children, it is very hard to remain calm and loving (soft). I have found that when I am calm, I don't escalate my child and I can have inspiration come to me about things that I can do to distract or relieve his anger.

Today in my scripture study, I read another Proverb 29:22, “An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.” As I read this, I realized that in the past, I had allowed myself to become angry and then I stirred up strife with my child, who choose to escalate his behavior (in our house we call that “pushing each others buttons”). I realize now that not only is the Proverb true, but that the scriptures in whole need to be applied to me personally.

No picture for this one - please!

Mom: What do you think made you throw up?

A: I threw up when Clarissa climbed the ladder to get in bed.

m: You think Clarissa made you throw up when she climbed in to bed?

A: No, you can't make other people throw up.

m: Oh, (but don't you think that'd be cool?) So what do you think could have caused you to throw up?

A: Maybe it was the 6 butterscotch bars and the brownie.

M: Yeah, maybe that was it.

Tonight I felt the need to re-invent myself. So I came up with a new motto - Mother of 7 by day and puke-cleaner-upper by night. Guess what I was doing when this fabulous new motto hit my brain? AHH - the glamorous life of a mom.

To clarify, I was not the only adult cleaning up after this fun adventure. Jeff and Clarissa both chipped in a did a bit. Nothing like an imprompt to cleaning party at 11:30 at night!

My kids play piano

Isn't this about as cute as you can get? My younger kids get such wonderful exposure to the piano via AnnaLisa and Andrew's piano practice. All four of the younger ones are planning on taking lessons as you can see. It is not uncommon to have them climbing up to play a little. JJ will make up his own songs and even sing to them sometimes. MaggieMae is not to be left out, she also sings and plays her own songs.

I love it!

Teaching kids the value of money and the widow's mite.

It is a difficult thing to balance how much kids need to know about their parent's financial situations. We have had many talks with our kids over the last 4 years as we have prepared financially to buy our house. There have been many times they've asked to go out to eat or to buy toys and we told them no because it is not in our budget. We reminded them we were saving for a house and that we had food or toys at home that were sufficient.

Now that we are in escrow and the kids are struggling to understand why buying a house takes so long. I am not sure what set off this idea in JJ's mind, but he walked up to me and handed me his 35 cents and told me that I could put that towards buying the house. All I could think to say was thank you. What I should have said was "JJ that is so sweet, momma knows that this is all the money you have access to." This is just another example of JJ's kind generosity that he is becoming known for.

The twins know beans...and they eat them too!

These two are crazy about black beans. This was just a fun shot I got. It is a great picture of Rosie, William is trying to hard to pose. Whenever that boy sees a camera, he cheeses up. But if I miss that is OK because he will pose again!

Proof that women need to be in charge

This looks exactly as how I saw it when I walked in one evening. Daddy is sitting in the living room feeding William out of the pan. Now don't worry, that pan is cool, I know because I cooked pasta in it 3 hours before.

I love this smile. There is nothing more that could express how happy he is with himself!

Now in Jeff (and my) defense there are many nights where we are exhausted long before the kids go to bed. So I don't blame him too much for this, but he was the adult in the room.

JJ the "Good sandwich making guy"

If you have ever watched "Word Girl" (yes a super hero that uses words to fight the bad guys), then you would have heard about one of the villians that is called the "Evil sandwich making guy". Our JJ loves to make sandwiches and he will make a sandwich out of anything. He is well known for his 'Taco Sandwiches' which are refried beans on bread or his 'Potato Chowder' sandwich. Well JJ is definitely a super hero in our family and he makes great sandwiches too!

A moral dilema

Well, I have had a hard time feeling whole hearted about our new house, because of the reality that we still need to rent this house. I have been concerned about what will happen if we are not able to find renters soon. Then tonight I was praying about it with Jeff when an insight hit me so hard. I realized that regardless of what happens with this house, it simply does not work for us anymore. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about it, but I will run through them real quick.

• First of all, I feel that we made a commitment to pay this mortgage off for this home.
• I also recognize that this house has become a hindrance to our family. This is something that we have worked years to change, but due to the market, our attempts have been frustrated and unsuccessful.
• We changed our strategy and started about a year ago, saving for a down payment on a second home. We had figured that it would take until next spring to have the requisite money for down payment, and money saved up in case we could not find a renter right away, etc.
• We felt (Actually Jeff felt) it was time to start looking for a new home in mid August (yes, right after school starts). I felt good about following Jeff's lead on this. We were frustrated with a lot of the homes we found. I finally told Jeff and our Realtor that we were wasting Jeff's time, and that the Realtor and I should just look at possibilities and narrow it down for us to come look at the good homes.
• When the Realtor and I looked at this home, I felt as we walked up the stairs that this was the house. Jeff felt good about it too when we came back. In the mean time there was another house that I really liked as well and we had to sift through the different possibilities. I also had conflicting feelings about the house - sounds crazy but it is a bit more "up-scale" in many areas that are almost uncomfortable for me.

So amid all these feelings, tonight we are praying and it hits me - it is time to get into the (new) house, and that is what I need to support. I need to stop holding myself back from supporting what I have felt inspired about and have had peace about when I have prayed and observed how I felt. I don't know for sure what will happen with this house (I do know that we can't pay both mortgages for too long), but it hit me that is not what I should be focusing on. I need to focus on what I have been inspired on and leave the rest be.

I recognize that material things are not all that important to the Lord or His kingdom, however, I have been trying to make sure that 'the mortgage gets paid on this house' is part of His answer to me. It hit me tonight that some of the lemons from our lemon tree decay. Meaning that God gives us many things to be useful and helpful to us, but it would be silly to try and eat every lemon on our tree simply so that none would decay. And that is the way of our current house. It has been good for us, but it truly is becoming a hindrance to our family. If for some reason we are not able to get a renter and make the payments needed, then it will be taken by the bank and they will have their collateral that we agreed upon.

I am a greedy person by nature. It is something I work at. One thing I do when I am feeling especially cheap, is remind myself that if my dollars were apples, I would not mind sharing them with others who needed them. So I then should have no problem sharing dollars as well. I sort of took a reverse thought on this idea tonight. If apples (dollars or our first home) should decay, then that is the nature of material things. They are only important to us in relation to helping us progress in this life.

I am reminded of a story from the New Testament when a man approaches the Lord. If I recall it correctly, he tells the Lord that he and his brother are not in agreement over how the inheritance from their father should be divided. The Lord tells him, that these things are not important. I need to focus on the important part of all this. And yes, I still hope that we can meet our commitment on this house, but I realize that is one of the smaller things.

I am not normally what I would call a fancy person...

Here are two shots of our walk-in closet. When we started looking a new home, I wanted balance with the bedroom sizes. I really did not want a bedroom any bigger than we had, but wanted the kids bedrooms to be larger. Well, in this house we ended up getting both. Our bedroom will be twice the size of our current bedroom, and our walk in closet will be about 4 times the size of our current closet, or half the size of our current bedroom! Still not sure what we will do with all that room!
These are our baseboards. They need some work, but I would have never gotten some thing this fancy on my own.
And this is another thing I love...our back patio. I've never seen one done like this before, but I think it is great! a little small, but great!

the stripe room

This will be JJ's room. He calls it the strip room. He will share with Rosie and is excited to be moving soon. I think it will be a good thing and can't wait until we get to move.

Isaiah, JJ and AnnaLisa

Oops, actually he calls it the stripe room, my mistake, however, I would imagine either name would work...as long as the door is closed!

A room full of monsters...

Here are a couple of shots of Andrew's soon to be new room. It has some real fun pictures on the walls. One of the things I like about these pictures is whoever painted them definitely had a great deal of confidence. These were meant to be where they were and I think they look great.

This picture was not on the MLS pictures which makes me laugh because to me I think it is one of the best painted rooms in this house. In the pictures you can see Maggie, JJ and Isaiah (cousin) checking out the walls and getting a feel for the house.

We are down to three weeks, 2 days! I started packing boxes yesterday. Got some winter clothes, games and books already packed (I think our box count is up to around 10). I am finding boxes at grocery stores, and it seems to be working well. Now I am realizing how emotionally draining it is to pack and am really wanting to go back to bed!

A thrilled girl, a baffled mommy

OK, it may not look it from the expression on her face, but AnnaLisa is thrilled with the bedroom we have picked out for her and her sister. In our first house I knew we had to buy it when AnnaLisa walked into the room she now has and claimed it as her own when she was 19 months old. She saw that red carpet, and it was a keeper!

The room is mostly painted (we think the previous owner had a business that went bankrupt and had the house as collateral. They were in the midst of doing upgrades when they lost their home). We have a few rooms that need finishing and this is one of them. As you can see looking over AnnaLisa's shoulder, the square is missing the frame around the colored stripes. What do you think would make a good color for this? Come on you crafty people, I need some help! Also trying to figure out what to do with the paint line that meets in the middle, should I do a chair molding? (not sure what it is really called).

Q.What is as much fun as giving a cat a bath? A. trying to get two young boys into a bath.

I told the boys they needed to take a bath after dinner tonight. JJ's face shown with pure genius as he suggested Andrew and I guess at a number to decide who would take a bath first (mind you, I was not scheduled to take a bath this evening, but I figured he was playing the game that Jeff did with the boys last week to determine who got to take the first bath).

So I ask JJ: What is the number between?

JJ: between 1 and negative

Jeff (daddy): JJ, you can't do it that way...

Mom cuts in: No, honey I got this. Is it zero?

JJ shocked voice: Yes.

Then the back pedaling starts with JJ saying: Well, the person who guesses the number loses, and they don't go first. And I think we need to guess numbers again.

Mom: OK, one last time JJ.

JJ: This time the number is between 1 and 3.

Mom, giggling: OK, so if I guess the number then that means you will go get into the bath right?

At this point Mom, Dad, and a few siblings are just laughing hysterically. JJ is starting to realize that he must be missing something because he doesn't think this is funny at all. He starts to get upset.

Then dad jumps in: JJ, we think it is awesome that you are so clever that you could come up with such great guessing numbers games. Thankfully JJ accepted that and we were able to eventually get him into the tub without hurting his feelings.

Oh, and just so you know...the number for the second guess was 2.

Sometimes a girl gets in trouble all by herself...

Every now and again, I feel like their is something wrong. I had this feeling the other day, and I started visually counting my kids. I wanted to make sure they were all safe. It was right about the time that I realized I could not see Rosie that I heard her crying. At first it baffled me where she was. I was standing next to the kitchen table and I could hear her close by, but not see her. Then I checked under the table and found her "stuck" on the pedestal. She had climbed up and could not figure how to get down from it. When I lifted up the table cloth and found her she was crying.
It just goes to show that my sister-in-law is rubbing off on my when my immediate reaction was, "I got to get a picture of this for the blog". My camera was sitting on the island, it's usual resting place these days, when I grabbed it and squatted down to take the picture. As soon as Rosie say the camera, she perked up and gave me a big Rosie smile. That's my girl, well at least one of the four!

Big boy can climb onto the couch

Can you tell how excited William is in this picture? He climbed up onto the couch all by himself. He did not even cheat and use pillows on the floor (he had been doing that for about a week). He is just squealing in delight as I took this.

Our offer has been accepted...now for the next set of hoops to jump through.

This is the front of the house. Not very exciting looking, but the inside and backyard are great. Our kids required a few things:

MaggieMae - stairs and 2 garages (meaning a two garage doors)

Andrew - stairs

Twins - stairs

Clarissa - a room of my own?

Mom and Dad - more room and hopefully a back yard, room for food storage, we hoped for a roomy three car garage but are taking a tight three car garage. Master bedroom is huge (it did not really matter to us that it was bigger). The kitchen had to be big enough for multiple people to be in it. I had hoped for granite or corian counter tops, but I guess we will stick with what we got.

We all hoped for a pool but alas, we will have to wait on that. We are thinking that with the babies, we could save up for a few years, and get exactly what we would want for a pool when they are a bit older. The backyard does have a dug in trampoline as well as enough room for pool, play area, and garden.

We managed to stay in Gilbert school district although we ended up in Mesa. Oops! Great schools and lower taxes...I hate it when that happens. :)

Still have lots to do. Our closing date is October 6th. So you might see a bit of stress on my face for the next few weeks...but is that really unusual? Anyone have boxes they are getting rid of?

What do you mean, 'there is double-trouble on the deck'

Yet more proof that these two will climb anywhere. They have figured out that climbing up on this aircraft carrier they can see out the window. This comes in handy when AnnaLisa, Andrew, and JJ leave for school and catch the bus in our front yard or when we are having a rain storm.

These two are definitely our children. You can tell by their willingness to pose for pictures. They love having their pictures taken as well as seeing their pictures after they are taken.

Get around, get around, I get around...

William and Rosie are learning to climb. I was fixing dinner one night when I was called in to get the babies. I saw where they were and just laughed. They were both actually just sitting there smiling away, so proud of themselves. I have found William on top of the top bunk a couple of times now. Rosie is just started to venture this far.

In our boys room they have bunk beds too, but theirs has a ladder that is perpendicular to the floor. William tried to climb that one tonight, and did not get very far.

Another kid?

This is our newest addition to our family. Clarissa came to us by way of being my niece's friend. Clarissa was getting ready to go into college, but felt she needed a better environment to live in. She left the old one behind without having had the convenience of finding a new place first. She came to us with a few boxes of her worldly possessions. She is enjoying the opportunity to be smothered with children. Her aspiration is to be trained in a vocation for Early childhood. That is a very large arena, but right now she is focusing on the basics of college.

We enjoyed the first two weeks with her so much that we offered to let her rent a room for the next six months and possibly longer. We hope that she will continue to feel a part of the family and we hope to always have her as a part of our lives.

I got my first exposure to college as a parent of the student this month. I thought it would be at least a decade down the road, but this last month we have wrestled financial aid, looking for an apartment, looking for a job, helping her to locate important vital records as she had to leave those behind in her haste to leave. Did I mention having to figure out a schedule? Now, as a parent, I of course encourage her to take the lead in all of these whilst I stand behind her (often with the twins in tow) and remind her of questions to be asked. I really want her to gain her confidence in herself, but honestly I don't want her/us to have to wait in that looooong line again!

It makes me realize that I assumed that the seasons in life would come chronologically to me as a parent. However, it seems that is not always the case! Now I am trying to balance having an adult child/college student with 6 small kids. It is challenging but good.

Sasa is my nick name for Clarissa. It is taken from the end of her name and mixed with sis(t)er. The kids think it is great having a big sister. I was a little concerned about AnnaLisa, being the oldest, would feel kicked out of place. I asked AnnaLisa about it and she said she loved the idea of having Clarissa being our sister.

For me logistically it has been challenging. We moved AnnaLisa to join Maggie in the full bed on the bottom of the bunk beds and Clarissa is on the top bed. This is the easiest change. There is no real room for Clarissa in closets or dressers, so most of her stuff is in a corner in our family room. This is a spot where the kids, the boys especially, would hide and play. Another challenge is adding three eaters to my meal planning. No, Clarissa does not eat that much, but the twins are finally eating table food and the timing happened to be right when Clarissa joined us, so we went from six to nine eaters almost over night. That is a 50% increase! I am not use to having no leftovers and I am finding out that most of my lunches whether for me at home, or the kids packed lunches, were based off of leftovers. So now I am trying to make enough for all of us at dinner and suddenly I have to make lunches now too!

With all this said, we are tickled to have Clarissa in our home. She really enjoys being part of our loving family and when my niece asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she told her, "it is too late, I already have what I wanted...a family to be a part of".

Welcome to the Park Clan. We love ya!

This post is when Clarissa was playing "Candy land" with AnnaLisa. This is AnnaLisa's imaginary interactive game which only relies on the board game for inspiration. That is why Clarissa was wearing the crown. Rosie loves watching Clarissa send texts, especially when she sees the envelope icon. Clarissa loves to text, so Rosie gets that opportunity now and again.

MaggieMae's birthday cake

This was after I finished the cake. I am still learning the art of a four layer cake. The great thing is that you can peak at the inside.

This was after a half hour drive to my sister's house. Thankfully everyone was still willing to eat it.

This was me making the cake. Lots of fun, not nearly as hard as it looks.

And this is the half eaten cake. It was enjoyed by all and everyone really loved the colors. This picture does not do justice to it at all. This cake actually looks very vibrant and almost like a tie-dye shirt.

MaggieMae is three!

We had fun celebrating our MaggieMae growing up so fast. This last year has seen Maggie do a lot of amazing things. She started off last September with potty training herself while I was in the hospital delivering the twins. I was amazed and thrilled when I came home and found out that she had done this. She had talked a lot about doing it while I was pregnant, but I feared she would backslide when the babies were born, so I gently ignored her. Well, I guess she decided to go ahead without my knowledge and did a great job.

Maggie is a lot of fun and definitely has the stubborn, I can do it myself attitude that we "Williams Women" have. She is also such a delight and fun to be around. She really gets humor and enjoys saying funny things.

Maggie enjoyed starting her day off with our traditional "pick what you want for breakfast" which has quickly become "Dunkin' Donuts" for breakfast tradition. She kicked it off two years ago at her first birthday when a Dunkin' Donuts opened up near us.

Girl you are crazy...

I always enjoy a picture to go along with my posts, I saw this one and thought it described how I felt (I am not endorsing the company and have no idea what the company is that uses this logo). Wow, this last month has been crazy!!!! This is in part why my blog has been ignored by me, because it is something I can sacrifice to catch up later. At times like this, I feel like I am juggling fire balls...and I am not a good juggler! I will give you a brief synopsis, but each of these will get more special attention later.

What is this craziness and what happened to "once school starts things will really settle down"? Well, it started simple enough when a friend of my niece needed a place to stay for a few weeks until college started and she was able to find an apartment. We were asked if she could stay during the week (weekends were going to be at a different friends house) for a couple of weeks. Clarissa moved in with her four or five boxes of worldly possessions and her smile. She loves kids and is enjoying the opportunity to be so completely surrounded by them all the time.

This brings up the next exciting fireball of excitement...9 people living in 1600 sq feet. I know I sound spoiled when I say this (I have traveled through out the middle east where poor and small houses have a total different meaning), but we don't have enough room. For those who don't live in Arizona, you might not realize this, but summer time we Arizonians don't really go outside. Matter of fact, it is still over 100* on a daily basis. In addition to this we have two (almost) one- year old babies that require naps during the daytime which cuts down available space even more. In addition the boys have just been bouncing off the walls. Many of these factors and possibly the spirit as well, spurred Jeff into deciding it was time to go house hunting.

House hunting in this market is like going thrift store shopping for a house. It is crazy what some houses look like (seriously we have been in a few that would be better off to catch on fire, demolish, and start all over). I personally won't even give clothes to Goodwill if they have holes in them, I throw them out. That is part of the experience we have had at looking at houses.

There have been two birthdays this month, two baptisms of relatives/friends, several doctor's appointments, 6 immunizations...poor MaggieMae, and a host of other things. Did I mention that I changed my getting up time to 5:00 am instead of 6:00?

So yeah, I am feeling pretty crazy, a little stretched out (like not enough butter scraped over too much bread), and surprisingly enough very happy. Why the happy? Because while I am crazy busy, I can see how things are falling in place. I am feeling very guided on a spiritual level and things are getting back to the "old Kristina". And yes, I feel like I could wrestle a bear or even juggle fireballs...could I take a nap first though?

s'more vacation shots

There were a few requests by the kids for things they wanted to do while we were on vacation. One of these requests was to use the fire circle in Grandpa's backyard and make s'mores. It took us two nights to get it together, but we had a lovely evening of toasting marshmallows and eating way too much sugar (which could have summed up most of our vacation). We had lots of fun, but I am not sure the twins knew what to think of it. William finally gave it a try and mostly liked it.

My brother Jake and his family joined us. Jake's family lives a street over from my parents, so they often get the "leftover" visits from G'ma and G'pa. Jake is the good looking bald guy...ya know most people couldn't carry off being bald, but Jake...some how that works for ya! (inside joke - love ya man!)

One of the enjoyable things about vacation

It was so nice to be able to let the kids play in Grandma's family room. Grandma's house is really spacious. The kids also enjoyed toys that were new to them. For us it usually allowed us to chat with the adults in the next room while they played. There were lots of fun things to do. The kids spent most of their time playing in here.

For me this was a much needed vacation. This last year has been difficult and wearing on my heart. I needed a break and to be able to relax. This was a very refreshing vacation and it was hard to want to come back.

In the top three!

This is one of my top three favorite sisters! (I think all three of my sister's have wonderful qualities). This vacation I was able to spend a few extra days with Kaylynn. She too stayed a few days after the reunion at Grandma's and Grandpa's.

We are proving here that I was never meant to be a glamor model. I am OK with that.

I really enjoyed being with my sister. We grew up 9 years apart in age, so growing up we did not really spend a whole lot of time together, but as adults we have grown close. We do a lot of things similarly and we are always encouraging each other to improve on those similar things we both struggle with. She is a courageous woman and fun to be around. She also sells these wonderful books that are lots of fun (Usborne). It was lovely to be able to get so many fun books for my kids (and us parents too!). I had not realized the variety of books and my kids (especially Andrew) are really enjoying all the knew books (we came home with two large boxes of books, one brand new and the other from Grandpa's library).

Girls just want to have fun...what in the world...oh, girls

For some real crazy reason AnnaLisa and Sydney wanted to sing "Girls just want to have fun". So we turned on our portable stereo (also known as Dad's laptop) and all danced to this song several times. MaggieMae and I joined in, well...because "GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN...GIRLS".

Croquette always makes me think of Alice in Wonderland...

My brother Mike and my sister Kaylynn and her cute son.

JJ meister learning how to play the game.

Andrew is getting the hang of it.

Croquette is actually an interesting game and I'd love to try and play it again on a freshly mowed, flat lawn. We all had fun, but I think I'd like to see if I could learn to play it for technique purposes as well as for fun.

More lake shots

Jeff and RosiLee relaxing, AnnaLisa and JJ (or Andrew) playing in water, MaggieMae posing for us, Halle and JJ playing with the "sand" toys, my sister Keileen and I were simultaneously taking pictures of the kids playing and then we discovered each other, MaggieMae with twin cousin (they were born within months of each other and always have a blast when they get together)

...the other twins

These two cute guys are my cute brothers' sons. They are three months older than our twins. They are so adorable. They reminded me a lot of my kids - sort of hesitant at first, but by the end of our vacation they were seeking me out and snuggling up. I miss these cute little guys...and of course they great parents - Jared and Taralee.