Tammy, Grant and Emma arrived a few days before everyone else, so they got to come play out our house a little bit. Grant and Jack are really good buds and I love seeing them play. At one point, Jack was saying good night to everyone and he walked over to Grant and said: "Good night, Grant. I love you," to which Grant replied, "I love you too, Jack." And then they gave each other hugs. It was pretty cute.
Because we can't be with each other on fun holidays, we decided to celebrate a holiday each day.
Thursday, October 8th: Valentine's Day!
We made Valentine's for each other and for the family in Japan. Then we played at a park and then came home and decorated sugar cookies!
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| These two always seemed to be missing an article of clothing ;) |
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| Wrestling with Uncle Jeff! |
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| This is Kate in her element. Eating an entire bag of candy and using someone else's lip balm. |
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| Decorating sugar cookies for Valentine's day! |
Since Grandma has an awesome music studio in the basement, she did a special music class time for all the grandkids. They were pretty excited about that.
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| Wrestling with Uncle Chuck! |
Jeff and Ashlee were in charge of Halloween and they planned an AWESOME Halloween party at the church with all kids of games. There was a donut eating contest, mask coloring, sticker faces, ghost bowling, and a dress up station! Then, everyone walked around to different doors and trick or treated! The kids had an absolute blast.
Saturday, October 10th: Temple day!
We got to go as a family to the temple in Louisville. It was a sacred experience to be together in the temple and to be performing ordinances for some of my ancestors. This day will always hold a special place in my heart.
Emma performed her Suzuki Book 2 Violin Recital for us! I'm super impressed with her skills and her discipline. Also, Kate pretty much cuddled with Greg the entire time, which was pretty much the cutest. That night the kids dressed up and acted out the Nativity story.
Monday, October 12th: Christmas!
That morning we went for a hike at Raven Run. I was super impressed with how well the kids did. Afterwards, we did a grandkid gift exchange. Each child picked another child's name out of a hat and got to go to the store and buy a present for them. I love seeing how excited they are to give gifts to each other.
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| All the kids with their gifts! |
Orchard and swimming day! We headed over to Evan's orchard. We love this place. Awesome things for the kids to play and do and delicious apple turnovers and donuts. Need I say more? After that, we headed over to the Georgetown Pavillion pool. The kids had a blast swimming. After that we crashed the Marcums house for dinner and playing! It was a full and fabulous day.
Laura planned a fun birthday party for everyone! AND she and Tammy stayed home with all the kids and did the birthday party while the rest of the adults met the working guys downtown for some lunch. Laura got the kids "flarp" for birthday gifts and it was a HUGE hit. They wanted to play with it all. the. time. And there were funfetti cupcakes. So all in all a pretty awesome day. After that, we tried to go to Keeneland, but it just so happened that they weren't doing a 5:30pm race that day, so we just stopped at a park instead!
Thursday, October 15th: Easter!
Shilito park and Chick-fil-a. Then we headed to Keeneland in the afternoon to catch the last few races! John brought monopoly money for the kids to bet :) They thought that was pretty awesome!
Friday, October 16th: Thanksgiving!
We headed to the Kentucky Horse Park for the morning! That afternoon, I had to head home to get ready for my craft fair, so the kids got to play at Grandma's with all the cousins (Thanks to Tam, Laura, Ashlee and Mom for keeping my kids!) They had a thanksgiving dinner together and played for the last night! Tammy got 4 tickets to Big Blue Madness so she took the three oldest kids! They had a blast!
Most memorable moments:
- Grandpa's cannon ball
- Kate's obsession with hugging and tackling Laney and her disdain
- The stomach bug that took down almost everyone
- Sumo wrestling
- Late night Laney and her slap happy self
- Watching Jimmy Fallon videos together
- Spencer and Ethan's battle over the baseball bat
- Flarp and all the potty jokes that came with it
- Playing psych on our phones, even with Matt in Japan
- Emma organizing all sorts of activities for the kids
- Dodgeball on the trampoline
- Singing in church
- Big Blue Maddness!
- Kate stripping down in the middle of the Nativity play, during the Valentine activity, and lots of other times
- Ethan: "Hey, Emmy! Your baby doing that!" Showing me that Kate was filling up John's shoes with unpopped popcorn.
- Emma's Suzuki 2 concert!
- Jack asking to play Uncle Bubby's phone
- Me ignoring Jack sobbing in bed because I thought it was Grant
- Kate always drinking everyone else's drinks
- The soccer ball game show that the kids organized
- Making music videos
- The temple together as a family
All in all, we had a fantastic time together. I'm so grateful for family. Thanks for making the trek everyone!! We sure enjoyed having you here!
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