Big Lake Weekend

This weekend we took a big old family trip to Big lake. Our whole family, The Gabe's, Anna and Levi and Grammy and Pop. 9 kids and 7 adults, it was a big old family. We had a lot of fun and the kids had a lot of cousin time. There are TONS of pictures. There are also several activities I don't even have pictures of cause they're on Anna's camera, so maybe more of that later.


Here's Grammy riding the pink barbie scooter. Gabe rented it for 5 hours so we all took lots of turns riding it. It was pretty fun in a toned down motorcycle sort of way. I never got a picture of Gabe on it, but it would have been a good one :) I don't think anyone got a picture of me on there either, but I was able to take all the kids for a ride which they loved. Isabella even got to ride down to the store with me to buy salad dressing and TP, then we got to try to carry 3 things back, not knowing the seat lifted up into a storage compartment. We worked it out though.




Lots of sitting by the lake while the kids ran wild. Grammy and Gabe got the boys these big airplane gliders which lasted a lot longer than I thought they would. They threw those things until they fell apart. Then they got taped back together with bandaids (the only "tape" we had at the cabin) and played with til they fell apart again and again.
The girls got hula hoops, which they had fun with. Then later in the day after the boys had destroyed their planes, they started playing with the hula hoops, they had sooo much fun with them that there are tons of pictures.

fighting? What fighting? What would two 3 year olds, a 4 year old and a 5 year old (boys) have to fight about?At some point someone asked for binoculars, I think to watch the fish jumping in the lake. Faron carries some in the car, so we go them out and these 3 were so cute with them! they are 3,3 and 2.




Faron took the bigger kids on a paddle boat ride. I was trying to pretend like it wasn't happening, since I am anti drowning, but they paddled over to where we were, so I had to take pictures. No one fell in the water, though I did hear about a close call or two.


Arianna was not happy about being left behind.Isabella wearing Pop's hat.


The sunset light was so yummy that I had to take some pictures of the kids.
Here's Sophia




Isabella
Xander could give me one serious face at a time, then had to do something silly
for this one he is kicking, see his concentrating tough guy face.I also took some 6 month belly shots for Anna. This one is my favorite, if I had studio, this would be one of my samples hanging on the wall.

Nikolas is waving, which is a new trick he just learned. Faron said, "Say 'Hi' to Mama" so he waved.
Happy family



Isabella and Pop

Lots of running and frolicking



We tried to get a group shot of all 9 kids, this is the best we got.



The girls are walking down the isle, to marry PopHere he is waiting at the alter, as instructed.
Kole had a good time at the lake too.

Attack Uncle Faron/Papa
Gabe and Kaleb

In front of the cabins was a patch of big trees. We took the kids over there to run through the "forest". Look how tall the trees are!Faron put Xander up in the tree, which then turned into boosting all the boys up

September

Whew, I guess we got pretty busy since the last time I posted. After Xander's birthday came starting school, Faron going back to work (yeah!) and then Anna and Levi coming. Here is a pictorial review :)

I guess I haven't take any "regular" school pictures, you can picture it in your head though, kids, sitting at a table, writing...
Here's some fun painting...

Xander surprised me on our first day of school with "where's my math?" I had not planned anything for him because he is anti learning, so I was waiting for him to be interested. Apparently he got interested. So he's been doing things like this.

Then Levi came and the kids played non stop for a week solid.
One of my kids' favorite things to do is jump on the trampoline in the rain. This was a big rain, so they had big fun jumping.


Isabella wanted to play in her play house in the rain, and since the roof was off she was really in the rain.


Levi wasn't a fan of jumping in the rain, so he preferred holding a cat and watching the rain.
Kole didn't get to go out in the rain, but he still found ways to get soaking wet and muddy.
One day with Levi there was dressing up. Thankfully Xander has a pretty nice collection of boy dress up clothes these days, so the boys got to be super heros. Here they are at super hero school.

We introduced Levi to swords while he was with us. On the way here, Grammy asked him if he liked swords and he said no cause they are pokey. He changed his mind though. You really don't have much choice when one of the first things your boy cousin does is hand you your new sword and then challenge you to a duel.
They were all super heros, even the girls in dresses, they still had their moves.
in their super hero car, aka the toy box.

I love the boys faces and Sophia's muscles.
Sometimes Batman wears a cowboy hat.


There was lots and lots of play, and lots of noise and tired Mama's, but the kids had tons of fun.


Then last weekend we had Anna's baby shower. It has happened that Anna has been here during both of her pregnancies so that we were able to do showers. That's kinda neat since she really is only here every couple of years.
So, her bff Morgan and I threw a shower. We went with pink and brown decor to match the baby's new room. I never took a good up close picture of the name banner, cause I'm silly. I'll have to have Anna take one once it is hanging in the baby's room. But, I made it pink and brown and very cute :) I also made it so that I could easily change the letters if the name changes.
The fun crowd.

and of course my cakes, I did remember to take pictures of them. These flowers were cute, my first attempt at "real" icing tricks.
And the pink and brown present cake.
girl cousins! My girls are excited to finaly have another girl cousin too. Out of our 7 cousins, Ella is our only girl! Until Gracie is born that is.
One final picture. The girls dressed every baby and animal they could find while I was sorting through baby clothes Auntie Angie gave me, so they asked me to take a picture. I like the huge alligator Sophia is wearing in the baby back pack :)