Brown Visit 2012

We always have fun when Dan's sister Amy and her family come to visit!  The kids are all similar ages so they are well entertained.  Here are a few snapshots of the fun we got to have:

 

 The kids liked playing games and watching movies.

 

 Ainsley and Avery had fun doing girly princessy things.

 

 We went to the MSU Museum (Elliott had a summer Flat Stanley project so he's in a few pictures as well. ) and saw the dinosaur bones.

 

 Fun even when stuck in a stroller!

 

 Also got to see a giant African Elephant and Mammoth bones.

 

 While the girls napped, the boys got to be paleontologists and uncover dinosaur bones from "rock".

 

 Elliott (I don't understand how he can squat like this ALL the time!)

 

 Donovan

 

 Roswell

 

 They used special tools to find the bones.

 

Elliott and his dinosaur.

 

 We took a trip to Frankenmuth, MI and of course we had to go into the largest Christmas store, Bronners!

 

 All of our little mice!  The cheese was tasty too!

 

 The kids got to see taffy being made.

 

 Frankenmuth is a German based city.  We got to see a performance in the bell tower of the story of the Pied Piper.  We also indulged in a yummy famous family-style chicken dinner from Zehnders, where we were sent home with enough leftovers to feed our group of 10 for 2 more days!

 

 The kids also had a blast playing in the splash pad of Hawk Island Park.

 

I asked Elliott what he and Aidan were doing -- trying to get water in their bums.  Silly boys!

 

 We also took a trip to our zoo.

 

 These girls had a fun time, can you tell?  They are only 6 months apart.

 We had a problem with bees in the basement (Dan is highly allergic) so while the pest control man sprayed and restricted us from going down there, these fellers enjoyed a movie in the kitchen upstairs.

 

 We all got to enjoy Pioneer Day festivities with our Branch.  Here Donovan hit a baseball for the first time.  He did a great job!

 

Roswell enjoyed the sack races.

 

 We also went to the MSU dairy to watch cows getting milked and here are the baby calves.  We went to the MSU dairy store afterwards because the cows were making us crave some yummy ice cream!

 

 Avery and Ainsley

 

 Donovan, Roswell, Elliott, and Aidan

 

 The Earl/Brown cousins

 

 

We enjoyed the visit and  were sad to see the Browns go!

Bowling for Sort-of-Free

This summer we took advantage of kidsbowlfree.com and took the kids bowling for free.  (You just have to pay for shoes and the adults.)  Ross and Avery had never been bowling so it was fun to watch them figure it out.  Donovan and Elliott haven't been but once or twice, so that was also fun to see them think they knew everything and then have to wait while the ball slowly creeps toward the pins.  I think one actually stopped in the middle of the lane.  :)

 

 Donovan

 

 Roswell's creeper.

 Avery got so excited to bowl and after she released the ball she would run to the other balls to try again.

 

 Dan has a side swing to his roll.

 We had to teach the boys to not THUD the ball before rolling it.

 

 Elliott's creeper gutter ball.  Glad we had the guards up!  We would have been a family of gutter balls!

 

 Double bum shot!

 We finally got wise and let Roswell and Avery use the ball ramp!  It made it more fun for them.

 

Happiness!  We went to IHOP afterwards which made for more happiness for a family date night.

Room Swap-a-roo

I knew this day was coming soon.  We thought that with no new baby coming home that we could keep the kids all together and we could still have our spacious bedroom, but with Roswell entertaining Avery at naptime and Avery learning how to climb out of her crib we had to finally succumb to a new bedroom arrangement.

We ended up moving our bedroom downstairs into the old guest room and splitting up the kids to the 2 upstairs rooms.  Here's how the kids' rooms turned out:

 

 Elliott and Avery's room that shares with the guest bed for the few times that we have guests.

 

 Opposite view of Elliott and Avery's room.

 

 Donovan and Roswell moved into our old room and have a little library section as well.

 

 We got a great deal on bunk beds from the MSU surplus store which allowed Avery to have her own new big girl bed!  She is so happy in her big girl bed! She loves the new freedom, so we have to block her in with the rails or she would run all over the place and never sleep!

 

 The new mattresses came in a box, so of course we had to have fun decorating them!

 

 hard at work

 

 They decorated the insides too!

 

 Donovan was very involved!

 

They created cars all by themselves and we took them downstairs to have a drive-in movie!  What did we watch??  Cars of course!  :)  I think these cars lasted a good 2 weeks before they got demolished.

Tooth Lost & Water Park

Donovan has 5 wiggly teeth right now.  That's something because he is almost 8 and has only lost 2 teeth to date.  Now there's another tooth to add to the losses!

 My goofball showing off his hole.  He is so excited.  And really lispy too.  Ross told us that when he gets a loose tooth he will punch his own face to lose it just so he can talk funny like Dono.  I just laughed.  Weird kid!

Then we went to Hawk Island to play on the beach with other schoolmates and then go on the splash pad.  I have still not been able to go into the water, so the splash pad seemed like the best place to go.  And GO they all did!

 Avery was so excited that she practically ran around the whole place giggling.

 Donovan on the giant water gun.

 Elliott and Ross playing around.

 Donovan is at a goofy stage where he makes faces whenever I'm taking pictures.

 Still running!  I love how I can see her little footprints.

Ross kept waiting to be dumped by these buckets.  The only problem was he kept moving to the bucket that already dumped thus missing it while it refilled.

We are definitely going to come back again.  The kids had so much fun.