What a great weekend! Pt. 3

What a fabulous swingset!

The girls loved the tire swing!

Wheeee!!!

Wheeee!!

I like this thing!

We love the sand!

The final part of our busy, fun weekend was a hotdog lunch and the big playground reveal at nana and pop's house on Sunday. Pop worked so hard on the swingset and the kids were very excited when they saw it! They all had a blast playing on it and playing in the sand underneath it. The slide was super-fast, which the girls mastered quickly, but the boys had to be stopped so they didn't collide with the ground. The majority of the day was spent outside in the beautiful weather on the cool swingset! The only sad part was having to say goodbye to Wen, Matt, Juj and Alex...we always enjoy our time with them so much and miss them when they leave!

What a Great Weekend! Pt. 2

Rachel is enjoying playing putt-putt...her favorite game!!!

Bradley is conked out!!

Yummy!!! Can't have too many sweets!

Another fun slide!

Bradley is sharing with papa

Whee!!!!

Rachel loved all the inflatables

the kids are having a great time!

daddy is helping Rachel make a basket

Papa was brave enough to ride these swirling

bucket-things with Rachel...she loved them!!

Bradley liked hitching a ride on daddy's shoulders

Rachel loved riding Blondie

We really enjoyed all these yummy sweets!

The second part of our Great weekend was the ERSnell picnic. We met Papa and Gege at a great park where ERSnell had all kinds of rides, face painting, music and food. We missed the BBQ dinner, but they had plenty of popcorn, sno cones and cotton candy. The kids really loved all these tasty, junky treats...and so did I! Both kids had fallen asleep in the car on the way over, but Rachel woke up ready to go. Bradley didn't wake up for quite awhile after we got there even though it was loud and he was being carried around on Nick's shoulder. He woke up very unsure of where he was, but recoverd quickly when he saw his bag of popcorn! Rachel had a BLAST playing putt-putt, jumping on the inflatables, riding in the spinning buckets and riding on a pony. Bradley was a happy observer...he didn't participate in any of the activities, but enjoyed the sweets and watching his big sis do her thing. It was a great picnic since it was like our own private fair. We didn't have to wait in any lines to do anything and everything was free!

Hat Day

Today was Hat Day at Rachel's school, so we searched our house for a hat for her to wear. We have so many adult baseball caps and plenty of warm winter hats, but Rachel doesn't really have any caps that fit. Thankfully, we had the Smoky Mountains hat from when we went to the mountains last year. She was excited about wearing it and I thought it looked adorable! It was really cute watching all the kids get out of their cars this morning to see what hats they were wearing. Even the director and parent volunteers who help the kids get out of the cars had on hats. I can't wait to hear Rachel's "take" on what her friends wore and what she thought of Hat Day!

Pt. 1: More pictures

the cousins having fun

Friday night, the girls put on quite a lovely dance show for everyone

the girls enjoyed hanging out and watching tv

Daddy/Uncle Nick really makes the girls giggle!

What a cutie pie!!!

The girls couldn't get enough love from Alex

Rachel really loved holding her baby cousin

the girls loved their cinnamon rolls!

Alex really favors his Uncle Nick

(hahaha!)

Bradley was enjoying his cinnamon roll

(at least the icing the icing part!)

Bradley LOVED playing with all the old baby stuff

Alex's precious little chunky legs

Bradley decided to feed his baby cousin a bottle

Juju took Alex for a speedy stroll

What a great weekend!! Pt. 1

*****I'll post more pictures later*****

As is the case with every visit from the Lanes, we can't wait for it to get here and are sad when it's over. They arrived Friday evening, we ate some delicious chinese take-out, played and relaxed. Rach and Juj were ecstatic to see each other and had so much fun playing. Alex (and fam) was so glad to be out of the car and able to stretch and move around. We couldn't believe how precious, big and filled out baby Alex has gotten! He's not small and scrawny at all...he's the most gorgeous little boy with this perfectly shaped little round head and a squishy, round little body. And, his legs are so chunky and cute, I had to take a picture of them. Everyone slept really well and woke up Saturday ready to play again. We ate some cinnamon rolls and pigs-n-blankets and played out and inside. The weather was gorgeous, very nice but not much of a breeze. The kids had fun on the playground and big sis Julia even took Alex for a nice, quick stroll in the driveway. We came in to eat lunch and hang out and then the Lanes had to get dressed and packed up for the next leg of their trip. While we were inside, Bradley either ignored or was fascinated by Alex. At one point, Alex was in the exersaucer and Bradley decided to try to feed him his bottle. He was very cute trying to be "helpful" with his baby cousin. Rachel was very impressed with Alex too. She couldn't get enough of holding him and trying to get him to smile at her. But, as she told me last night, her very favorite part of the whole day was playing with JuJu!!