On Monday we sent the kids on a very important Grandpa/Dad outing for donuts and the park. Sadly, Pullman doesn't have a single donut shop, but they filled their sugar quota all the same :). First is a picture of Makenzie sorting all her princess makeup. Princesses (especially Anna and Belle) and makeup (chapstick for now) are some of Makenzie's favorite things. She puts makeup on at least 40 times a day, and is always sneaking up to her room (which she shares with Olivia) to find Olivia's stash of eyeshadows and lipsticks to streak across her face.
Grandpa gave Hunter his first taste of donut. He wasn't totall thrilled, and I was sad to waste that much of a maple bar on a kid. I'm not especially generous when it comes to maple bars ;).
This is the only picture that I got from the actual donut outing, it was just Alex telling me that they decided to go to a park :) Somehow the 'take pictures of every second' hasn't rubbed off on him yet.
Later that afternoon we took everybody out for an awesome bowling outing. We have never gone bowling as a family, so Olivia was the only one that had ever tried it before out of our kids. I took a million pictures, and stole just as many from Amber, so I organized them by person instead of consecutively.
I loved how focused O was on getting her fingers in the right holes, and then to see how she released it, you just wonder why :)
Both of the kids waiting to see how many pins were knocked down...they wait with much different styles.
Kade was a blast. The older kids (Maely, Kade, Elli, and Olivia) had their own lane and didn't need any intervention. They changed their screen names more than they bowled, and had a blast with everything.
Amber, Makenzie, Teagen, Carter, and I were on the middle lane. We spent most of the time laughing at all the other bowlers and moving the ramp back and forth, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Next time we will split up the littlest bowlers for time's sake, but I insist on a lane with bumpers, so I will probably be with littles every time we go. I caught the second half of Amber's post-bowl ritual a few times. It was a happier pose than this looks though :)
Makenzie was just the cutest little bowler ever. She was so excited to push the bowl, and every time, no matter the results, she turned around with the cutest expression and exclaimed 'Me got 1 point!'
Carter was pretty serious about the whole thing. He tried the ramp for a few turns but then insisted on doing it himself, complete with finger-holes and everything.
The best part about Carter's bowling was that every time on his second roll, he would dash off in whatever direction had a full 10 pins out. He said it was better to start with 10, and you had to yell or grab him before he rolled his ball down some unsuspecting stranger's lane. This time with Alex, it wasn't even Grandpa's lane that he was after, it was the people next to us.
Teag wins for best poses...like always :) This kid is just so full of emotion and enthusiastic about everything he does, it's a blast to do any activity with him.
So professional...
Grandma, Grandpa, Dan, and Alex took the last lane, and all were quite serious about it. They chose not to have bumpers, but a few of them regretted that choice later. Here is Grandma mid-stride
Here is Elli. She had the most creative releases :). I don't think this girl does anything without going upside down at some point!
Dan...
Alex was the only one I didn't get any pictures of, but here is Hunter mutilating his ear :)
Grandpa, looking a little stiffer than the younger men :). This probably is just an awkward moment of his release stance, but it looks pretty old-man-ish, so I can't help but point it out.
Spectator row was pretty fun. I love being surrounded by so many of the people I love so much. The last two years have been spent far away from family and friends, so we soak up every moment of this that we can.
I'm not sure what the final scores were from the grown-up lane, but I do know that none of them were higher than 101 (From top to bottom: Grandpa, Grandma, Alex, Dan)
Here is the big kid's lane (from top to bottom: Kade, Maely, Elli, Olivia)
Hunter was enjoying his time with so many eager hands to play with him. He is in his happy place whenever someone is paying one-on-one attention to him.
And our lane (the bottom two are Carter and Teagen). Teag was the big winner, beating all the grownups!
We bowled for an hour, so we all started a second game. These scores from the big kids (Kade, Maely, Elli, Olivia) were SUPER impressive, I wish they had gotten to finish the whole game. In 10 frames they had a total of 6 spares!
Celebrating Olivia's second spare in a row :) I am so happy that she has such fun cousins to play and celebrate with. It reminds me of my own cousins growing up, and how fun it was to have a relationship that picked up from wherever you left last time you saw each other. I hope these girls continue to have that kind of relationship!
Our one-take group picture. Pretty impressive 14 people, 13.5 faces showing, and 11 smiles!
Teag wasn't shy about being #1, especially when he was bragging to his dad :).
After bowling we headed to frozen yogurt! Table shots of this fun group
Amber kept saying 'Smile bigger! Smile bigger!' to her big kids, and I couldn't figure out why until I saw this...who wouldn't want this picture hanging in their living room ?! :)
Olivia read to Grandma that night. She is such a fun Kindergartner, who is thrilled with each new thing she learns. Every day she wants to tell me about all the kids she reminded of the rules on the playground, and how she stayed in at recess to help clean up the classroom (can you say teacher's pet??). She has really taken off with reading now, and I find her all the time just reading out loud whatever picture book she is looking at, regardless of how hard it is. She was happy to be able to show her new skills to Grandma while she was in town.
While Olivia read, Amber and I had a hilarious moment with Dad when we were talking about Scuba diving, and my dad (like he always does) went off on the tangent of words that are acronyms that have become common words over time. S.C.U.B.A is one of those terms. I felt all excited because I actually know what SCUBA stands for, but I was definitely shown up by Amber's creative definition :). Halfway through, she had definitely earned this face-palm moment from my dad. I feel like anytime we are faced with a question of trivia or historical knowledge, my dad ends up in this pose before we are done.
However, the hilarity that ensued later put SCUBA out of all of our minds. After all the husbands had gone to bed, my mom, Amber, and I were talking in the kitchen when my mom said something about her 'dongle'. I was immediately spitting out my drink while I fell to the floor laughing. I just remember thinking 'WHAT did she just say?!'
Amber and I tried valiantly to convince her that that particular word wasn't appropriate for polite conversation, but we were both too afraid to actually Google it to prove her wrong. When she explained that it was a computer part (something that sticks into the USB drive I think...but I'm still not Googling it to verify the definition) we were sure that some young IT guy had told her this as a joke to see if he could actually get her to say it out loud :) After a while of us trying to persuade her to delete that word from her vocabulary, we all went to bed. Amber and I both started cracking up again as we told the story to our sleeping husbands, who actually knew the term and backed up my mom's story. I can't say that I will add it to my working vocabulary (can't you just say Jump Drive?)...
The next morning we had a taste test of the weirdest candy we could find - I have to point out that it was Amber who provided that 'Dad food' this time, not Dad. After everyone had had their fill of root beer licorice and gummy eggs, there were a few - quite a few - Peeps left, so the girls performed science projects on a couple to see if they could get them to blow up. After this first one, all of the pictures are courtesy of Maely.
I think this picture is showing the difference between a fresh Peep and the baked one. My favorite quote from this activity was when Maely explained that they added flour and baking soda inside the Peep so they could bake it. What a perfect reason!
In the afternoon we wanted to get all of the kids out of the house, so we headed down to the local pet store and let the kids run around. The highlight of the store was definitely the cat that was just running around the store and very friendly with kids. We hung out there for a while, until the kids got a little crazy, then we went to McDonald's for dinner and more wearing out of the kids.
This McDonald's had an air hockey table, which was super fun for kids and grownups alike. Both of these girls got smashed fingers in the process, but they were pretty evenly matched, and it was fun to watch. I don't have any pictures of Amber totally creaming me. I had to have been up 4 or 5 points when she came from behind and killed me at the end.
That same evening was Carter's first at basketball. This kid has been SO excited for basketball to start (he laid out his outfit weeks ago and refused to wear it, even when I promised I could wash it before basketball started. He seemed pretty talented for the 3-4.5 year old bunch that he was playing in, but he refused to dribble. He said it was more fun to just run and shoot :).
I tried to get a few pictures of this fun adventure, but they didn't turn out great. The entire dishwasher is full with bubbles, that totally leaked all over the floor. My mom did the dishes that evening...that's the only explanation I have. It was a challenge getting it all out. I'm not sure what other people have done in this situation, but we just busted out the ShopVac and vacuumed out as much of the liquid as we could get easily. After starting it again, some bubbles came out, but not enough to stop it again. That will teach us to let my mom do the dishes! :)
The next morning we had to say goodbye to the Grovers. It was incredibly sad to see them go, even though we will see them in July. Every time we get our kids together and get glimpses into the life that we had just a couple years ago, I get pangs of heartbreak that our Boise situation didn't work out as planned. Someday we will have that life again, but until then, we just look forward to all the visits, and we are SO glad that we are much closer now than in the Bay Area.
My mom stayed a few more days and totally let me get caught up on errands and other things before she left. My mom (and Alex's as well) always spoil us by doing the dishes and general cleanup during bedtimes, so we just get to sit afterwards, and maybe play a game or two. I am so grateful for all of our help!
And in case you need another dose of cuteness...here are the two youngest just holding hands during lunch :)
