A little baseball

All the cousins wanted to play some baseball so they headed outside to get down to business. Grandpa went out with them to help out some. 

Grandpa taught C-man how to hit the dirt off his shoes. It was really cute to watch.

Hitting the ball...with eyes closed. He still hit it! 

A-man watched for a little while to see how things went. Or maybe he was the sideline umpire?

Spencer hitting the ball!!

Run, Spencer, RUN!!! And yes I do realize that he is running with his arms in the air. 

"C'mon pitcher!!!!"

Oops, not that way pitcher. 

D was figuring out how to play with the older kids.

Watch out C-man!!! 

Go D, go!!! 

Ouch! But C-man loves his brother so much that he didn't get mad. 

I'm not sure if A hit the ball or missed it. But good form!

The kids and Grandpa. They had so much fun!!!

Supermodel

Seeing as how we have only one niece on my side of the family, we always try to do fun things with her. She is a fashionista, so I thought we should have a photo shoot. She was timid about it at first, but then totally got into it. Okay so maybe not that timid, because this was her first pose!

A natural!

Her American Girl doll. 

This was the fun shot. 

Along with this one. Perfect timing. :) 

Such a beautiful niece I have!! :) 

A niece who is growing up too fast too. 

Thanks M for letting me practice taking pictures, you are perfect!!! 

Faces

Remember how I told you a couple of posts ago that D and I played a game in which I would turn my camera screen around and he would make faces at it? Well, here were the results! It happened three different times, and it was the same every time. I loved it! 

Cousins!!! and wrestling

Now, what do you ask is the cousins favorite thing to do while all together??

This:

Yes, wrestling!!! Even our one and only girl gets in on the action! This was a new way to wrestle with someone on the back of someone else, but they love it! It's strange, because they don't get hurt, too often, and just love to wrestle around with each other.  

Everyone getting the oldest cousin, W. 

There was one night where all the adults were going to a wedding reception, and the kids stayed home with some babysitters, and we had to tell them over and over again "No wrestling tonight." We even had to tell the babysitters, because I'm pretty sure they would have snuck it in somehow. 

Taking a break, and what is that look W?? 

Did you notice that one of the bigger cousins is not in on the action??

He was busy playing MarioKart on the DS. :) 

Ya-ya and D

As we got to know D, we started to try and get him to say our names. My name and my sister's name always seemed to come out as "Ya-ya". So we are not sure which one of us is really "ya-ya" or if we both are, but it was still cute. 

After we took family pictures one day, we drove home and I was surprised by a graduation party from my family. See, back in November I finally graduated with my Bachelor's Degree!!!! I was completely shocked that they did this for me, and felt completely loved. Anyway, so that is how and why D has those noise blower things, it was from the party.

So after we ate and celebrated, D sat down on the kitchen floor and Ya-ya sat right with him. 

He started to share the noise blowers with Ya-ya. 

They blew and blew, although hers was the only one making noise, but D would make the noise that should have come out. 

"Listen to me, Ya-ya!"

I love how he is almost studying how she is blowing it to make the noise, like trying to figure out the secret to it all. 

Together they make music! 

As they were playing together, D kept getting closer and closer and finally he was right up close to Ya-ya. 

Still making noise, uh, music. 

"Aunt Ya-ya, let me help you."

"There you go!"

Cute boy!!!

Then I turned the screen around on my camera so he could see himself. He likes to do that.

And we took pictures of him and Ya-ya blowing away.

Such a cute smile!

While D and I were sitting on the stairs, we took pictures of Ya-ya. 

And mom and dad. 

And then everyone taking down the decorations. 

As you can see D was the man of the hour, and as you can tell with the pictures there are no other kids in them...wonder where they were?? Playing upstairs and wanting us to leave them alone. 

I do have to say though, thank you to my family for making a big deal out of my graduation. I was so excited to be done, and to be able to actually celebrate it was fabulous!! And because I did it all online, there was a ceremony in Iowa, but I was not going to go there by myself and walk, so I decided against walking to get my degree, BUT this totally made up for it. Can you believe that my parents now have three kids all with their Bachelor's Degree?!?! Well, and one daughter with a Master's...but let's face it, she was always the smartest one (also, Happy Birthday Liza!!). 

Being with Family...PRICEless

This Christmas we headed south to be with my family, wait, not just my mom and dad, but my WHOLE family!!!! We were SOOO excited! For two weeks before I made sure no one got sick, so Tyler could not run outside in the cold, and we all were washing hands like crazy, getting lots of rest, because I really didn't want anyone to be sick over the vacation. We had a blast while with the family. I mean, really, that's the whole reason we are happy is because of our families, so we were filled to the max with happiness. 

To start things off, the night we got there we had our friends came over to have a little mini Christmas with them. Seeing Alexis and her mom was so great, I love these ladies, and was so happy to be able to see them, and chat with them. 

Alexis and I are super The Office fans, and so I had the opportunity to go and see the people who play Meredith and Oscar on the show here in NYC. They were signing reams of Dunder Mifflin paper, and so I had them sign it for her, since she couldn't be there. I got the picture with them and she got their autographs. :) Anyway, so she was super excited about that, and that I got her a Dundie Award. Yes, an actual Dundie Award to go on her desk at work. It was hilarious and great fun! 

It was the first time a lot of us got to play with this little guy, because we hadn't been out west to see them, and they had not be out east to see us until this Christmas. (It had been almost 3 years since we've all been together!) So we had great fun playing with Mr. D. :) He was so funny and great. I have a video of him that I put together of a fun little game with did with the camera. 

Can't get enough of this cute little smile!!!

Grandpa couldn't help seeing more of it either, so he started to blow raspberries on his tummy. 

So while Alexis and her mom, Beverly, were there, we visited and then they were about to leave. Well, we were getting their coats, and D thought it was time to go so he put on Beverly's vest and was ready to go with them. It was dang cute. Here is Beverly and D bonding.

Let me tell you something, having all of these cousins together was a BLAST! I'm not sure, wait, no, I know that I didn't see Spencer for most of the week we were there. It was crazy!!! I felt like he was always playing, and he had someone to play with all the time. He loved the time he had with his cousins and wishes he could live right next to them all. 

My brother's kids. So cute! Also the DS's were a big hit. 

So, one of the traditions of my family is to put as many puzzles together as we can while we are all together over Christmas. Every Christmas that I can remember growing up we were putting all the puzzles we had together, and we would get a new one every year. This was a hard one that Seth wanted to challenge us with, and we did it!!! We are intense puzzle-put-togetherers, really, we can actually strategize about how to put the puzzles together. "Okay you have this part, I have this part, you'll do this part. I found this piece for you, do you need anymore?" Seriously, these are some of the conversations. :) 

But it is fun and we love visiting while we put the puzzles together, and joking on each other. Fun times!