Friends

Nikki and her kids (of whom I posted pictures of in a previous post) came to visit us at the cabin and even spent the night! She left Caroline at home with Brett (her husband) so it was just her older two children with us. We all had so much fun! Here are the kids eating lunch together.
Afterwards we played with silly string. Kellen and Katie had never played with it before and were NOT fans of it. But our four kids really enjoyed themselves! :)

They of course all had to have a bag of "cabin crunch."

There was also a lot of racing up and down the deck.

Kellen and Jackson had fun playing with their cars together.

We ate at the local pizza place with Katie and Kellen's grandparents-Tom and Kate. We lived next to Tom and Kate when we were 1-3 years old. That's how long we've known them! This is a photo of the grandparents with the grandkids!

The last thing we did that day was fireworks!!! Cooper's favorite thing to do! He begged Grandpa over and over to do more fireworks.

Here's Katie holding a sparkler.

Jackson was way too scary with the sparklers so he played with a big red ball way far away from the others.

What a silly boy!

Kellen liked checking out the fireworks too!

Isn't Katie beautiful?? She was such a good poser, I could have taken pictures of her all day long!

The little ladies!

A sparkler!

Here's something Jackson could do! Cupcakes, yum!

To end the night, Grandpa read the kids stories before bed.

And of course, this is what the kids did in the morning! They all migrated upstairs to my room. (Side note- look at Katie's hair, isn't it beautiful? It naturally waves like that... I'm so jealous!)

We had such a fun time with them, if only we didn't live so far away from each other!

"4th of July"

We dressed in our 4th of July gear and celebrated quite a few different times while we were on vacation.

Before that, we had to visit the kids' trees. Here is Cooper with his tree at the cabin. Getting big!

Then we went to pick flowers.

(the pictures posted all out of order, I'm not sure what is going on!)

The kids spent a lot of time playing in the sandbox while we were at the cabin.

Here's my 4th of July boy-one of them anyway!

Playing with pinwheels!

The kids walking down the road in front of the cabin.

Cooper picked flowers too!

After we tried to get pictures of the kids in their outfits, they all ran around being crazy.

Cutie pie Cooper in a very cheesy pose his mom made him try. Mean mom, but he sure is cute! Jackson wouldn't cooperate! :)

But he looks cute here anyway! (the only one good one I got of him out of probably 30. Thank goodness for digital!)

Another one of my cute Cooper!

Both of my boys enjoying the cabin weather!

Cabin Time!

We recently returned from a very busy and fun two week summer vacation! We first flew with my parents (we being the kids and me) to MN, where we were going to see a few friends/family and then head to their cabin.

We were lucky enough to fly with my dad, who has flown so much he has elevated status and gets the perks like getting bumped up to first if the cabin is too full! Yay! They only bumped two of us though so my mom and I sat in first with Jackson since I didn't have a seat for him, and my dad sat with Cooper in coach.

I just loved watching Cooper walking with his suitcase!


Here's Jackson standing at my feet watching the crew do their thing! He had a big fit when I had to make him sit with me while we took off. Fun.

Grandpa and Cooper ready for the flight. Cooper LOVED it!

After we arrived we met one of our friends who we've known forever- Nikki and her kids, along with Laura and her kids at a park. Here are all of our children. Aren't they all so cute??

The moms had to get a picture together too!

Awww, I plan on showing this at their wedding someday! :) I think I have Cooper married off to at least three girls now... hopefully he doesn't mind that!

After we played at the park we went to my Aunt Amy and Uncle Jim's house, where the kids ran around with their cousins Evan and Emma.

They live on a lake so the kids had so much fun digging in the sand.

My boys relaxing after their busy day!

He had a 20 min nap in the car and was so happy the entire day. I was so lucky!

Throwing rocks in the lake, another favorite!

Then we made it to the cabin. Finally we were there! We had an exciting drive in, as we were literally talking about bears and seeing them on the road, a baby bear ran RIGHT in front of Laura's car (we were driving behind them) and she had to slam on her breaks so she didn't hit it. It was so amazing. I was so bummed I didn't have my camera out.

No pictures of the cabin that night, but I do have pictures of what the kids did every morning... watch a show! No surprise that Jackson woke up the earliest, and I didn't want him to wake up the kids downstairs so I'd put on a show for him.

Pretty soon all the kids would join him.

A special first at the cabin was Jackson ate at the table in a big boy chair for the first time! He LOVED it and had to sit with everyone every single meal. It was so cute! Luckily he's ok with his booster at home, I didn't want to have to deal with him moving around so much at home!

On the first full day at the cabin some of our family came up to spend the day with us. Here are the kids with Evan and Emma in their fourth of July shirts.

Did you notice that all the kids had matching pjs?

Aren't they cute?

Look what the bottom says! (Jackson helped me out with this picture!) My parents' cabin is the 'bear' cabin so these pjs were just perfect. My mom found them somewhere. Hilarious!

A favorite activity at the cabin was fishing! Cooper loved it and caught a ton of fish. He even put a worm on the hook once! He's so not anything like me in that regard!

Cooper and Ben checking out the fish.

Ben checking out a caught fish. They were very brave touching the fish and Cooper even tried to pick one up to throw it overboard. Like I said, nothing like me!

So that was our first day at the cabin!