HE'S HERE!

Our second visitor has arrived!

My dad got here from Las Vegas this afternoon at about 3:00. We are all excited that he is here and are looking forward to spending some time with him!

CARNIVAL IN THE PARK

Yesterday afternoon I took the kids over to one of our local parks that was hosting a "carnival in the park" for the day. It was actually a very sad "carnival".....even the kids were unimpressed! They were excited about the balloons that were being given away, though. Of course every other kid that was there was also excited about the balloons so it's the only thing that had a line. After about a 20 minute wait here's what we got.....

Cameron got a monkey in a tree, Maleah got a princess hat and Rena got a princess wand.

FUN, FUN, FUN!

Our week with Stacy, Megan and Alex has unfortunately come to an end. It went by FAST, but we had A LOT of fun! On Sunday both Peggy and Jeff left us. Peggy headed back to Naperville and Jeff headed to Mexico for a business trip. That left just Stacy and I and the kids for the week. We packed a lot into our week -- sorry about all of the pictures at once, but here's a look at our week and all of the fun that we had......

Day #1 - Sunday:

We hung around the house and did a little bit of playing inside and outside. The girls did some art projects in the basement.....


While the boys played in the water outside.....


Day #2 - Monday:

Our Monday started VERY EARLY......we woke up to some loud thunder and lighting at about 4:30am followed by the tornado siren at 5:00am. Stacy and I hurried upstairs and got all of the kids in to the basement -- the "safe zone". Luckily by the time we were all in the basement the siren had stopped and the tornado scare was over. It was still very stormy though so we turned on the t.v. and let the kids rest downstairs for a while.

After our exciting EARLY morning we headed out to the movie theatre to see Wall-E. Everyone liked the movie and everyone LOVED the treats!

Then that evening we did some bowling.....

Good lookin' shoes, Maleah!

Thanks for helping Maleah, Megan!

Nice shot Stacy -- good thing you had those bumpers! :)

Here's Cameron giving Rena some pointers.

Nice shot Cam!

Alex, Stacy, Megan and Maleah are taking a little break.

All done and time to go home!

Day #3 - Tuesday:

We filled our morning with a trip to Target and lunch out before we headed over to a community swimming pool.

Cameron watching and Alex, Megan and Rena getting wet!

All 5 of the kids.....Cameron, Megan, Maleah, Alex and Rena.

Meg was a good pusher on the tire swing. She had a line of kids that she didn't even know waiting for her to push when Cameron, Maleah and Rena got off.

Megan and Cameron needed a splash!

Maleah, Megan and Rena are taking a break!

All done and time to go home!

Luckily for me Stacy felt at home enough to get out there and mow the lawn for me......thanks Stac!

Day #4 - Wednesday:

Wednesday morning we headed to a water park for the day. It was a beautiful day to be there -- it wasn't too hot -- it was actually a little chilly when you got out of the pool and were under shade.

Maleah and Cameron are having a snack before they get in!

Megan and Rena jumped right in and started playing!

Rena likes to stand on and play with the water that shoots up out of the ground.

Alex and Megan are anxious for their turn down the water slide!

All 5 kids loved to get in the big pool and swim. Cameron, Rena and Maleah loved jumping off the side and swimming to one of us.

We had a major break-through with Rena and Maleah this time at the water park -- they both went down one of the slides......

Maleah even got water on her face and in her eyes -- and she thought it was fun!

Once Rena went down once she wanted to do it over and over and over again!

After a little ice cream treat we were all done and ready to go home!

Wednesday night before bed Maleah earned a new baby doll. The day before when we were at Target Maleah got to pick out any baby doll that she wanted -- the catch was that she had to poop on the potty before she could open it. So, for 2 days the baby doll sat on the back of the toilet and she looked at it every time she went potty. Then Wednesday night she decided she really wanted to have that baby doll. SO, she was a big girl and went poop on the potty! Yeah Maleah.....we are so proud of her!

Day #5 - Thursday:

We headed down to the Peoria Riverfront on Thursday so that Stacy, Megan and Alex could see Downtown Peoria. There isn't much to do down there, but we thought we'd eat lunch and walk the riverfront. Unfortunately by the time we were done with lunch it was raining......so we cancelled the walk and headed back home.

We did get a few pictures of the kids in the rain before loading back up in the van!

By the time we got back home the weather was good again so the kids got out the scooters and bikes.

Day #6 - Friday:

We packed up Friday morning and headed back to Naperville to spend the weekend at Peggy's house. All of the kids were tired from the busy week that the 3 hour drive was pretty quiet with sleeping kids most of the way.

Rena even fell asleep with her treat in her mouth.

The kids turned Peggy's living room in to a fort Friday night. Alex and Cameron were a little bit upset that they couldn't sleep in it, but they used all of our suitcases, blankets and pillows that we needed to build it.

We had a little mini birthday celebration for Peggy on Friday night. Her birthday isn't until August 5th, but since we won't all be together we celebrated on Friday. We took her a cake with her favorite frosting -- seven minute frosting. I don't think she had a piece of cake, but I think she didn't feel too good after all of the frosting that she ate!

Day #7 - Saturday:

On Saturday we all hung out at Peggy's house. Kari and her family came over, Tami and her dog Oliver were there and Peggy's granddaughter Hailey that lives in California was also there (she's visiting for the summer).

Cameron rode a bike without training wheels for the first time. He's been talking about taking his training wheels off of his bike at home for a long time now, but we just hadn't done it yet. Peggy has the perfect road for learning to ride....it's flat and at the end of a cul-de-sac. It only took him about 30 seconds to figure it out and then he rode that bike all day long!

We all got a turn to hold the newest addition to the family -- here's Megan with baby Rylee.

Kari, Maleah and baby Rylee. Maleah thought it was pretty cool to hold the baby, but didn't understand why she couldn't carry her!

Kari, Rena and baby Rylee

All of the kids outside -- Noah, Alex, Maleah, Megan, Cameron, Hailey, Carter and Rena.

All of the kids inside -- Hailey with Rylee, Rena, Megan, Maleah, Alex, Noah, Carter and Cameron
All of the adults inside -- Tami, Me, Peggy, Stacy, Kari and Craig.

Day #8 - Sunday: A bonus day!

We went to Kari and Craig's for a barbeque on Sunday before heading home.....

Tami at the barbeque.

Maleah loved that she got to hold Rylee again!

Stacy, Megan and Alex were suppose to be flying home early Sunday morning so all of the kids said their good-bye's Saturday night and at 6:00am Sunday morning Peggy drove them to the airport. BUT once they arrived at the airport they found out that all of the flights for the day were oversold -- and they were flying on stand-by tickets. They stayed at the airport until about 11am when they were told that they had NO chance of getting on a flight until atleast 8:30pm. Peggy went back to the airport, picked them up and we all spent the day together over at Kari and Craig's having a barbeque. The only bad thing about them coming back was that we had to do our good-bye's all over again. At about 6:30pm we loaded everyone into the van and drove to the airport. We dropped Stacy, Megan and Alex off and then the kids and I headed home. We made it back to Peoria at about 10:00pm last night, but unfortunately Stacy, Megan and Alex still didn't make it on a flight. Peggy ended up picking them up at midnight last night and then taking them back to the airport again at 6:00 this morning. The bad news from this morning is that they still didn't get on a flight to Seattle, but the good news is that they did get on a flight headed West -- they are on their way to Portland, Oregon. We figured if they can't get on a flight out of Portland atleast they are close enough to drive -- plus they were VERY tired of the O'Hare airport.

We had a really great week having Stacy, Megan and Alex here -- we miss them already! The house seems so quiet today. I'm already checking airline tickets in hopes that we can get them back here for Christmas.

Do you think I should atleast let them get back to Washington before I start planning their next visit??? :)

THEY'RE HERE!!!

Our first visitors are here and we are so excited!!! Stacy, Megan, Alex and Peggy arrived yesterday at about 4:30. Stacy, Megan and Alex will be with us for the whole week, but Peggy will be heading home today -- unfortunately she has to work. We will go back to Peggy's house on Friday night and spend the weekend with her before Stacy, Megan and Alex fly home on Sunday (which I'm not thinking about yet). They haven't been here very long, but we are already have a fun time!

We went out for pizza last night after they arrived. It was a long wait and the kids were all starving by the time we got seated, but they didn't really complain because they were having fun just being together.

Rena and Maleah were more than happy to have Megan sleeping in the their rooms (she's going to switch between the two) and loved having her read the good-night book last night.

DINOSAUR CAMP

Rena apparently had a fun morning at dinosaur camp on Friday.........she fell asleep at noon on our ten minute drive home from the camp with her dinosaur hat on and her dinosaur wand in hand!