Cousins get together

Growing up I loved to go to Idaho to visit my cousins.  2 weeks ago, I went with Marie, Michelle and dad to a wedding of Sandy's daughter.  While there, she told me her sister Bonnie, who is my age would be coming into town and they were thinking of spending a few days in SLC.  I invited her to stay with us since we have plenty of room.  I didn't hear from her and so I assumed it hadn't worked out to come.  Thurs evening, I get a call and find out she and Bonnie are in town, and have been trying to get ahold of me for the past 3 days.  (I need to remember to check my answering machine)  I invited them to come on over for a sleepover.  They were only going to be in town until Saturday morning, so we made a few phone calls and got Lani and our cousins,  that are close to our ages to come over for dinner on Friday night.  Luckily they were all available!

We had such a fun time catching up with each other!  I hope they can come again soon.

Family photos at Murray Park

For Mother's and Father's Day, the kids got together and hired a photographer to do a family photo shoot for us.  We have been looking forward to this since May.  We now have 22 in our family, so it is quite the project to find a day that will work for all of us and the photographer.  We found a Saturday the end of Sept. that seemed like it would work.  We decided to have everyone dress in red, yellow, grey, white or black.  On Tues, Krista got a call from the photographer, telling her that she would be out of town the weekend we had scheduled, and was there another that would work.  In talking with everyone, the only one that we could make work with our schedules and the photographers, would be this Saturday night,, just 4 days away.  Everyone started madly trying to find clothes the right colors so they could be prepared.  Friday night a bunch of our kids headed to the canyons for a fun time.  The mosquitoes were out in full force.  Gabbie got bit just under her eye.  Saturday, 2 hours before pictures, Josh sent me this photo of Gabbie, #allreadyforpictures.  Yikes!

He said he was on his way to Instacare to have it looked at.  It ended up that it was infected, and they put her on an antibiotic.  He zoomed back to pick up Merijane and the kids and made it to the Park just a few minutes late. 

 (We did individual family pictures first)

Here are some I snapped with my phone, behind the photographers back.

Krista's family

Josh's family

Jamie's family

and Jordan's family

Then we did a family photo.  We all stood on this bridge, I hope it turns out great!

Then came the real fun, a picture with all 12 grandkids.  By this time they had had the program.  Josh and Jamie's family hadn't had time to eat dinner, so their kids were hungry, the babies were tired, so it is not the best picture, but they are all in it.  I hope the photographer got a little better one than I did.  I only took a couple pictures, then stood behind the photographer jumping up and down with several of the parents trying to get everyone to look at the camera. 

What a wild and crazy night, I can't wait to see the pictures.  

Thanks everyone for all your efforts to make this possible!  

Logan's 2 year old birthday party

Logan actually turned 2 on July 2nd in Detroit.  They celebrated his birthday with Chase and Morgan back there, and a week before with Marcie, Jamie's mom while she was there, but this was the REAL celebration!  Jamie made THE CUTEST farm cake for his farm party!

I've been to some very fun birthday parties, but this one was one of THE funnest ever!   Jamie spent the summer making all these amazing decorations for his party.  

These were for the photo booth.  As everyone arrived, they had them choose a prop, from pig noses to cowboy hats, and go sit on some bales of hay they got to have their picture taken.

The birthday boy and his family

Me and Mike

Lani, Dad and Logan

Chip and family

Josh and family

Krista's family

and Jamie's family

We did a 4 generation picture with the all of the guys.

Then one of my favorite pictures of the day, our 3 boys and their boys!

Next came a delicious dinner.  She had darling name tags by everything.  "Old McDonald Macaroni and cheese"  "Logan's vegetable garden"  by the vegi platter  "Chicken feed" by the chex mix  "Farm fresh fruits" by the fruit platter and "Farmland pops" by the marshmallow pops.  

She had darling happy birthday wrappers on all the water bottles at the watering hole.

She had cow print table cloths on the tables and tractor cups holding the forks, everything was sooooo cute!

After dinner it was time for fun and games

The tractor dig was a favorite for all the little kids.  Jamie filled Logan's water table with chicken feed.

Devin and Paige

She made a ring toss with root beer bottles painted like cow print

Jamie testing his skills

She made 4 darling stick horses for the barrel racing activity.

  This was a favorite of the bigger kids.  Taylor was HILARIOUS as usual.  We had a stop watch to see how fast they could make it around the barrels and his number was the highest, (because he was the slowest) so he was thrilled to get the highest number.  We told him he was the winner!

Aida

Hailey

These 3 ran the stop watch.

No farm party is complete without a horse roping contest.  Here's Abbie doing a little bareback riding.  (Thanks Robynn for the awesome horse)  Logan has loved it since he was tiny.

Next it was time for presents and he got lots of fun ones.

We got him the gas pump, and

a trailer for his Cozy Coop.

And finally time to sing happy birthday and blow out the candles.  It was a shame to cut into that amazing cake.  Jamie spent hours and hours making  the fondant animals and tractor.  

It tasted absolutely DELICIOUS!!!!!

Karen and Mike's wedding

My cousin Sandy's daughter Karen got married to her sweetheart Mike a few weeks ago

 in New Jersey.  They had a reception back there and then Sandy did a reception in Nampa for them.

Dad, Marie, Michelle and I drove up to Nampa for the reception

One of Karen's friends did the delicious cake and cupcakes!

Sandy's family helped do a yummy dinner for the family after the reception.

Karen has a son Kyle 20 years old, and a daughter Morgan, almost 17, Mike has twins that are 15.  

Such a cute family!

Karen has one brother Kevin

and a sister Kim

and her parents, Sandy and Dennis

This is Sandy's sister Brenda

and her brother Mike (with Wanda)

Wanda took me over to see the new Meridian Temple on our way to visit her darling daughter Kristin and her 3 adorable granddaughters.

We all spent the night at Wanda and John's beautiful home and headed home Monday morning.  It was a quick trip, but sooooo fun to see our Nampa family.

Thanks dad and Marie for letting me be your chauffeur!