Visiting Cousins...

We came home from spending almost three weeks with our Pyper cousins to get to spend another cousin-filled week with our Campbell cousins! The kids were in cousin heaven! My brothers and their families were both in town visiting, and we had so much fun!

The kids love grandpa's tree-house. It has been abandoned for so many years, that it was in squalor, but now he has not only painted it and fixed some wood, but also added a slide to it! It is going to be one fun place to play! I asked him if I could do some fun decorating on the inside. When I actually have some spare time, maybe I'll start working on it! The kids love playing in it, nonetheless. 

He also added this fun tree swing to his backyard, which the kids loved all summer long!

This little guy didn't love all the attention from his older girly cousins. :) We often found him trying to escape their loving arms! :)

This boy is a hard one to crack, but he did love his uncle Allen! They were buds! So, when he got sick of the girls, he knew exactly where he could go! :) Uncle Allen is definitely a baby lover!!! :)

This little guy wasn't too impressed with his cousins! :) This is what he thought about the whole thing:

So many fun things to do and explore in grandpa's backyard!

Grandpa, Uncle Nathan, Aunt Kelli and I took them all to see Despicable Me 2 (They wanted to stand in front of the Airplanes poster!) :)

And this little man even got to go, his first movie ever! We were a bit late so had to sit in almost the front row. And I was quite the sight when Taylor decided she didn't want to sit with Grandpa anymore, and I had her and Jackson both on my lap! :)

Of course, the weather in Spokane was perfect park weather. We headed out to the new Greenacres park. There is a splash pad area, so the kids are wearing their swim suits, but of course, stayed in the sand pit the whole time! I don't know who thought out these new parks that all have a water spicket in the sand area, but they were obviously not mothers who care about having clean cars!!! They made trenches and moats and rivers all afternoon. They were happy, and they were happy to have Uncle Nathan in there helping them while all of us moms were lounging in the shade! :)

Next up was Riverfront park.

Keyton & Cassidy were the only ones brave enough to go on the roller coaster:

Nathan forgot sunscreen, but wanted to protect his bald head, so he wore Chase's (who is 1) sun hat. Very stylin'!

Then papa got us the best treat of all, some delicious Hawaiian shaved ice! I cold eat this stuff all day! :) Thanks Papa!

Grandma also came up for a few days, and got to go swimming at a friends house with us:

Of course, all of the kids loved grandma and she was the only adult actually in the water with the kids! :) They were ganging up on her! :)

Saturday morning walk:

I wanted to take advantage of grandma being here and having a photographer to take our family pictures. My husband refuses to get real family photos taken because 'you take so many!!!' And I thought that since we were doing that, I'd offer to take Nathan & Angies family pictures. It was a fun with with these guys:

I did manage to get one or two decent shots of my kids. They are probably the most uncooperative kids I have ever worked with! Probably because I'm mom and not a 'photographer'

This was after a bout of tears. You can see his red face. I literally had to FORCE him to sit still and smile!

I love love love this picture of Chase. Totally Chase to me, I love that big ol' face! :)

And this cute little boy:

This is literally the ONLY decent shot of all of us! It's not my favorite! We decided to use it for the back of Jackson's birth announcements, and when Ben saw them he said, 'Wow, I look like a goon' And I said 'we ALL look like goons, but this was literally the only good one we got!' I'm hoping it made him feel a little guilty for complaining the whole time!

This was more like how it went with our family:

And this is what Jackson thought the whole time:

But these kids had fun running around and exploring the really cool cathedral we were at:

And our last fun night before they had to head back to Kansas City was to go bowling!!! We love bowling! :)

Papa and his Carter:

They boys:

We had so much fun with our cousins! We wish they lived closer! But just a few more years and hopefully they will!!! :)