Pypers got talent...

As part of our 4th of July celebrations, Grandma decided to have the 1st annual Pyper family talent show... And a show it was! Ben MC'd the event and all the grand kids had to come prepared to share a talent. Some of them were pretty impressive! :)

Everett started out the evening, accompanied by grandma, to a dance! And boy does he know how to shake it!

Elia even got in on the dance action. She couldn't help but shake it after she heard the piano music start!

Alex showed us his talent for playing the recorder...

And miss Sophie sang a song...

and jump roped!

That's two talents in one little girl folks! :) We are so proud to have her in the family!:)

Next up was Tucker (the best act of the night if I do say so myself) singing his favorite song, 'Baby Beluga'...

Kira showed off a beautiful drawing that she had drawn of the whole family!

Jonah's talent was somersaulting...

And of course, Tucker had to follow...

Josh plays some pretty mean drums on Guitar Hero (or Rock Band...I forget!)...

to which these three had a little dance party...

Teddy sang us the theme to 'Star Wars'...

on a side note: I have never seen a kid more obsessed with Star Wars than this child! While we were driving back from the beach we overheard this conversation:

Teddy(4): 'I have seen all of the Star Wars movies! The first one is when Luke gets his light saber! The second one is when princess Leia wears a bra...'

Noah(6): 'What's a bra?'

Teddy: 'oh it's just something that girls wear...'

The conversation continued about bras and Star Wars, but we were laughing too hard to hear the rest!

Anyway, back to the talent show!

Little Elia even got in on the talent show action with a little help from her older brother. He let her borrow his recorder! It was lovely-notice Teddy covering his ears in the background!! :)

Noah showed us his talent of fighting with a light saber! (He also recited a poem and showed us a scary face that was pretty impressive!) :)

But finally the talent show was over and the real Pyper talent came out when all of the children erupted into dance! You will notice in the sequence of pictures that the robot was done by all the kids! It was priceless! :)

Thanks for getting us all together to show off our talents Grandma, we had a great time!

Da Beach...

OK, just a few more post from Alabama, I swear! :)

Ben has been promising me a visit to the Florida beaches since we have been married. Every single time we head down to Alabama, it never works out or we aren't there long enough to plan a worth while trip to the beach. Anyway, this was finally our opportunity to go and I was so excited! We packed up the 12 of us and headed down. The beach is about three hours south of where Ben's parents live. Other than the one stop on the side of the road so I could puke, the trip was great! :)

I will never forget the first time Ben and I went to the Oregon coast after he had moved up here to the Northwest. I went to pick him up that morning and he was ready to go in shorts and a t-shirt. Little did he know that for the beaches up here you need a hooded sweatshirt and jeans! :) I was definitely digging the beautiful sandy beaches and the warm warm warm water in Florida!

Ben took Tucker out to play in the waves...

They made a turtle in the sand...

Tucker had fun playing with his cousins and in the water...

This is Ben on his sister Megs shoulders! You can barely see her, but she is there! I thought it was funny.

After a few hours of perfect weather, dark clouds started to roll in and we could see lightning off in the distance. That was our cue to start packing up and heading for home. It was kind of crazy how it just came on so suddenly!

It was a great beach day and we had a ton of fun!

Our stint in the south...part II

After the 4th of July celebrations ended, some of the kids and their parents had to go home. But three of Ben's sisters were able to stay the extra week and a half with Tucker and I and we had so much fun. Ben was there for a little while as well, but even he had to leave early. I am so lucky to have in-laws that I love and with whom I feel totally comfortable with without Ben; where I feel more like a sister than a sister-in-law!

Here are some more things we did at Grandma & Grandpa's house...

LOTS of playing time with cousins. I was so glad that Tucker got to get to know his cousins, he had such a great time!

Playing in grandma's curtains...

Playing with Grandpa...

We went to the zoo one day and had a great time. Montgomery has the perfect little zoo.

The boys thought that this train was so cool, it takes you all around the zoo! Here are all of us waiting to head out. This is the way I like to go through a zoo. (I'm not much of an animal lover!)

At the end of the day, Ben had a race with them. These boys just loved having their Uncle Ben around and Tucker felt so lucky to have his daddy there!

I had to put this picture in because my mother-in-law is obsessed with genealogy right now. I think that she has submitted over like 6000 names or something like that for temple work to be done. And that is just of her family members. She is obsessed in the summer time with going to cemeteries and finding long lost relatives! So on some of our little trips, we had to make stops in these tiny little towns to look for head stones! :)

We went up to Tuscaloosa one day to visit Megan, Ben's sister, who is going to nursing school at the University of Alabama. Her apartment complex has 3 pools in it, so we were able to get some good swimming in.
Here is Tucker in all of his swimming gear, ready to jump in...

Tucker fell in love with his Aunt Meg while we were down there, and he's not the only one. While we were down there, our nephew Teddy, who is 4, in all seriousness said to Meg one day 'Aunt Meg, when I grow up will you marry me?' It was the cutest thing I have ever heard. Teddy has some competition now though, Tucker is in love too! :) It was fun spending the day with Meg! I wish we could have seen her more while we were there!

Meg's beautiful 80's hair-do! What a model!

My In-laws house has kind of a spooky cellar type of a basement and one night Ben decided to take the boys on a little trip down there. It totally has lights down there, but they didn't know that, so they got their war paint on and their flash lights in hand and went on a little field trip. My mother in law was right behind them and she started to scratch on the wall once they were down there and these poor little boys were scared out of their minds. Needless to say, they didn't sleep well that night! :) Uncle Ben is always good for an adventure! :)
Getting their war paint (grandmas make-up) on...

And their scary faces...

And some, not so scary...

These boys sure had a great time together! Tucker misses his older cousins and still talks about them.

Some trips to the park...

There is a pretty cool park not far from my in-laws house. It is perfect for these ages of boys.

I love this one of Tucker hanging on for dear life. One more thing he saw his older cousins doing and just had to try. :)

Even Aunt Meribeth, pregnant belly and all got in on the park action...

Big ol' Everett playing on the horsey! :) This child is only 17 months old and just as tall as Tucker and weighs more than him!!! But that is why we love him so! :)

By the end of the week, I think this is how we all felt:

We went to Jesse's house for dinner one night. Jesse (on the right) and Jared (on the left) were Ben's best friends in high-school. I had never met Jesse's wife, Charlotte, and she was wonderful; and I already absolutely love Jared's wife, Cailin, so I knew it would be a great time. These three are hilarious together and we wish we lived closer so we could hang out more! We had a fabulous evening! Cailin is so talented, check out some of her work here.

I can't believe how fast the 2 and a half weeks flew by in Alabama. There is still more to blog about, but I think that should do for this post. (if anyone is still reading this!) :)