Family Comes to Town

My sister and her four kids flew in from Gilbert, AZ (my mom flew in from California) for a visit. It was so much fun having them here. The cousins get along great and everyone was so good!

This is my niece Clara. She is 4 months older than Little Bird.

My niece Ella who is 7 years old loved helping watch The Chief. She thought he might enjoy cuddling with some blankets.

Here we are tie-dying some shirts for our mini "reunion" (we are missing my sister's husband, my dad, and hubby...who was here but had to work everyday).

I made these dragon puppets for Lizard. She said she wanted an ice dragon, so I made her that and a fire dragon to go with it (the flames are removable). We have a bunch of puppets and all the cousins prepared puppet shows that were performed later that evening. I don't have any pictures of the show or the puppet curtain because it is on video. It was so much fun!!

Here we are at the dinner table. I like eating at home with the kids so I made dinner every night. The table fit almost all of us, but hubby volunteered to stand.

The Chief sat on his own. Poor guy. We moved him next to Little Bird at the next meal.

Before starting our backyard water park the kids got to go on a treasure hunt. They had clues that led them to different locations in the yard. At those locations there was a letter that they wrote down and once they had all the letters it spelled out the location of the treasure. I used a treasure box hubby's dad made and some dollar store toys.

My niece Addi and her big sister Ella with The Chief.

Kristen took care of The Chief while I headed up the water balloon toss and fight. :)

We had a slip and slide from last year that still worked.

Cooper got fancy and went down on his knees.

Lizard and Ella went down on their rears.

Cooper tried the tube and the kids talked me into going down too. 

Clara agreed to go down in the boat.

Ahhhhh...they're so cute.

Ella really likes making doll clothes and sews them by hand. It was her first time using the sewing machine and she did a good job. She made a quilted sleeping bag and a little stuffed bunny.

 The Chief is holding Ella's book for her.

Even though they were down to their last books Kristen still found some good ones for the kids.

 Addi is a big fan of cooking and since I sorta like it myself we worked on a special treat I had been wanting to try for months. It was one of the first recipes I pinned and it turned out really yummy. Addi did a great job.

Behold cupcake puppie chow. Yummmmm!

 

While Cooper hung out in the basement for a Wii marathon the girls all got makeovers. I did the nails, Kristen did makeup and Ella did the hair. You should see what she can do. She is really good. Unfortunately I forgot to get pictures of them all done up. :(

Little Bird loves getting her nails done.

My sister put some eye makeup on me. I felt pretty fancy.

Here are all the kids dressed up in their shirts ready for the zoo. They did such a good job and it was easy to spot them.

We took three strollers into the zoo and one was a double stroller. The kids did awesome and really enjoyed the special zoo exhibits.

Attack of the bronze octopus statue.

You can't see because of the flash, but this bubble they're sitting in allowed them to get a little closer to the penguins. It was so fun watching them swim around and strut their stuff.

These were added since our last visit. They're the best!