Picture overload!
We spent an entire week in Colorado Springs Colorado with Kevin's family for Thanksgiving. His family has never all been together for Thanksgiving like this, and all the siblings, spouses and kids were able to come. Kevin's brother Kenny, his wife and daughter live in Florida, so we talked them into driving here to Missouri to carpool with us the rest of the way.
We look a bit tired, it was 4 am when we left. I felt like we should have been on a pilot commercial with all 8 of us in the car for the 12 hour road trip
lots of leg room for Ari :)
For some reason every time it was the guys turn to sit with the kids they all passed out for a nap- no fair! Even Kenny got in on the napping
Here's all 13 of the grandkids:
Avey, Summer (holding Megan), Matthew, Amanda, Caeven (holding Brynlee), Hailey, Arianna, Scott, Lexi, TJ (holding Simon)
Grammy was in heaven with all her grandbabies!
The 5 siblings: Chris, Carson, Kevin, Kelli and Kenny
Adorable baby Simon was blessed on Sunday by all 4 of his Uncles plus a few others. It was really neat to have this big of a group all together in church. Of course the goofy one is the one you can see everybody in :)
Summer and Simon (Kelli's)
Megan (Carson's) was so cute. She has the biggest laugh and sometimes you are wondering what she sees that we don't because she'll do it for no reason- it's pretty funny
Amanda (Carson's)
Lexi (Kelli's)
Brittney and Brynlee. Brynlee reminded me so much of my little sister Brooke because she's almost one and walking around perfectly but she looks like a little 7 month old running around. So funny!
Scott and Caeven (Chris's)
This was one of the kids favorite pas-times
Simon and Megan
Avey and Lexi
Hailey was just in heaven holding Simon. He was fussing a bit and I told her I would take him but no-she insisted that she could get him to calm down and sure enough she did.
Matthew (Kelli's) at the park to get some energy out
Summer loves to take care of all the babies
Sweet little Avey (Kenny's)
Simon chilling in the swing
Lana and Brittney
Kelli and cutie pie TJ
Katherine and Avey
Kevin, Kelli and I ran the turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning. It was Kevin's first 5K and I was so proud of him! He ran it 3 minutes faster than my first 2 5Ks! Kelli did amazing too! She just had baby Simon a few months ago!
The guys all went shooting Thanksgiving morning too while the girls finished up the cooking
Cathy checking the 30 pound turkey!
Jess and TJ
The kids playing and having fun in the backyard. We hardly ever saw Scott and Hailey- they were either outside or down in the basement. They loved it!
They would all cram around the tiny sandbox
Grammy and Arianna
So Thursday night Carson and Lana went out to do Black Friday shopping and the rest of us were sitting around saying how you couldn't pay us enough money to go! We were sitting around looking at all the adds just talking and having a good time. It was around midnight and Cathy had been asleep on the couch a few hours (that's where she slept every night since everybody else occupied the rooms). Kenny decided he was going to start covering her up with the newspaper ads.
And didn't stop until he ran out of ads. The rest of us were giggling so hard and running to the kitchen anytime Cathy moved. She sat there under all those ads snoring away until Kenny decided to scream and wake her up. She jumped up, looked around with a newspaper stuck on her head, smiled at us for 20 seconds then went back to bed. I've never laughed so hard in my life- snorting and everything! After that we couldn't go to sleep so we went shopping until 2:30 AM :) The next day we showed Cathy the pictures and video and she thought it was pretty funny
Friday Kelli and her family started their long journey back to California and Kevin, Kenny, Katherine and I took some of the kids to Mr. Biggs to play
I got such a workout with Avey in the bounce house- she wouldn't let me get out! :)
Kenny working under the hood
Friday night we celebrated Brynlee's 1st birthday
Check out this face! LOL
We had the best time and laughed a lot! After a whole week of 23 people we were all pretty exhausted! Who wants to do it again next year!? :)
It took us an extra hour to drive home because Ari blew out a diaper and her change of clothes was packed up in the tarp burrito. Note to self: Always have an extra pair of clothes on hand under the seats! Kenny and Katherine stayed a few days at our place before they headed back to Florida, and that was fun too. It was just great to get to visit with everybody and let the cousins play and have fun.
