Since the kids had a long weekend off of school we took a trip to visit the Smouts in Rochester. We had 5 days of fun with cousins and grandparents. It turned into a belated Christmas celebration and an early birthday party for Brendan. As always, the house was full and so were our stomachs :)
The girl cousins had a great time styling each other's hair throughout the weekend. Emma wore as many clips as possible in addition to an old petticoat she found in the dress up bin in the basement. She looked like a can-can girl most of the time she was at the house!
Oh, please help us when she is a teenager!
The main event was our brand new baby cousin Jillian. She is 3 months old and Claire loves her. I mean LUUUUUUUUUUVVVSSS her! She could not keep her hands off of her. She even changed her diaper, voluntarily. Since we have been home there has been lots of talk about Mommy having another baby! Good thing we won't see Jillian again before the summer. Maybe by then she will start crying a lot, talking back, pooping on the kids and grow an unsightly horn because otherwise I have a feeling we are going to have to revisit the baby topic, again! She is very cute and very sweet.
Brendan turns 6 the end of January so we celebrated early since he wanted Sam at his party. Grandma made him a tiger cake complete with chocolate covered coconut--yummy! It is really bad when I blog about a cake topping. 
On Friday Scott and I got to go shopping for everyone's Christmas gifts and birthday gifts. Brendan wanted a radio control car and we got this huge yellow Camaro! I think everyone was happy with their gifts. I know my kids were happy and an extension of Christmas is always good. January is officially the most depressing month of the year according to Scott so presents are always helpful!
Brendan and Kristina admiring "the wheels"
Grandma Smout is a wonderful seamstress and made all the girls and their dolls matching PJ's. Jilly got left out on this. I guess grandma doesn't do sleepers!
Emma, Kristina, Claire, Jillian, Ashlyn, Haley
Brendan, Madison and Sam
On Saturday we went to a tubing hill with man-made snow because the temps were warm enough to melt almost all of the Rochester snow. We went tubing for 3 hours and it was so fun!
We tried most days to have an outing outside of the house for Grandma's sanity. In addition to the tubing we also went to the craft store and spent Sunday at Sheryl and Randy's house. When we were at home we played a lot of games of SORRY. PaPa is a master at SORRY.
On Monday, our last day together, we went to the local YMCA to swim and play. Since it was MLK day the pool was packed. I managed to not have to swim...did I mention the chocolate covered coconut?? yeah! 
Brendan and Sam
The kids had so much fun on this trip! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for all your hard work and mornings of getting to sleep in :)
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