Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here

We're revisiting the daily format of the blog instead of going by person since Byron took the week off work for the first Boulton Family Reunion. 

Matching Cousins
Mindy and I each found the same pair of footie PJ's at Once Upon a Child

making it into a conveyor belt

Byron is obviously not ready for Caleb to drive hahaha

Snuggly and sweet :)

Falling asleep in a high chair for the first time ever

Can you tell they love each other?? hahaha

Monday:  We arrived in Texas! It was a pretty slow, lazy day since they had to pick us up from the airport then Melissa later in the evening.  It was exciting to get here. :) That night we played games and stayed up late telling silly stories from childhood.  My cheeks hurt from laughing so hard.

Tuesday:  Kristen, Nathan, and Carl arrived!  Byron and Craig went to go play racquetball and we just got to spend time as a big happy family! It was great fun having everyone all together for the first time since Byron and I got married and it felt like the week was going to go by way too fast.  That evening Grandma and Grandpa put the children to bed so the siblings could go out.  We went to this cute French cafe and had delicious hot chocolate and desserts.

Wednesday:  We managed to get all 12 of us ready and out the door by 8:15 am for family pictures. (Impressive I know hahaha) We spent about an hour getting all different pictures of everyone before coming home and having lunch.  That afternoon Melissa and I made cupcakes with Cameron for the Grandchild birthday party we were having that night.  He was quite upset he couldn't eat the cupcakes right away but it was fun watching him scoop all the extra icing out of the bowl to eat. Before dinner we went to this really nice park about 10 minutes from their house.  It had a little "town" with streets and stop lights.  There were various buildings that represented a grocery, a library, a house, car dealership, gas station and such that had educational things in each one.  They also had different kinds of playground equipment all over the place.  It was huge and all fenced in., I think everyone should have a park that awesome.  That night Kristen and Nathan made awesome tacos for dinner and afterwards we lined all the grandchildren up, sang to them, and had them blow out candles.  They each got to open a present from Grandma and Grandpa and we had fun.  That night we made 3 different kinds of pies, banana cream, apple, and pumpkin.  The house smelled awesome and we got to play some games while waiting for things to bake and/or set. 

Thursday:  Thanksgiving!!! The kitchen was all a-bustle all morning and our meal was amazing.  We had green bean casserole (one of my personal favorites) and mashed potatoes with corn and TURKEY!!! and of course yummy gravy and rolls.  It was really great.  Even Caleb got in on the yumminess and ate turkey and mashed potatoes and almost an entire roll.  :) That evening after we got all the kiddos in bed we had a fondue night.  They (Craig and Mindy) made a cheese fondue and a chocolate fondue and we had some nice time to sit around and talk, while eating yummy food. :)

Friday:  It was a pretty easy day.  I ran out to Target that morning (all the hardcore black Friday shoppers had already been there and moved on I'm guessing since there wasn't anymore people there than I think would have been there already).  Byron got a new phone and I picked on up for Alyssa so she wouldn't have to go out.  When I got back we went swimming at the Y.  They had a really fun pool with a mini swirl pool and splash pad.  They turned on the water slide and Byron, Craig, Melissa, and Kristen all went down a few times.  That afternoon Melissa had to leave and we were sad to see her go.  We played this fun game called quibbler and Mindy blew us all out of the water.  Last night we watched Newsies.  Byron and I only got about half way through before going to bed, but I remembered how much I love that movie.

This morning has been pretty slow.  Byron went with Craig to help a family who is moving while the rest of us stayed at the house and watched some Charlie Brown shows.  Pretty cute stuff.

Guess that's all for this week.  Cheerio!

In order to see the mass amounts of pictures I took from this week please visit the link below.  For a short summary though I've included a couple of my favorites :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.346873342076665.75639.100002620077125&type=1

and here is the link to our funny video

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=346869048743761&set=vb.100002620077125&type=2&theater