more family!

after one family reunion, we had a week to rest up (ha!!) and get ready for another. thankfully, kelvin was able to come home for it. at the beginning of the week, the kids and i spent monday and tuesday at my parents'... monday afternoon, i got a text from kelvin asking if we wanted to go to tennessee with him. turns out, he had to go back down because the project STILL wasn't done- but this time, we were going to go along! of course, i was so excited i couldn't sleep that night.

monday afternoon, great-grandma and cole watched great-auntie mary play with gus!

and madi watched from the safety of great-auntie mary's lap!
(she gets excited when she sees a puppy, but only if someone's holding her)

cole helped grandma in the kitchen...

... "help" being a pretty loose term, of course!

(actually, he did well- kept the flour mess pretty well confined to just one corner of the kitchen)

madi got a boo-boo on her lip wednesday evening. she was tired from the past few days, plus the excitement of having daddy home when she got up from her nap- it all sent her into a "mood" which resulted in a tantrum that involved her smashing her face into the coffee table, resulting in the carnage above. poor baby- took her three tries to get latched on to her paci successfully; that puffy lip just kept getting in the way!

thursday brought a new discovery:

organic sucker

+ drooling toddler

+ little fingers that would rather play with said dripping sucker than eat it (possibly due to afore-mentioned puffy lip)

=...

... edible, organic hair product with amazing hold!
(it washes out amazingly well, though)

on friday, kelvin took cole up to his parents' and to the iola car show so that i could get us all packed for our trip. i found it went amazingly well; madison's so awesome at entertaining herself and is so much more content just to do her own thing when her big brother is nowhere in sight. it was a total breeze!

anyway, uncle dave came for the reunion, so he got acquainted with cole while four-wheeling and checking out old cars. cole was quite taken with his new great-uncle!!

the first thing he said when we got to the brotzman family reunion on saturday was "see grampa dan house!", which was quickly followed by "uncle dave! uncle dave? where uncle dave? uncle da-a-a-a-ave!!!" it was repeated several times, with increased volume at each round- and once he finally found his beloved uncle dave, he was happy at last!

madison got a tractor ride from daddy

cole and one of his distant cousins played "race" on the tractors in grandpa dan's shed

and madison? she passed out before we even had lunch. she slept sweetly in grandma ruby's arms for a few hours.

the brotzman reunion was nice- family i'd never met before, a small, intimate gathering. it's amazing how reunions differ from family to family, but each one is special. :)