Round 2 of Visitors! :) (Part 1)

Devin (my brother; a twin to Eric, the brother that visited a week earlier), Deanna (my sister-in-law), and Alayna (my niece) visited the end of March. They drove straight for like 24 hours to get here! Thank goodness they got to fly home.

Silly face

We took everyone to Pella. We just had to get another Bismark :)

 I love my dad's face in this picture.  My parents are the best at being grandparents.

We climbed Cordon Tower. It was way windy on top

A big gust of wind came that almost blew Devin away

The girls weren't so sure about the Easter bunny. Mckenna only sat on his lap cuz she would get a coloring book out of the deal.

It was more fun watching the proud Grandma than the train :)

Mckenna being silly

Theirs no better entertainment than balloons

See the creepy man in the background?

I get goosebumps when I see this picture! Creepy

All of the adults noticed the creepy man, but the kids didn't seem to mind :)

 

...and that's just part 1 :)

Pella

Devin had a few days off the end of March so we decided to visit Pella, a small dutch town here in Iowa (that we pretty much could have gotten a job at, but I told Devin we have to be closer to family haha)

The Doghouse Cafe that we ate at.  Long story short, it was a very interesting experience. :) If you want a good laugh, go eat there.

Devin got a hamburger that was in between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches.(right after I took this picture, Brielle grabbed Devin's water glass and dumped it all over. The chef came over demanding to hold Brielle because he thought he could calm her down, and as you might guess, it just made her more mad. Oh, and Mckenna was coloring all over their menu. And that's just half of the story.  But, Mckenna did get some good fried macaroni and cheese (that they thought they had run out of. But someone yelled from the back "We found it Ma!"). As I said, go there if you need a good laugh)

They have 2 bakeries that both claim to have the best homemade pastries.  We tried a bismark and a Dutch letter at each of them. They were both DELICIOUS! But, we have differing opinions as to which one was actually better.

We love it when Devin gets a few days off!

Visitors! :)

A few weeks ago, we had some visitors! :) We LOVE visitors. We weren't able to go home for Christmas this past year so we didn't get to see any family.  Eric (my brother), Megan (my sister-in-law), and Kaylee (my niece) (and their dog, Saidee) drove up from Texas to visit us. It was so good to see Eric and Megan and to meet little Kaylee, who is a month and a half older than Brielle.  Megan made matching skirts and bows for all 3 girls. They were are way cute.  Mckenna loves to wear her "matching dress" with Brielle. (You would not believe how hard it was to get all 3 kids looking at the camera... let alone smiling haha)

We went to the Saint Patrick's Day parade in downtown Des Moines.  We saw lots of crazy drunk people there :).  Saidee was scared of all the noise and spent a lot of time like this... haha

We had a few people wondering if Brielle and Kaylee were twins :)

Mckenna really did have fun, by this time she was just tired and not willing to smile

Mckenna loved Saidee.  Eric helped Mckenna shake with Saidee. Mckenna thought she was pretty cool.

At the zoo

One good picture of the 3 girls

Thanks for coming! We had lots of fun. Can't wait to see you again!

Everyday Fun

So I have decided that I'm really bad at this whole blogging thing haha. But I will keep trying! :) A few random pictures from March (yes, like 2 months ago. For some reason, I can't just pick up blogging from where I am. I have to update and catch up. So, bear with me :)  )

One of my favorite things lately is hearing the girls in the other room laughing together.  It happens all the time and I love it! I always try to peek in and see what is going on because it's just so cute.  When I looked in, this is what I saw...

Yes, that's Brielle under a bunch of blankets trying to get out. And believe me, they were BOTH laughing really hard. Little Bri is a good sport :)

And this was what I saw next...

Mckenna has been into dressing herself lately, and as you can tell, that's a battle that I choose to not fight. So she usually wins.

Mckenna loves talking on the phone. It just makes her day to get a call from her friend Nelson.  She loves it.

And little Brielle is as cute as ever. She's very curious and gets into everything. She knocked the snacks out of the diaper bag and strew them across the floor. I guess she was hungry.

Mckenna and I had a marshmallow shooting contest. She was in heaven!  It was lots of fun.

Mckennas favorite thing to do is somersaults.  She's getting pretty good!

and here she made a slide for all her little friends to go down. This kept her entertained for a few hours!

Curious Brielle, just looking around :) (I love those big cheeks!)