Christmas Break visitors

 So fun to have Austin and Celia for a few days all to ourselves. We got to go on a double date out to Indian food and the Boise Art Museum.

 Celia had a great idea to paint some cookies.

 It was really amazingly fun!. Everyone got several cookies and it was fun to see what designs people came up with. In fact, it reminded me of decorating Easter eggs. Maybe this could be our new Easter Tradition, because these are fun AND yummy!

 For Liam's birthday Mimi had sent him some of Austin's old building sets (Construx). They had a lot of fun putting them together. Look at the cute builders.
Mimi and Pa and Hilarie came a few days after Austin and Celia. It was the first time in 8 years that I had seen Hilarie and the first time in twelve years (?) that the whole Turley family was together. Pretty significant.

 Hilarie and Celia playing with Lydia and her dry erase board.

 Us, non-Texans, getting introduced to Frito Pie.

 Turley fam

Turley siblings. The visit went really well. Everyone was helping out  the whole time. Mimi probably cooked and cleaned the entire time. Everyone helped with Lydia's birthday party. They are wonderful guests!

8 years later

 When we first moved to Boise some ten years ago we had some friends that we always got together with so that the friends could play. After, who knows how many moves, and eight years later we got to see them again! They were in town and we got to spend the morning together.
After some initial weirdness, they hit it off again and had a delightful time! Even the youngest girls who weren't even born last we met up were able to have fun.
Yeah for friends and for social media (I know, I know) that lets us keep up with peoples lives so that it is easy to pick up again after this many years!

Visitors! Part two

 We were priviledged to then have another group of visitors. It was SO fun! The kids did so well together!

 Somehow I managed to hardly get any pictures of the older 4 kids. I guess because they were mostly off doing their own thing. Which is great!
I also didn't get a picture of a highlight. Jill, James and I went to Edwards Nursery with Shawna to pick out some flowers and vegetables for my garden. It was a treat (pictures of my purchases in a different post).

 We went to the park for hours and played kickball and baseball and (above) monkey kids.

 James and Otto got to meet for the first time.

 Otto displaying extreme relaxation.

 There was some foosball and ping pong played. We had a fruit snack blind taste test to figure out which brand is best? Well, if you are really interested we can tell you our findings. Though some of us didn't agree on which ones tasted like chemical waste and which ones were palatable.

Also, I got to hold this little bundle of love all weekend (when the kids weren't fighting over him).
Thanks, Shakespeares for a lovely weekend!

Visitors! Part one

 My dear friend, Kate, and her girls came for a visit this last month. What a treat it was! They got to stay for a full week and it was just delightful!

 They had tons of fun, and adjusting. This picture shows more of the adjusting.

 Finley loved Zoe. and Zoe loved Fin.

 This picture is so cute to me. Here are these girls, being silly (which is something I LOVE about both of them), being happy, and being friends. I am so happy that this is the second generation of friendship. Pretty cool.

 We had some lovely weather!

 fun at the zoo

Did I mention that Kate and I have been friends for-ev-er? Like more than twenty years?! What a treasure to me. It was so great to talk parenting, old times, new discoveries, and just enjoy each other and each others kids.

sisters weekend

 We have had a sister's weekend the past few years and I was so excited about the one this year. We got to welcome Texas sister as well as her two girls a few days early. Felix was instantly in love with Gwendolyn.

 We got to have some cousin time before the other sisters started arriving.

 Our first official morning we headed to a lovely little boutique/nursery/garden to look around.

 It was fun having the older girls join in this year.

 It was beautiful weather all weekend.

 We also had the pleasure of miss Margaret and little James.

 I would love to say that this was the only food-y indulgence we enjoyed.

 My lovely sisters!

 We painted nails.

 Had a favorite things exchange.

 My sisters are AMAZING musicians, so we did some singing etc.

 We snuggled babies. We lost a lot of sleep. We had times to talk. We did a craft. I was neglegent about taking a lot of pictures.
One of our funnest endevors was doing some cleaning and organizing at Steve and Shawna's home. We also go to visit Shawna and Steve in the hospital. While we were so sad that Shawna wasn't able to come, we were so happy that she was there taking care of their baby.

 Beautiful ladies!

 Scrunch face!

We had such a great time. I am so blessed to be surrounded by these amazing, wonderful, supportive ladies.

Christmas Eve Talent show

 I got a whole bunch of ill-lit, badly-taken pictures for you. But none of them are actually of the performances. Which isn't too bad, since they would've been awful pictures, too. I really try hard to not complain or apologize for the quality of photographs on the blog, since I just need to be grateful that I have a camera and a computer from which to blog. But I couldn't help it on this post.

 Look at all our lovely guests. We had Steve and Shawna, Richard and Laura and family, my mom and dad and sister, Elisabeth over for our Christmas Eve Talent Show (which is actually a Turley tradition).

 Steve and Richard juggled. Liam played the recorder. Liam and Zoe did a choreographed swordfight. Zoe did a hip-hop dance. Lydia showed some pictures she had colored. Ethan showed how he could play a game on Grandma's Ipod. Richard and Elisabeth did a violin/cello duet. Elisabeth and I did a cello/guitar duet while we sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing with Laura.

 Here is the audience, enjoying.

 Steve, Richard, Elisabeth and myself played in a Bluegrass quartet: Wagon Wheel. It was so much fun to play together! 
I did get video of all the talents, just no pictures.

We finished up with the kids opening a gift (Lydia's plates) and then Grandma Sam told the story of John and Marjorie that she use to tell us growing up.
It was a lovely night. I was so happy to have this wonderful family around me.