2 weeks of family fun

With 2 adults and 2 small children more in the house, even our house seems small all of a sudden. We had the sleeping arrangements figured out pretty quick though. My brother and Aafke slept in the guest bedroom, together with Tess. We put a mattress on the floor for her and her stuffed animals. She loved her special sleeping place, although there were times that she crawled into bed with her mom and dad as well....

Luke was the lucky one, he got a room all to himself! He slept in Quinn's crib, which we had to lower of course. And Quinn slept in a portable crib in our bedroom. She did really good and hardly kept me awake.

Okay, the plan was to eat brats....but when you don't pay attention to the grill, they can turn black. So that called for a backup plan: Luigi's. We only call Luigi's in emergencies, because after you eat even just a little bit of their pizza, you have enough again for months plus you will be drinking a gallon of water afterwards. But at this moment, we didn't have a choice. And of course, with Ryan's mind that only thinks BIG BIG BIG, he ordered a football pizza. The kids had already eaten, so 4 adults.....do you think we had enough? By the way, the darker part of the pizza (on Ryan's side) was for my brother: special order without(!) cheese.

My brother couldn't get over how big that pizza was. You can't buy a pizza this size in Holland, that's for sure. For the record, we did have some leftovers.
The weather wasn't the greatest in the two weeks they were here. We had some nice days, but there were days as well where we had to entertain ourselves inside. Luke thought it was time for some excersise so he went downstairs with my brother to work out.

It doesn't hurt my brother to do some excersise either.....:-) (Just kidding)

Dancing along with children's songs in the living room. Quinn loved it as well. I've been playing the dvd quite a few times already, so she can listen to them and learn them when she gets a bit bigger.

Reading time: Quinn loves to listen when we read to her and to look at the pictures in the book. Tess joined us when I was reading about Bumba and the whale.

A few weeks before they came here, I promised Tess we are going to bake a chocolate cake (brownie) when they are here. She had been talking about it ever since and couldn't wait to make it once they got here....so we did....it turned out very yammie.

When uncle Ryan was home it was time to play with the ball in the sunroom.

And Luke showed Quinn how to put the different shaped blocks back in the bucket.

We didn't only bake a chocolate cake, we also made cookies. My special helper Tess was in charge of decorating them. And what a job she did. Every cookie got a good share of sweet stuff on it. And now and then some ended up in Tess' mouth as well.....

The sun did come out a few times luckily, so then it was time to put on our sunglasses and go outside!

Cool dudes....

We don't have a lot of toys yet for the kids to play outside with (better said, we don't have anything yet). But what more do you need than a football! The kids loved to throw the ball around. And so did the two dads.

Tess with her bubble maker.

We also took the kids to the New Zoo. It was kind of chilly that day so lot of the animals were inside. But it was nice to walk around anyway.

Luke even got to give the giraffe a cookie.

The penguins weren't home. Only this crazy family was outside....

Quinn didn't think too much of the Zoo yet. She pretty much slept all the time we were there. I'm sure next year she will enjoy it more.

Three sleeping kids in the back seat. Dreaming about all the nice things we did together.

We had so much fun with the family her. It was so precious to see how Tess and Luke were getting along with Quinn. They sure love each other like crazy. Now we're back at seeing each other on the computer screen again. I'm sure Quinn already recognizes the skype ring tone.

We can't wait to see them again in December. We miss you :-)