Another Before and After

Courtney Before

Courtney After

The Birthday Boo

Lizzie Boo is four years old today!  We celebrated on Sunday while her cousins were still in town and able to join in the fun with us.    She decorated her own cake.

She received a mountain of gifts.

And since Grandpa was here with all nine grandkids there were group pictures on the front porch...

and on the couch....

and by the swings.

It was great to celebrate another year with our Lizzie!

And the Winner is.....

BEESHUG!!!

That's right!  Emily and I were expecting lots and lots of dropped sno cones but were surprised how well the kids actually did.  Emily even ordered Logan's cone with no syrup so that when he made a mess it wouldn't be sticky.  In the end Emily was the only person who dropped a sno cone.  Had I been guessing ahead of time I would have said Abbie, Logan, Meghan, Elizabeth, and probably Sarah all would have dropped them.  I'm still wondering how we managed to make it thorough without dropping them! 

So MaBelle, when I drop off the gang in a couple weeks they will bring candy.  It hardly seems like a fair trade off for all the work you'll be doing....

Here are a few more zoo pictures.

Courtney and Aiden

Like I said before my kids and their cousins are CRAZY about each other.  It is great to have some of them the same ages and some older ones in the group.  There is not one of them that doesn't love all of the others to bits and pieces.  That being said, Courtney and Aiden have their own same age cousin thing.  If in a group of friends there can be two who are best friends, in this group of cousins Courtney and Aiden are best cousins.  As I flipped through the zoo pictures I was noticing how much Courtney and Aiden were together.

While everyone else was watching the penguins swim, Courtney and Aiden headed off to see what was going on with the zoo keeper.

The reptiles are always a favorite.

And my favorite picture

Courtney laughing at Aiden while he sticks his finger up the nose of the bear.

Don't forget about the contest.  I'll announce the winner this evening!

My First Ever Blog Contest

Todd and Emily and the boys were here with us yesterday.  The cousins were SOOOO happy to have the whole day together!  Todd and Jeremy spent the morning working while Emily and I took all of the kids to the zoo.  We had a great time (other than a small wagon tipping incident...)  We had my six kids, Emily's three boys, and my niece, Meghan.  The boys had seen the picture of my kids on the lizard and wanted to do it too.

Here they are with their ages.  Meghan-3, David-12, Courtney-6, Logan-3, Zach-7, Aiden-6, Sarah-8, Lizzie-3, Kristen-10, and Abbie-2

Aunt Emily became everyone's hero by buying them all sno cones.

So now we come to the contest.  My questions are how many sno cones were dropped/spilled? and who did the dropping/spilling?  You can leave your guesses in the comment section.  If you don't usually comment you could email me your guess and I'll add it to the comment section for you.    The prize will be a box of theater candy and bragging rights.  You can forfeit the candy and just enjoy the bragging rights if you really want to.  Jeremy, Emily and Granny of 9 won't be guessing because they know the real answers.  I think I'll announce the winner Saturday evening.  Let the guessing begin!