Cousins!

Tater, Bruiser, and G-Baby love their cousins as much as their cousins love them back! We had a great time watching them all interact together! Tater had a tough time sharing her bestest cousin friend, MJ - she even had a song about it! When MJ was building trains with Bruiser, Tater could be heard singing "Nobody plays with me! Nobody likes me!" over and over in the world's saddest voice. If it hadn't been so cute, we would have cried with her!

As the weekend wore on, everyone seemed to work out their differences and had a blast! Tater frequently played the princess and spent her time looking for her prince (MJ). AR loved being with G-Baby and could be seen carrying her all around. Bruiser just went with the flow and followed whoever was near by!

Camping out in Bruiser's room - Bruiser's in the bed, MJ's next on the floor, and Tater is next to him. Even Shadow got in on the sleepover!

Watching the anteater!

Sitting on a giant caterpillar (L to R) AR, G-Baby, MJ, Bruiser Boy, & Tater Tot!

"I wanna be like MJ!"

Bruiser Boy and MJ at Secret Beach

Cousins at play!

(L to R) Bruiser Boy, G-Baby, AR, MJ, & Tater Tot

Oh What A Weekend!

We had a great visit with Aunt Kiki, Uncle Nail Bag, and cousins, A and M! They arrived Thursday evening with Tater in tow - straight from her extended visit with Mimi and Papa. We enjoyed some great cousin-time, rowdy game playing, productive yard sales, exploring the nature of the area, and - of course - deck building! Uncle Nail Bag is a very talented builder and willingly helped Daddy build a large deck in our backyard. Amazingly, they were finished in a day and a half - and that was with lots of help from the little ones! This entry is dedicated mainly to the deck process but there will be many more posts of the fun-filled weekend

to follow!

"The cousins out with the Mommies at the zoo"

We may have thought about leaving them there at certain moments - we definitely spent the weekend with a bunch of wild animals!

This is what we saw when we came home from the morning at the zoo. There was probably a bit too much analyzing going on! We were quick to demand - "Build a deck, already!"

Moving some dirt to make room for the under-decking.

The under-deck is almost finished (at about 4pm Friday!)

Here comes the decking! We decided on a decorative border which provided some tricky math and made the task a bit more complicated - Uncle Nail Bag handled it well!

It was all hands on "deck" to finish the first half of the decking (at about 7:oo pm Friday)! Bruiser loved all the manly stuff that happened this weekend!

Was it all fun and games for the grown-ups too?

Almost finished!

We still need to lightly sand it and stain it - but WE LOVE OUR DECK! I know it looks a bit crowded in this picture but there is a bit of extra furniture in preparation for G-Baby's baptism next weekend. (Oh, the blog entries I have planned!) It is hard to see in this picture but there is a very distinctive trim all around the edge and running through the middle that we plan to stain a darker color than the regular planks. We can't wait to finish it and enjoy a nice long summer in our back yard!

Thank you, thank you, thank you , Uncle Nail Bag!

This never would have happened without you, so thank you for all the hard work and for working away your long weekend!

We love it!