D&R Fun

Having the Donadieu family visit for two weeks was a REAL treat! I now know what a house of 5 boys feels like, well 7 with the grown-ups. It was fabulous. They all got along so great and had so much fun.

Porter and Xavier had a blast sword fighting and light saber dueling. Playing with their Beyblades, Pokemon cards, and Bakugan's filled many hours of time. Xavier and Porter even shared the blow up mattress the entire time and loved having a buddy to do everything with.

Gavin L-O-V-E-D baby Miles. He couldn't get enough of him. Every time he woke up he went right to our room to see Miles. He would kiss him, giggle at him and want to sit right next to him every chance he got. It was pretty cool that there was someone smaller than Gavin in the house for a change. One of the handful of words he says is "Baby".

We had to see some Christmas lights while Noah and Kendra were in town. It was no Temple Square, but it was fun to see all the lights as we drove through the park. We were able to sit in our warm car and enjoy the lights. Double bonus.

Cinderella's carriage

The Wizard of Oz. My favorite.

We got to ring in the New Year together. It was fun to incorporate some of the Donadieu's traditions. We made their special green sherbet, vanilla ice cream, and ginger ale New Year's drink. We ate Chinese food for dinner. And we celebrated in style. The boys had a blast making as much noise as possible.

The Chinese spread!

I even whipped up some homemade play dough for the kiddos to play with one afternoon.

The boys had a ball squishing, mashing, rolling, and molding their creations.

4 energetic boys were sitting in one spot for an extended period of time. Play dough, I thank you!

Wing night! We had to be nastalgic and eat at a favorite East Lansing spot. Buffalo Wild Wings.

We ate and ate and ate. The treadmill will be calling my name after this eating fest. (New Year's Resolution number 1)

Naked Noodle Night. Since my boys are the messiest eaters, they always eat pasta and red sauce without their shirts on. I started calling it Naked Noodle Night. Don't worry, the grown ups kept their clothes on. We're keeping this G rated folks. We had a noodle night while the Donadieu's visited.

Yum!

No-sauce-noodles for Porter please.

Looks like Ronan is in a food coma. Noodles are the best.

My fantastic eater. Gavin's got a talent for eating food. He probably eats as much as Xavier or more. Noodle night is no exception. He ate like a champ.

The mommies wrestling with the little ones.

Eating a dinner in peace. What is that?

Gavin loving the baby or trying to suck his brain power.

If he could talk maybe I would know the true answer.

Our attempt at getting five active boys to smile for the camera. After many years of trying to get a good picture of all the boys, this is not too shabby. 3 out of 5 are looking directly at the camera.

Our top 10 most memorable moments during their visit:

10. Zip dying and having to replace the fish twice in two days without Xavier knowing it.

9. Noah introducing us to an awesome cheesesteak place near his home in Stroudsburg.

8. Crafting, crafting, and more crafting with miss Kendra!

7. Spending a fantastic winter day at the Zoo.

6. For Noah and Kendra- eating American food again.

5. Ronan discovering that Buzz and Woody's head do not fit in the toilet bowl, but they had a nice swim!

4. Wrapping Christmas presents late into the night and partly into the morning, anticipating the excitement of 5 bright eyed boys.

3. Getting a babysitter so the grown-ups could go out on a double date. Waiting an hour and a half at Texas Roadhouse, only to have to be seated in two different areas and walking out because of such terrible service. Inhaling food at Zoup so we wouldn't miss the second showing of Sherlock Holmes. We had some great laughs at our Mis-Adventures and we were glad we weren't on a "first date".

2. Noah trying to dry Porter's pajama bottoms in the middle of the night Christmas Eve. The fastest solution, putting them in the microwave. Needless to say there were singe spots on Porter's pj's and they smelled like they had been lit on fire. Ha ha ha!

1. Spending time with awesome friends!