Little family reunion

If Saturday at my parents' house was relaxed, Sunday was busy, busy, busy! The morning was fairly slow: we slept, we ate, we attended sacrament meeting via zoom. I texted a lot with my kids who were texting me a lot. Here's a picture I sent to Benjamin of Phoebe and Millie:

Benjamin texted back, "Is that milky on the right? Milky. Milly. Millie."

Autocorrect got him good!

The babies played nicely together...

...until Bumpa came into the living room and called out "Good morning!" in his gruff voice...

Phoebe did not appreciate his salutation.

We also got to do a video call with my sister Abra, who wasn't able to come down from Canada for this visit...or for about twenty years now. And although we've been up to see her, we've never all gone up to see her, so really all my siblings haven't been together in over twenty years. That's a long time!

But we had five of us together last Sunday and, honestly, that's pretty good for us! Here we are, with my parents...and Phoebe (because she didn't want to sit with anyone that wasn't also in the picture me):

Kelli also wanted a four-generation picture of herself with my dad, Rosie, and Ireland:

And then we took pictures of the mommies with their babies:

And Kelli wanted in on the action, so she grabbed her baby in blue (Matthew) and made him sit with the little baby girlies in blue (Phoebe and Millie):

I also have a picture of Rosie sitting on Kelli's lap with Irie sitting on Rosie's lap, which was pretty funny.

It was wonderful to have so much family around and to watch the babies interact with each other.

This red block was particularly popular among the babies for whatever reason (probably because they were able to bite chunks of wood off of it because it's so ancient; my mom actually ended up throwing it away for that reason):

This was Phoebe lifting the block triumphantly after evading Millie's fingers that were just itching to snatch it away.

Irie couldn't understand what was wrong with Phoebe. She and Millie were having a grand ol' time toddling around the house, pushing some little stools around:

Phoebe, meanwhile, just sat there observing like some dumb baby:

So Irie decided she'd teach Phoebe a thing or two about how to be a big girl. She grabbed her and tried to make her stand up. What you can't hear is Ireland's impressive and commanding screeching (though perhaps you can see the intensity in her face).

Phoebe was not amused, but she was easily soothed when we announced it was time for dinner. 

Uncle Patrick had made both a taco salad and hot potato bar and other people brought fruit and dessert and deviled eggs and things. It was a wonderful meal. We sat outside under the little awning that Uncle Patrick and his friend had spent Saturday rigging up, but here's a picture of the group inside:

For the record, I was technically the tallest female in attendance. However, I look like the shortest because no one else wanted to be in the front, so I volunteered to squat in front. (And on the right you can see Millie's birthday cake, since we celebrated her birthday a little bit early).

Here's a quick selfie I grabbed with my Uncle Bruce before he and Aunt Sara sneaked off (Sara had had a long day and was ready for a nap):

And here's a quick selfie I took with my sister Kelli:

Uncle Allen, who children sometimes find intimidating, was on a baby-whispering kick last week. Ireland willingly sat on his lap and even Phoebe (the most vocally-timid baby in attendance (though Millie might beat her out in actual timidity)) happily sat and played with him for a few minutes!

Auntie K brought the babies a little "learning book" that narrates information about whatever picture you touch in either Spanish or English, which the babies thought was pretty entertaining.

It was a good evening, but we were all tuckered out when it was over. I put Phoebe to bed and then my sister Josie coaxed me down to the basement to watch an episode (or two, or three) of Ghosts (the British version) while her sweet kitty Cinnamon cuddled on my lap (which was new for me because our cat is not a cuddler). Ghosts is so good. How good? Let's just say that Josie didn't have to coax me to watch the show with her again; I went very willingly to catch an episode or two every evening.