Updike funeral and reunion

A couple of weeks ago Jacob's Grandma Updike passed away at age 92. This past Saturday they had the funeral up in Mesa, so we drove up on Friday and stayed over night. With all the extended family coming in to town, it turned into a nice big reunion with all of Grandma Updike's kids, 40 of the 43 living grandkids there, and I don't know how many of the 80ish great-grandkids.There was a big get together Friday night, then Saturday was the funeral, luncheon, interment, and another get together/party that evening.

The girls on the ride up:

Rachel was happy with getting to watch movies the whole time, but it wasn't quite entertaining enough for Annie, and since she wouldn't nap in the car she was a little cranky. I like how she's chillin' in this picture, though. The last hour or so of the 2 1/2 or 3 hour drive involved plenty of crying, between Annie and Ryan. We were happy to get there. 

Grandma and Grandpa Campbell flew down from their mission in Alaska for the funeral. Thankfully, we got a few hours in when we got up there Friday before the excitement/craziness started to hang out with them and for them to meet Ryan.

 

He was happy to meet his grandparents.

Jesse, Cari, and Sharon drove down together and joined in the fun, as well. Jacob's Aunt Nancy has the coolest playroom ever with a slide built in. Rachel and Annie both had a blast on that thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aunt Nancy also has a pretty fun (and large) backyard. More cousins started showing up as the afternoon progressed, and the girls were off to have fun with kids their own age.

They have a couple tortoises and a pig, much to the delight of the kids.

 

 

 

The kids weren't the only ones having fun:

 

 

Mark and Ashley got there after we had already headed to bed on Friday, so Saturday we got to hang out with them and meet the new baby Sophie, and see how much Lena had grown.

All the cousins that were at the funeral: (I think after 5 1/2 years of marriage I can finally identify about half of them, if not by name, at least by which family they belong to.)

 

Rachel spent most of the luncheon under the table, which turned out to be a great babysitting device. If only Annie had been as interested in staying under there, we could have had a nice peaceful lunch.

 

During lunch Annie got tired, so I put her down for a nap in a pack 'n play in one of the rooms at the church. Consequently, I stayed behind at the church, out of the 100+ degree heat with Annie and Ryan while everyone else went to the cemetery. Jake was one of the pallbearers.

After we'd cleaned up and changed clothes, we headed over to another church building for the festivities of that night. There was lots of visiting amongst the adults, and lots of playing by the children (and some adults). 

 

They brought plenty of toys to keep everyone occupied.

 

 

Sophie: (what a cutie!!)

They even brought dress up clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, we did not eat Sophie for dinner. Luckily there was enough pizza to go around. ;)

Annie and Brigham had a tolerate/hate relationship. They played next to each other well for a while, then one of them would want one of (or all of) the toys the other was playing with and get mad. Usually it was Annie that was getting mad because she couldn't have every single toy. Just in time for nursery (hallelujah, she gets to go to nursery on Sunday!!!!). 

 

The kids all put on a play on the stage. The younger kids mostly just stood around soaking up the attention, but the older kids actually acted out some kind of a plot. When the curtain opened and everyone clapped, Annie got so excited that everyone was apparently clapping for her, and had to join in on the clapping. 

We're grateful for the plan of salvation and that we know we can be an eternal family and we'll see Grandma Updike again. The whole weekend was a ton of fun, which isn't something you might think of when you first think about attending a funeral, but with our knowledge of the plan of salvation, we got to celebrate her life and her posterity and have a fun time with all her descendants, rather than just sitting around mourning that she was gone. Just another blessing of the gospel. :)

The kids

Ryan reached one month of age this past week. He's such a good baby. Thank goodness, because I'm not sure Annie would love (or even tolerate) him like she does if he demanded more of my time than he does. 

Ryan regularly has a 5 hour stretch of sleeping at night, and Friday night went for 7 hours!! Woohoo! He can even fall asleep on his own if I lay him on his tummy(shhh--don't tell the doctor, but that's the only way he can stay asleep for more than 10 minutes at a time without being held).

Ryan has started watching us, and follows us pretty well with his eyes. The girls LOVE entertaining him whenever he's awake.

I got Annie on video this morning playing peek-a-boo with Ryan. She's really cute with him, but we now leave that bar on his bouncy seat to keep her from leaning on his stomach when she's wanting to see him closer, or to bounce him ("a rock a rock a rock" she says). Her blanket is her most favorite thing ever that she has to have whenever we're in the car, or when she gets hurt or needs comfort. And especially when she goes to sleep. And she loves Ryan (or as she calls him Ry-ee) so much that she tries to share her blanket with him all the time. Such love. :)



Last week Ryan started smiling. We caught one of the first ones on camera, back when it was the "I think he just smiled" kind of smiles. But Thursday he started smiling huge and for like 20 or 30 seconds at a time, so there's no question that he is smiling at you. I love little baby smiles!!

Annie continues her little antics, and her latest favorite thing to play with is the bin that holds the mega blocks. She likes to use it as a bed, and puts her blankie in it before climbing in to lay down. 

Rachel is getting more and more creative every day. She loves coloring and drawing, as well as building special castles or towns with the blocks. She doesn't always appreciate Annie's help, but they do generally play together pretty well. Rachel's favorite thing to do lately that she thinks is just the funniest thing in the world is to change into her pajamas at random times in the day. Particularly her Hello Kitty pajamas that are nice and fuzzy and warm--perfect for the 90 degree weather we've been having lately. ;/

Here are a couple pictures of the little guy on his one month birthday:

His face has changed a bit since he was born, getting a little longer, maybe. He's certainly expressive when he is happy or angry. And I love his little cowlick that won't lay flat for anything right in the middle of his head. It's crying out for a mohawk, I guess. Either that, or it's time for the little guy's first haircut.

Rachel and Annie had a tea party tonight. It lasted until Annie started one of her other favorite pasttimes: pouring water all over the place.

Every meal (and tea party) involves tons of "clinking" of cups. Annie will hold up her cup and yell "tink!" whenever she wants to clink, and if Rachel is close enough she'll hurry to comply.

They're fun little gals. I'm glad they like each other most of the time.

Washington Knight's visit, continued

After Justin and Marie went home we had a few low-key days where we decompressed, and Rachel stopped having so many melt-downs as we kind of got back into the routine, with preschool, and such. Todd and Savannah came out and babysat the girls while I took Ryan to his 3 week checkup. I got our house back in order a bit, and got some laundry done.

Then Friday we got out of the house again for some fun. We went back to the zoo, and it was WAY less crowded than it had been the Friday before when we had gone with Justin and Marie on Good Friday/Spring Break for most of Tucson. And I even remembered my camera this time.

We brought the double umbrella stroller and I began to appreciate how great that thing is going to be to have around in a few months when Ryan is ready to be in it. Eloise and Annie enjoyed the first turn, and Annie actually stayed in the stroller way longer than she normally would, probably because she had company. Jared and Rachel also rotated through the stroller line up, so it was put to great use.

We went to feed the giraffes, and Annie was a little braver than last time, but the tongue still kind of scared her. I think the best part of the giraffe feeding isn't the actual feeding, but just getting to be so close to the giraffes. The kids love that.

The happy family:

Last time we had only seen 3 of the elephants in the new elephant exhibit, but this time all 5 were out, including the little baby. So cute!

The obligatory elephant picture:

Near the elephant exhibit they have some African-type instruments set up for the kids to play with. Rachel and Annie had a blast drumming on these drums. Notice Eloise at the other end pounding away. Savannah had a hard time getting her away from the drum. :)

Drum love:

This xylophone-type thing was pretty cool, too.

All in all, it was a fun zoo trip, and not nearly as tiring as the week before, since we didn't have to wade through huge packed crowds of people.

Saturday we hung out at Grandma and Grandpa's house mostly, though we did escape for a double date out to lunch with Todd and Savannah, leaving all the kids at Grandma's.

Annie had fun playing with blocks, but the most fun was the car zipping down the ramp Todd had helped build. See the look of pure joy on her face?

This girl LOVES cars! And Eloise was just intrigued that someone could be so happy about a little car.

More playing:

Sunday dinner with the kid table:

I love this picture. Since it shows pretty accurately how things went most of the time. Annie trying to "help" Ryan with his binky, Grandma surrounded by grandkids, Eloise curious and watching everything that's going on, and Rachel convincing someone to read to her. All that's missing is Jared commenting on fans or electricity, his two loves in life.

Eloise turned one while she was out here.

Rachel helped make the festivities more festive by throwing the tissue paper around while Eloise opened her presents.

She sure was excited by the doll Grandma and Grandpa got for her.

Savannah made her a bear cake, but had a hard time convincing her to eat it. This is about as dirty as she got.

Some of the other kids decided to join in the spirit of a first birthday by getting a chocolatey face to rival Eloise's. They did a decent job of it.

It was a fun visit. Now it's back to regular old life without cousins. I suppose we'll manage, but we're glad we got to see everyone and look forward to the next time.

Post-Easter fun

The day after Easter was the last full day that Justin and Marie were in town. We spent the day hanging out together around my parent's house. We had a picnic outside and the kids played in the pool and jumped on the trampoline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annie got herself nominated among the cousins as the most likely to end up in the ER. She would throw herself down and run around with abandon and no thought to her safety or common sense.

 

 

We had so much fun with all the cousins here visiting! It was a very busy, slightly chaotic, but very fun couple of days when everyone was here. We wish it would happen more often! We're hoping Justin and Marie might move back to Tucson, or at least somewhere closer than Georgia, so if you happen to know of any jobs around here, pass them along, because they're willing to move if there's a job to work at. Then we'll just set to work on changing the weather/climate so we can convince Todd and Savannah to move back.