Campbell Reunion-Wednesday

With the birthday festivities complete, Lena moved the party to the room they were sleeping in. :)

Miriam was walking around holding a fistful of something. When Jesse investigated this is what he found:

 Brothers with their babies:

 Annie refused to cooperate in getting a picture with Jesse. The best one was her just closing her eyes.

 Wednesday we celebrated Halloween. We went to the Peppermint Place, which used to give factory tours of how they made all that candy, but they had relocated and no longer gave tours. We could see the workers through the windows, though. And there was supposed to be a video we could watch showing how the candy is made, but the TV was broken. So basically we just looked at all the candy and let the kids pick out a few pieces. It was really tasty.

 The kids also carved a pumpkin out back, but I didn't see any pictures of that adventure.

Meanwhile, Megan began antagonizing Ryan without even meaning to (I'm sure that'll change sometime in the next year). She found his semi trucks and wanted to play with them, too.

 Wednesday afternoon we headed over to the church building to play around for a while. The waffle blocks made for some fun ride on toys powered by Jake and Uncle Mark.

 Miriam especially loved it and was so cute kicking her feet whenever Mark was pushing her around.

 Jacob decided a blanket would be a lot less work to pull than pushing the waffle blocks. The kids had fun riding around on that, too.

 Then the adults got tired. Or lazy. ;)

 And made the kids do all the work.

 I don't know if Ryan ever managed to budge Miri, but he sure tried hard.

Grandpa Campbell has some wood carving skills.

 The kids especially liked when he was out in the garage working using tools that were loud. Nothing draws kids faster than noise.

When the kids were asleep that night we all took advantage of the kid free zone to play some pick up sticks and Take Two.

Campbell reunion-Tuesday

Tuesday the weather was beautiful, so the kids were happy to head to the park to play for a while.

 Baby cuteness:

Tuesday was also Beverly's birthday. Since Ryan and Bevy were born 8 days apart, we had a birthday party for both of them.

Cari and crew organized a few birthday games. The 2- and 3-year-olds took a little help to catch on, but the older kids did great.

There was a fire in the fire pit and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire. We all enjoyed eating outside. Thankfully it was nice enough weather that even us Arizonans were okay outside without jackets.

Cupcakes!

and ice cream!

Messy face!

Of course everyone was eager to "help" the birthday kids unwrap their presents.

Ryan got a LeapReader, which was put to very good use on our drive home.

We brought all our LeapFrog books we had from years ago when Rachel got a TagReader, so there was plenty of material to read.

The theme for our reunion week was holidays. So we celebrated together the holidays we usually miss out on when we're apart from each other. We got a birthday party in on Tuesday, and as that wrapped up we celebrated Independence Day and lit some sparklers.

The Campbell brothers.

 Notice Ryan sneaking in down in the corner with the other Campbell men.

There was a lot of this going on all week long:

Campbell reunion-Monday

Most mornings at the Campbell house found Cari in the bathroom surrounded by a bunch of little girls ready to get their hair done.

 
The Texas Campbells arrived in the wee hours of Monday morning and when everyone woke up, cousin fun really started.

Ryan and Sophie sharing the bench while watching Shaun the Sheep with Annie:

Someone found this semi truck, then later found another one. Ryan spent all week playing with those two trucks and nothing else.

He would stuff his blankets in the trailer, and find other little things to put in there. Maybe we should have gotten him one for his birthday. But watch out if one of the other kids got close to one of the semis! There were many learning experiences about sharing and using your words instead of screaming. :)

We got in lots of aunt/uncle time, too.

Monday night we went to the Bean Museum on BYU campus. We missed out on getting pictures of some of the coolest stuff, but got a few good ones anyway.

Megan and Matthew meet again:

Megan's got a couple months on Matthew, but he's got a few pounds on her. He has awesome cheeks.

Megan liked the cave. So did Jacob and all the other kids.

After a fun adventure at the Bean Museum we headed to the Jolley's house in Orem. Even though Von and Patty are on a mission in New York, their kids still get together monthly to celebrate birthdays, so we were able to coordinate and have that happen while we were up there so I could see cousins I don't see often. The kids had fun in the back yard.

The adults hung out inside talking.

Rachel had fun with her 2nd cousin, Hannah, who just turned 7. They have matching smiles. :)