Aunt Em and Uncle Jeff's Visit

This weekend Em and Jeff came to visit. :-) We all had a great time!! They didn't get here until after the kids were in bed on Fri night, so when they woke up, they were excited to see them here.



To start things off, they brought Noah a belated birthday present. He was pretty happy about that!

They got him a Star Wars lego set with droids and lights for his bike - one for the front, one for the back and one for his helmet. He later went down to the basement with Jeff, and Jeff put them on his stuff and turned the light out. Only time Noah's EVER been happy about having the light off in the basement. And, I don't think he'll want it on again. He asked at least 2 times last night if he could turn the lights out. He just loved it! And, of course, the legos were a hit. He had that thing together and was playing with that ship and the ships that Michelle, Teresa, and their families gave him. :-)

Of course, we spent most of Sunday afternoon playing Mariokart, which is a MUST when we get together. Pete and Jeff ended up playing last night until 1am! Pete got a router over the weekend, which allows us to play Wii over the internet with the wireless connection. It's opened up a whole new world in playing for him. :-) I played with Pete, Jeff, and Em yesterday and sadly sucked majorly. I think my final score on 8 courses was 3. That means I got 2nd to last place 3 times and the rest were last place. Yeah. Nice.

This is Aunt Em being silly with Livie. :-)

We all went out to Jardines (yum!) on Sat night after a run over to Best Buy in Joliet earlier in the day. It was so good!! But, we couldn't go out to eat twice, so we decided to grill out. Poor Pete grilled outside in like 11 degree temperatures and nearly froze to death. But, it turned out great! Here we are enjoying our dinner on Sunday.

Then we headed down to the FREEZING basement for more fun. Pete has all the heat vents to the basement closed, since we don't go down there very often, so it's a lovely 55 degrees! The kids didn't seem to mind much, but Em and I were frozen. Guess he was getting us back for making him grill. ;-) The kids LOVE to ride their bikes down there, but are quickly running out of room as we fill it up. My goal in the next few months is to sort and clean down there and start giving everything away that we don't use. Every bin of clothes or toys that hasn't been touched in a year is getting donated to someone. Just need to get myself down there to do it. Anyway, sorry to ramble there, on with the story...

Noah and Madie were playing on their Star Station thingy and singing songs for us. You can see where the old couches are now. They're really nice down there. No, they don't go with the striped carpet, but it works.

Madie ended up getting cold and snuggled with Aunt Em while we all watched a little Dora. And, by ALL, I mean Em, the kids and me.

As you can see, Pete and Jeff were busy in a ping-pong match. They were moving so much they actually got hot and sweaty in that freezing-cold basement! Pete even opened the window at one point!!! I never did find out who ended up winning.

We all had a great time with them and can't wait until they come out for Madie's recital in May. It should be a lot of fun!!! Thanks for everything guys! :-)