Family Reunion

Well I took disappointingly few photos during the reunion, but we sure had a lot of fun. At almost the last minute we changed our plans to go to Missouri and just stayed in Mt. Vernon and mom and dad's. Sadly we probably won't all fit in their house for much longer, but it worked this time. We had a lot of outings which helped us not go stir crazy. On the first day we headed up to a nearby water park. Most of us adults were worried it wouldn't be hot enough for us to enjoy the water. The water was shockingly cold, but as the day heated up it didn't feel so bad. I think everyone had a lot of fun.
Mia enjoying our midday picnic outside the water park. She was nice enough to let me share her towel.
We had back-to-back big days with Adventureland the next day. It was definitely hot enough that day. But not hot enough for our mostly adult filled Raging River raft to be happy about going under both waterfalls...very slowly. We were soaked.
We started off with a ride on the carousel. Claire was quite nervous and wouldn't let go of me for the entire ride.
It was a fun-filled day.

The second annual Cardon Family Auction was held this year. It was just as big a hit as it was last year. I failed and didn't get any crocheted animals finished in time for the big event. But everyone else sure came through. It's a talented bunch that we have, I would have been happy to take it all home with me. :) As it was we got an awesome tractor blanket made by Nathan and Stacy, a marshmallow gun from Caden, a boondoggle from Claire, and a pretty awesome drum that my dad made. We certainly raked it in.

Rich, our auctioneer.
Henry with his puppy chow, of course. No one dares get in the way of him getting that.
Jade getting in on the bidding. She seems pretty excited about whatever she is trying to get. :)
Mom and Dad made up an Amazing Race for us one day as well. We all got a little hung up on dad's clue in the library, but it was mostly smooth sailing for the rest of it. Unfortunately, Caleb and I did not win. I'll blame it on my teammate. ;) He definitely didn't eat his fair share of the ice cream, that's all I'm saying.

One night we had a fire in the back yard and made s'mores. Yum.
It definitely got a little dangerous with all those kids wielding sharp, long sticks. Luckily no serious injuries occurred. Messes were definitely made though.
Not sure what was going on when this picture of Henry was taken, but it sure makes me laugh.

I kind of felt like Mia was my little bud during this trip. She is so sweet. One night she held Jade on her lap while I fed her. You could tell she was getting real tired of the squirming by the end but she was a trooper.
So from the whole reunion, we have zero pictures of Brennan and only one of me. So pardon my gross look, but here's a picture of me and Jade.
This catching up thing is exhausting, but I'm almost there. I should probably try just blogging regularly, eh?

Being an aunt rocks my socks

So pretty much being an aunt is one of my favorite things in the world. Actually, when I was younger and would have the irrational, silly fear that I would never get married and have a family of my own, I would comfort myself with the thought that I could just be the coolest aunt who ever lived. And it really did make me feel better! Even though that fear was not realized and I was lucky enough to find Brennan, I still think it's cool to be an aunt. And Brennan and I work hard at securing our spots as the favorite aunt and uncle. Sometimes I even think our hard work is working. :)

A few weeks ago all of my siblings came to Iowa for our family reunion. A day or two before the reunion officially got started Brennan and I had all the nieces and nephews over to our house for a sleep over. (Well not quite ALL of them, we left the three youngest with their parents. We aren't that crazy.) With 9 kids under the age of 12, it was jam-packed evening full of fun and laughs. After playing at the house for awhile we all walked to the park in our neighborhood and played tag and Brennan is the monster and anything else we could think of. It was just fun to run around and be crazy. I love those kids so much. But we left our camera at home, so no fun pictures.

Then we piled into two minivans and headed to Cold Stone so that the coolest uncle could show off his mad tricks. (Let's face it, when it comes to coolness, Brennan beats me hands down. The kids worship him, I swear.) Brennan went behind the counter to help make all of our ice cream and so he could throw it across the store, a highly anticipated event. That left me with the responsibility of corralling all the kids and getting their ice cream ordered before they changed their mind for the tenth time. It felt like pure chaos to me, but we made it out of the store with no major incidents. And the kids loved watching the ice cream throwing. Again, forgot the camera, so no pictures. Lame.

After devouring our ice cream we went home and had a very serious and long voting session to determine what two movies would play. And which one would be upstairs and which one downstairs. Whew, it was a lot of work, but we finally got it figured out. We then did what any good aunt and uncle would do and filled them sugar during the movies. Luckily they all still fell asleep during the shows or shortly there after.

Watching the shows:
In the morning it was like walking into a war zone. Bodies everywhere! Haha, kids certainly get into interesting sleeping positions.
His neck is going to be sore...
The rest of the kids were so excited to show Gavin how he had been sleeping with his head on Henry's bum.
Silly girl.

After everyone woke up we had a healthy breakfast of donuts and juice and then showed off our musical abilities on the Wii. Pretty cute to watch.
Such concentration.
Almost all of the kids in the same shot. Almost.

After hanging out outside for awhile we headed off to meet up with the rest of the family. It was certainly an exhausting endeavor but so much fun. I never really remember having much of a relationship with any of my aunts and uncles. I certainly don't remember interacting with them at that age. That has certainly been one of my motivators in trying to have relationships with all of these kids. I want them to know me, and me to know them. I feel like that could be a valuable relationship to both of us. So by doing these crazy things, I hope I am creating memories for them that will help make that possible. I really do love these kids, and I am afraid of one day not really knowing them other than a report a hear from their parents. Hopefully, I can keep that from happening. Because being an aunt rocks my socks...whatever that means. :)

Easter eggs

Easter of course included egg dying and the traditional egg wars. I do enjoy dying eggs, but I have zero talent. I am always amazed at what people like Kelbie and Brennan can do with some paint or dye and a hard boiled egg.
We always have to do a Hawkeye egg.
I did not do this side of the egg. That's right, my talent stops at being able to write "Go Hawks". I made Brennan do the rest.
Kelbie showing off the cute little bird she painted. She's good.

Rich's niece, Angelynn, has been living with their family for a few months so we got to introduce her to egg wars. How sad that she has had to live so much of her life without fighting eggs.
A self portrait?
Participating in her first ever egg war.
It's a little blurry, but I had to document fighting mom. I swear she cheats, I can't beat her!

We had a great Easter, hope you did too!

Visitors

At the beginning of April, Mara and Jade came to visit for about a week. It was a blast to have them around, but as usual I sort of failed at taking pictures. But our niece in Utah, Mia, sent Flat Stanley to my mom to visit at about the same time, so we did get some photo ops with him. It was pretty entertaining. I hope her first grade class got as much enjoyment out of the letter and pictures my mom sent as we did in having Flat Stanley around. :)
Cute little Jade with Uncle Brennan.
Mara and Flat Stanley.
Chillin' in the back seat.
Flat Stanley even got to go out to eat at the Machine Shed with us AND drive a tractor. That is one lucky paper doll.

So after we ate at the Machine Shed mom tried to get a picture of Mara, Jade, Flat Stanley and I on the hay rack. Who would have thought it would be so difficult?

And I think that's where she gave up and decided that was as good as it was going to get.
Me and Jade the night before they left. So sad to see them go. She is the happiest and cutest baby! Thanks for coming to visit guys!

Once upon a time, Brennan had a birthday

Wow, I have some major blog catching up to do. I'm not sure how I let so much time pass. I have gone back and forth over whether to just forget about what has happened since my last post, or to go ahead and take the time to catch up. But since someday...maybe..I might make a book out of my blog, I would like it to be as complete as possible. So I will at least give a shot at catching up.

After our trip to St. Louis in mid March we had a couple of Birthdays to celebrate, dad's and Brennan's. Nothing too exciting to report on either one, just fun times with family.

Brennan turned 24 and we had family over for cake and ice cream and a game of Quelf. Brennan loves that game but the rest of us have not been convinced of its greatness. Since it was his birthday we let him choose. We are so nice. :)

The sweet Canada shirt Crystal and Rich gave him in honor of his mission.
I love this shirt my parents gave him. I never thought of the resemblance between Brennan's hair and a Chia pet until this shirt. Now I always sing the little diddy to him. He loves it. :/ He starts at the University of Iowa in the fall so they also gave him some Hawkeye gear and a handy dandy pocket knife that he has been dying for.
It's been so long I can't even remember if we went out for his birthday or if I just made dinner for him. But since he had to work later that night, I'm pretty sure I made dinner. And some yummy snickerdoodles. It seemed lame to just have cookies and not a cake on his birthday so I arranged them all cheesily and still had him blow out a candle.
That wrapped up the month of March. Getting closer to July....:)