Bennett Family Reunion

On Friday, Carson went on a field trip with his kindergarten class to Hogle Zoo. The weather was sunny and warm for a change, and he had a blast! After he got home, and after Kaylee's dance class, we packed up the van and headed south to Holden for the annual Bennett Family Reunion. We got there Friday afternoon, which left time for Nick to play with the kids on the threewheeler. He even let Carson drive!

We enjoyed a yummy pasta dinner on Friday night with the cousins, aunts, and uncles. On Saturday, we headed up to the cabin to the reunion for a yummy dutch oven lunch and yummy sides! The weather couldn't have been more perfect. I have remembered eating in the rain and wind in years past, so it was a nice change! It was so fun to be able to introduce Alivia to all of Nick's extended family. Here she is with Nick's cousins wife, Kris Bennett.
Aunt Lynda and Aunt Phyllis.
The kids had the most fun I think. They spent the whole day playing outside, building forts, riding three wheelers, hiking, and playing with their cousins. Darren and Kris had their grandson, Gabe, with them and he is almost 8. He and Carson got along great! They built a little fort in a grove of trees. It kept them pretty busy most of the day!

The girls even built a fort of their own, complete with furniture!

We enjoyed lunch and a game of Bingo, which Kaylee won a round. And of course some visiting and catching up with family!

Aunt Lynda took the kids on a hike to go find the Loaf of Bread Rock that they had found a previous year. They enjoyed going discovering and hiking.

I love this picture. Carson running and having the time of his life in probably his most favorite place to be. The cabin.

The three wheeler was a popular toy at the cabin. Nick spent quite a bit of time giving rides to all the kids. Before we left that evening, Nick let Carson drive the three wheeler all by himself. He didn't even ride on it with him! It was so cute to see this tiny little 5 year old driving this big three wheeler! I didn't get a picture since my camera battery died, but I have video of it. It was fun to watch! And Carson was having the time of his life!

As a tradition, after the reunion, later in the evening, for dinner we roast hot dogs. The kids loved it, and so did I...since I had TWO hot dogs. They are SO good when cooked over a camp fire! Then to top it off, we made s'mores. Someone had brought HUGE marshmallows. They were great to roast and eat, but WAY to big for s'mores, by the way!

It was a fantastic day! I think the best part of the day was seeing how much fun the kids had! We stayed until Sunday afternoon. After church and another yummy BBQ Pork Dinner, we headed back home. I think Reunions are so fun and a perfect way to create memories!

And finally Thursday!

Since Carson's birthday is in July, he got to celebrate his birthday on Thursday so he could share a treat with his class during the school year. He has talked about his birthday day for months now. He went back and forth on what he wanted to take for his treat. First it was hostess cupcakes, but then we decided he would take Granola Bars. They are not as messy and they are also Carson's favorite thing to eat! He asked me to buy them like three weeks before Thursday, to make sure we had them. Suffice to say, he was pretty excited!!! When we went to his assessment last week, Mrs. Jessee gave Carson the birthday bag to use to bring his treats and other toys and pictures to do a show n' tell about himself. We packed a picture of him and his sisters, pictures of him as a baby, and his 2 new remote control cars he got for Easter. We also packed his favorite books, "David goes to school", "That's good, that's bad", and "If I could drive a tanker truck".
He came home and told me all about his fun Birthday Day. He got to make a fun birthday hat he wore during class. His classmates all made him a fun book of birthday cards with a drawing of what they would give him as a present. It was really cute to read!

We spent the rest of the day enjoying the nice weather again, and the kids played outside and rode their bikes. Then I took all three kids to go buy Carson some new shoes, which I got on clearance at Payless and then used a 20% off coupon, it was a great buy! Then we headed to walmart to get groceries before heading home and getting ready for Kaylee's Preschool Program that night. We were lucky enough to have my Mom come and visit us before going to choir practice, so she was also able to come to Kaylee's program as well. We have really enjoyed having Kaylee in preschool this past year. She will have two more years of preschool before kindergarten, but she loves her teacher, Miss Trish, and enjoys going to school all the time! Here are a few pictures from that evening.

It was so fun to see her and her classmates sing all the songs they have learned throughout the year. She got a cute little star trophy and bag of crayons, pencil, and an award. Then we enjoyed some yummy treats! Do you love her bows?? I made those with the help of Jana. I am learning how to make new bows and it is really fun! So overall this was a fun and busy week! Friday was also a big day that started our fun weekend (which is still ongoing, since I am here in Holden trying to catch up on blogging while we are visiting with the Bennett side of the family). So stay tuned to see the rest of our fun Memorial Day Weekend!

Then Wednesday...

Wednesday was a more relaxing day, but the kids did a lot of playing that day! It was SUCH a beautiful day. Carson had a friend, Jack, over to play and they ended up having a 'yard sale' in the back yard. Between the three kids (the boys and Kaylee) they took all the toys and shoes out of the garage and lined them all up so they could pretend to have a yard sale. It was pretty funny to go out and see what they had done. I didn't mind since when Nick put it all back, we kind of organized the garage as well. Here are some pictures of their cool 'yard sale'.
I love that they had all the items in categories. It made me laugh! While the kids played, Nick also got some enjoyment out of the day by putting new rims and tires on his Jeep.

The kids played SO hard that day and I even got a bit of a sunburn while I was out visiting with the neighbor girls. In fact, it was so nice outside there were about 12 kids with their swimming suits on (my kids included) playing in the water. Okay, it probably wasn't really warm enough for that, but they didn't seem to care! I am sure they were just excited that it had stopped raining long enough for them to see the sun that they just assumed it was already summer. But we still have one more week of school before summer can officially begin...which made Thursday a super busy day as well!