Visits and crazy kids

Towards the end of January my parents decided to head out  again to visit their grand kids.  They first stopped at our house for a few days before going to visit with other kids.  It was having them for a few days.

Uncle Billy had 2 business trips to take to Minneapolis and visited with us the first time and crashed at our house the second.  It's always great when family has to come see us, lol.

Oh and we took him to Costco for a Usinger Brat.  They sell them in the food court and are the best Brat around.

Masie found a purple marker and apparently has watched her older sister putting on makeup a little too much.  She was upset when I first discovered her. so I tried to lighten up her mood with some selfies.

 

 Kaders is notorious for falling asleep on the way home from church.  It doesn't matter what we do to try and keep him awake. We yell at him, startle him, sing really loud.  His internal nap clock goes off right at 12:15 on Sunday's.  I mean, not even a lollipop will keep this lil dude awake. 

Easters 2013

Easters was fun this year, well sort of.  I was on my own on Saturday cuz Randy had been taking a PMP class every weekend in March and this was the last class.  He had been so preoccupied with it that I hadn't even thought about Easter a whole lot.  I did manage to boil some eggs though for the kids to color.

 I got an idea from my neighbor to put rubber bands on the eggs when you died them to make some fun stripes.  The kids had a lot of fun using their creative noodles on them.

 Sunday morning the kids woke up to their Easter baskets, we got ready for church where I had to play for the choir and then after sacrament meeting, we drove up to Gma and Gpa's home for the rest of the Easter festivities.  He had a yummy dinner, the kids got a few more Eastery things and then we had the big Egg hunt in the backyard.  Masie even found an egg.

  She wasn't quite sure what to do with it though.

 Uncle Billy even came up with us (since his cute little family was in AZ visiting some family.  He stayed behind cuz he was also taking the same class with Randy) and STOLE some eggy goodness :)

 The kids always have fun searching for eggs at Gma's

I even got a few Easter shots before they kids got out of their clothes. . . 

 Aren't they the cutest bunch?  

James goes to the MTC

It's done!  He's gone!  The baby, the last of 9 kids, (8 of which served or is serving a mission, ya the black sheep is me) has left to serve a full-time mission for 2 years in Portland Oregon.  He first starts for a few weeks in Provo at the Mission Training Center (MTC) which is where we dropped him off on Wednesday.  But first, for traditions.  We, meaning my parents, like to take outgoing missionaries to Tucano's, a really yummy Brazilian restaurant, where you sit and they bring yummy meat for as long as you want.  They do have a salad bar with other yummy foods, but I don't like to waste my stomach space on that so I just sit and enjoy the meat, mmmmm.  Micah really liked it, this was after we washed his face that was covered in meat juice.  

The girls did too, lol.

Ki Ki even enjoyed it.

Can you tell Wall-E did too.

What a ham.

Elder Schmidt and Momma-la.

My kid's "other" Aunt, Sarah.  Malia, loves her to death.

Grandpa Shrimp (that's what Ki Ki calls him) with the girls.

The gang

James and the 10th Schmidt.

Cousins makin` daddy jealous on a Harley, lol.

After we stuffed ourselves silly, we went up to the Provo Temple to take some pics before we dropped off James.  Billy's fam.

All of us.

My fam. notice the sleeping baby, again.

The parental figures.

James really likes Stewart from Mad TV and does an awesome impression of him.  Check out this clip if you've never seen it.

"Let me do it"

"NO!"

"Off I go to serve the Lord"

Head shot

One last shot with the kids. . .

and me.

After the temple, Randy took the kids home and my parents and I went to drop of Beebit.  After Jon went on his mission, they stopped letting families go in and drop of the missionaries because of the H1N1 craze going on. So now you have to drop them off curbside and another missionary "host" helps them take their bags up to the door.  It makes for a very quick goodbye and a lot less crying.  This was a very cute shot of these two.  Made me cry a little.  

Bye Dad.

Later peeps, see ya in 2 years.

Off he goes.  Good luck Beebit, Uncle James, Jame-S, Stewart, ELDER SCHMIDT!!!!!  We love you and will miss you tons.  The Tucker house will be very quiet without you here.

Family Reunion-through the eyes of an almost 12 year old

-K- so this first shot is not of the reunion, but this is what I found on Mak's camera when I downloaded pictures for her.  Apparently, she was doing a photo shoot with Masie.  Oh boy, here we go.

 Onto the reunion.  McKenzie and Morgan had the opportunity to go with my brother and their family up to my family's reunion in Idaho.  I knew we weren't going to be able to go due to my "condition" so I eagerly said yes. They were gone for 10 days and loved every minute of it.  The following pictures of what McKenzie deemed worthy photo journaling.  They're pretty great.  Here's Morg apparently in the car.

 And Wall-E hiding in the stairwell of the big red van.

 And Kyra and part of Morgan's head after their 80's makeover.

 And every one's backsides in the kitchen of the lake house they were staying at.

 My fav. shot, the lake that I couldn't go to and water ski on.

 And the sink. . . that's all I can say about this one.  Oh and there were plenty more shots of the house itself that I chose not to bore your with.

 And the Chaser, after a fun-filled moment of art time.

 I'm assuming this is the deck, but I'm not sure if she was trying to get the deck or of people on the deck.

 And Ki-Ki in the van.

 And McKenzie's 80's makeover.

 And last but not least, the awesome aunt who was kind enough to invite the girls to go with them.

It looks like it was a lot of fun, wish we could've gone, but I'm glad the girls got to experience this.  It will be something they talk about for years.