The Drew & Allen News: Cousins!!!

The boys were so excited last week to welcome their younger cousins to our new home! Lizzy and Katherine (and Auntie Maggie!) came to visit for a few days. We were all thrilled to finally meet Katherine...only 3 weeks shy of her first birthday! We're a little behind on the family visits...but we are determined to keep our time away shorter.

The kids had a great time playing together with very few issues. Katherine tried her best to keep up with the big kids and did pretty well. She almost took a step a couple of times...she would be standing and see them walking off and "forget" that she couldn't...but it wasn't meant to be. Cute attempts at least! Both girls were scared of Maddie at first. I guess I foget that she is a pretty big dog to most people. Katherine warmed up to her after a day or so but it took Lizzy three days to stop screaming every time she came near and the fourth to finally reach out and touch her. Poor Maddie was so sad - she hates it when people don't like her!

We made it to the playground at our elementary school (since school was out for Spring Break) and took Lizzy for her first haircut (so fun!). Maggie and I decided to surprise Janet with a professional photo of all four of her grandkids together (since it had never happened before). The kids did well and we hoped to go to the zoo after but it took longer than expected. Luckily we had decided on lunch at the park instead of the zoo since Allen got carsick on the way there. It was much easier to drive the 5 minutes home rather than the 30 it would have been! There was also swimming at the club, plenty of Lego building, and many stories read by all. Unfortunately we didn't catch a picture of it, but the cutest thing was the moment Maggie realized it was really quiet in the basement. She went down, expecting to find them doing something bad, but found the three big kids sitting on the floor with Drew reading books to the smaller ones. Priceless!

Grandma and Grandpa arrived on Thursday night so we headed to Union Station Friday morning to enjoy the trains and visit the Children's museum there. The boys did better than the girls so they stayed longer with their grandparents while Maggie and I took the girls to the American Girl store. A much better experience for them for sure! Friday night we celebrated Lizzy's 3rd and Katherine's 1st birthdays with a brown, square cake (Lizzy's request). I made it by myself without any of Patrick's help and I think it turned out just fine!

We all had a great time and can't wait for everyone to come back again. Uncle Jim needs to take a break from his busy work schedule and join us next time - we missed him!