Minneapolis 2012

We made our annual trip to Minneapolis last weekend to visit our college friends Joe & Shawna. We have added two kids to the mix since our July 2011 trip, and we have now more than doubled ourselves since college.

Left to Right - Clara, Avery, Cade, Wes, Eve
Five kids smiling in one picture - amazing!

Believe it or not we actually braved eating out with all nine of us. 
It went surprisingly well (until Avery ran out of food).

Clara and Cade are 5 months apart in age and became buddies upon minutes of our arrival.  Clara loved checking out all of the new toys, and the play dough was a big hit.  (Clara did her own face painting at the Children's Museum earlier that day - in case you were wondering what's on her face.)



Avery and Wes are one month apart in age and for as young as they are, they played together really well.  Despite our best efforts, they shared sippy cups, binkies....





...and a kiss!  It was so, so sweet.  Avery was very upset after a fall she took.  She was still crying while I was changing her diaper, and Wes crawled over and kissed her forehead.  I asked Shawna if he knows how to give kisses, and she said he does.  He gave her a couple more, and Shawna was able to catch a picture of it.

There may have been talk of an arranged marriage throughout the weekend.



I told Eve I was sorry we didn't have a kid her age to play with.  She's getting so grown up!  She started kindergarten this fall, and she's made a lot of progress developmentally since we were there last.  She's such a beautiful and delightful little girl.  And she really likes Matt!

A few highlights from the trip:

-We made our usual stop at the Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines.  Avery loved the play area.  I figured I would have to hold her the whole time while Clara played since she's not walking yet.  She was very determined to be in on the action, and I finally gave up and let her down.  She had a ball crawling around and doing down the slides.  She would flail her arms and legs when I would pick her up to move her.

-Clara was so excited to see her big girl bed in Minneapolis.  She slept on a futon that had been folded out into a bed  Shawna put princess sheets & a princess blanket on it, and Clara fell in love!  She got really excited when she saw it, and said, "I just love my big girl bed."  Then she started singing songs about it.

-Our outing on Saturday was to the St. Paul Children's Museum, and Sunday was to Noodles & Company for lunch.  Shawna and I snuck out for a pedicure on Sunday too!

-Bedtime - the kids played hard and didn't nap well which worked out well for early bedtimes.  This gave the parents time to enjoy the peace and quiet and play cards.

We almost didn't make the trip this year because I was worried about how Avery would tolerate the car ride and how the girls would sleep.  The car ride was a challenge as expected, but we all survived.  Clara was too excited to nap while we were there, but both girls slept awesome at night.  Overall, the trip was definitely worth the two full days of driving, and I'm glad we decided to make the trip this year.  It's so fun to spend time with our friends and see how their children are growing.  It also pretty cool to see how much fun our kids have playing together, and I think they will enjoy it more each year.