Thanksgiving in Arkansas

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to go to Coya and Johns. Tyrel and Vandy and their kids were going to be there as well, so it was going to be a wild and crazy weekend. We headed out on Tuesday around lunch time and drove to a little town in Kansas to stay the night. 

We ate dinner at really the only restaurant in town besides Mcdonalds and a couple other fast food places. It was ok food, we felt better after eating it than we would have had eating at a fast food place so that was nice. 

The boys were excited to be out of the car. Plus we told them that we needed to eat dinner fast so that we could get to the hotel and go swimming. 

Emmett kept banging his spoons on the table and was just being super loud. We kept telling him to be quiet and shooshing him and he then started to do it himself. haha What a cute little stinker! haha 

The boys really wanted a gum ball from this little machine. Brandon told them that if they ate a good dinner that we could get them one. Little did we know that it was almost impossible to shoot the gum ball up and around the circle. It took what felt like forever to just get the two gum balls out. haha 

Time to Swim!

Going swimming and sitting in the hot tub is always the best part of staying at a hotel on our way somewhere. The kids are always so excited, and we have a lot of fun with them in the pool for a while. Then its time to get out and get bathed up and go to bed. Emmett does not like going to bed in hotels. He fights going to bed for so long! He just cries and cries until he finally can't stay awake any longer. It is really rough and I hope that he does better when we drive to California in February! 

Morning Breakfast!! :-) 

I put holes in one of Emmetts snack containers and got pipe cleaners cut and ready for him to stick them into the holes. I thought it would keep him happy and entertained for a while and it worked like a charm. As soon as he had put all the pipe cleaners in the container through the holes he would whine for me to get them out so he could do it all over again. 

What cute kiddos we have!!!! Ethan and Wyatt were super excited to be on the road again because it meant that we were going to see their cousins! :-) 

Not only did Emmett get to have fun with pipe cleaners, so did Ethan Wyatt. I bought a big think of pipe cleaners so that the boys could create whatever they wanted to with them while we were driving. I thought it would keep them occupied for a little while using their imaginations instead of just watching movies the whole drive. It worked for a little bit. Wyatt just wanted me to make things for him, which i did. Ethan on the other hand had a blast making things. So pipe cleaners is a great idea for road trips with little ones. 

Before arriving at our final destination we had to stop for lunch. While driving to Arkansas there are is a lot of NOTHING around. We kept thinking that we were going to be hitting a bigger town to be able to stop for lunch and then when we got to the place on our GPS there would be nothing there. We finally made it to a city and stopped at a pizza place. It was pretty tasty and we left feeling full and happy! :-) 

We made it!! 

The boys were so excited to get out of the car and be able to see their cousins. 

We hung around the house a lot which was fun. The kids had a blast just running around the house playing with each other. 

Piper and Emmett were pretty sad and grumpy the whole weekend. 

Emmett found some dress up high heels in the play room and came out walking in them. haha He is so funny!! 

I think he really like the way the shoes sounded on the hard wood because he just kept walking around everywhere in them and would get upset when they fell off. haha Silly kid!! 

Getting set up for some Turkey dinner. 

Thanksgiving dinner was yummy!! We had Turkey, homemade rolls, mashed potatoes and deviled eggs. Everything was tasty and the kids ate as fast as they could so they could go play some more while us the parents tried to enjoy eating while juggling crying babies! 

Literally... crying babies!!! haha 

I feel like this was how Emmett looked 90 percent of the time we were at John and Coya's! haha 

After Thanksgiving dinner we all went out for a nice walk! 

Man I have a hot hubby and we make the cutest kids! Look at that cute little face of Emmett's!! 

Kemry hurt herself somehow and it was pretty much the end of the world! haha 

The crew out for a nice afternoon walk. Coya stayed back at the house with their littlest Jaxtin 

I thought the kids would love me for spraying whip cream in their mouths! haha I have to be a cool mom and aunt some times!! :-) 

Hanging out with little Jaxtin! 

Then one afternoon we went to see the movie "Moana" It was cute but Brandon and I spent the movie switching off who got to chase after and watch our crazy Emmett. He is not one to just sit through a movie yet! If you look really closely in the picture above you can see Emmett siting at the bottom of the screen. 

Emmettt was only happy with the popcorn for so long and then he wanted to get down. At one point he didn't want the popcorn I was giving him, he wanted the popcorn from the row behind us off of the floor. I don't know how many times I had to swat his hand away before he stuck popcorn in his mouth from off the nasty floor. 

What is a vacation with cousins without a dance party! :-) 

Tyrel and Vandy left the day before we left. So that day after they headed out we went to play some mini golf and play in the arcade. The kids had a blast! Emmett was a little more of a handful but that is the stage he is in right now. 

I just love this picture of Mady and Ethan!! They sure do love each other! 

This is the only picture I have of our car ride home. It pretty much sums up the ride home. No one likes the drive home because there is nothing to look forward to except for just getting home. I was driving after we stopped for lunch and Brandon was about to fall asleep while driving and run us right off the road. So I told him that I could drive and he could get some sleep. It would be better than  us dying because he fell asleep while driving. So while I was driving and everyone was asleep, Emmett woke up. I wanted him to stay asleep so that everyone else could stay asleep but he started crying. So I handed him back my beloved see's candy sucker that I had been sucking on. He was in heaven! Next thing I know he looks like this!! haha At least he was happy for a while! :-) 

It was a fun filled trip. It was probably crazier than I had anticipated it being mostly because when we arrived at the house basically all the kids had colds. They thought that it was allergies but Emmett knew better. That night after we arrived Emmett started getting all congested and didn't want to sleep and was just so miserable. He ended up being miserable practically the whole time we were there. So between 9 children and 6 adults it was very loud and crazy. Plus having Emmett and Piper all snotty and not feeling well it was a whole lot of screaming and laughing from the older kids and crying and being grumpy from the 2 littlest kids. Besides all of that it was fun to be there for Thanksgiving and we had lots of fun spending time with family!!