Our family from Iowa made the long roadtrip to visit us, they came late last week & stayed until early this week. Our house felt like a child-proofed frat house for a few days & Harper is still coming down from the way-too-much-fun high. I catch her peeking around the corner to see if one of her six foot tall uncles is hiding in her teepee or if grandma or grandpa are anywhere to be found so she can talk them into another bowl of animal crackers. But alas, it’s just me. And eighty loads of laundry.

It’s really crazy seeing all of those little kids that I grew up with in a whole new light, they are now uncles to my daughter & she just thinks the world of them. I think back to the days of when I used to babysit them in the summers when my parents worked, I used to decorate & doodle on their paper plates every day for lunch, then cover it up with their food so they could find it while they were eating. I’m positive that cancels out the number of times my parents would discover my brothers drawing on their bedroom walls with permanent marker or locking each other in closets under my “supervision.” Don’t worry, I’ve come a long way. 😉

We laughed about how many cars & text messages it took to coordinate everyone going out to lunch over the weekend. My dad so kindly reminded us of the time all seven of us roadtripped in a small car to New York one year. I’m not going to get into the math & logistics of the situation, but I am vaguely picturing one of my brothers riding on the floor or possibly in the center console.

After this weekend, Harper has a new found love for basketball, piggyback rides & stacking (empty) red solo cups. I love hearing her confuse all of their names, similar to how everyone we’ve ever known has done. She hates when they wear hats & is a little gun shy of their facial hair, but loves that every one of them is willing to let her put a headband on them.

For the first time in over two years, actually since I was pregnant with Harper during Christmas in Iowa, we had the entire family together, so we put the camera self-timer to use on the back of my brother’s truck bed & were able to take a family picture!

 I love everyone so much & can’t wait to see our big family continue to grow over the years!