Bair Family Reunion

This year we were able to go to the Bair Family Reunion. It was held on a Saturday in July. Stephen doesn't often have Saturdays open in the summer, but this one was open so we decided to go. The last time we went Joseph was 9 months old. So it has been a few years.We started the morning with kids games.

The first was passing a balloon up and down the line both under the legs and over the head.

Here are Aaron, Grammy Bair, Max, Aunt Miriam and Ruth watching the action.

Here is Audry passing a wet sponge to Joseph. Ashlynne is behind Joseph waiting for the sponge. They took the wet sponge from the front of the line and passed it all the way back to the end of the line where the last kid would squeeze all the water into a container and run to the front of the line to start the sponge again. A lot of the water never made it to the end of the line because the kids kept sqeezing the sponge on the next kid.

Here is a game played with a cup attached to the foot. I didn't witness this game so I have no idea how it was played.

Here is Aaron with Grandpa Bair.

They also got to play water balloon volleyball. Or at least they passed it back and forth between two towels.

They also had a fun craft for the kids. They could decorate a hat, frame or bookmark. Here is Joseph showing off the hat that he did.

After the games were done the kids all got prizes. Joseph got a kite. Here he is ready to fly his kite.

Daddy put it in the air. This is a very good kite. It stayed up in very little wind and also would sometimes get up into the air on its own.

Max had a turn flying the kite too.

Some of the cousins put some stickers on Aaron's face. The AB on his forhead stand for Aaron Bair. Then they put a C on his nose to continue the alphabet.

After the games they had a silent and live auction to raise money to pay for next year's reunion. Then we had a wonderful lunch. Both the boys ate pretty well. After lunch everyone started to pack up and leave. We decided to fly the kite one more time. Aaron really liked watching the kite fly up in the air.

The two cutest kite flyers.

Brothers and Best Friends

I have noticed lately that the boys are getting along better and better. Joseph loves his brother and always wants to hold "baby Aaron". They are always giving hugs and kisses to each other. There are the occasional problems with Aaron hitting or Joseph getting tired of having a shadow. But all in all they love to play together.Here is a picture of them in Grammy's chair. This chair was my mother-in-laws when she was a little girl. She gave it to Joseph a few years ago and now both of the boys love to sit together in the chair.

They also love to play together in their room. This day they were both pretending to sleep. Or I should say that Joseph was pretending to sleep, Aaron was just copying his brother.

Aaron's method of movement

Aaron is 14 months today. I can not believe how fast time is flying by. Aaron doesn't really want to walk yet, unless he is holding your hand. He really prefers crawling. It is much faster. But he has discovered that he can not crawl and drink his sippy at the same time. So he has come up with a solution. He walks on his knees. When I told my mom that he was doing that she requested that I take a video of him doing the knee walk so she could see it because she has never heard of a kid moving like this before. I just think it is cute that he solved his problem of not being able to move and drink.

4th of July

The forth of July was fun this year we were able to spend it with Stephen's family. His brother and family decided on Wednesday to drive out to Utah to spend the weekend with the family. We haven't seen this brother in 3 years so we were really excited to see the. Here is a picture of Joseph with his cousin Joseph (or Jo Jo) playing in the playhouse.
Here is Sarah, Aaron, Jo Jo and Joseph playing in the playhouse.
We brought our slide and the little kids had fun on it. Aaron loved it so much he sometimes made it hard for the other little kids to use.
Aaron also loves the trampoline. Here is Sarah and Aaron on the trampoline.
Joseph on the slide and Jo Jo waiting patiently for his turn.
Adelaide helping Aaron down the slide. It was fun to get the chance to play with the Iowa Bairs.
Ruth and Joseph playing in the playhouse.
Jacob, Cathan and Adelaide waiting for the bouncehouse to blow up. This is always a big hit. The kids take turns and only kids of the same age are allowed on at the same time.
Aaron and his new love the slide.
Aaron with his fan club. Jo Jo, Cathan and Michael.
Time to wrestle on the trampoline. They all had such a fun time.
Grampa and Grammy Bair went to Jackson Hole the week before and had brought back Bison teeth for the grandkids to make necklaces out of. Joseph really enjoyed this project.
Then the best part of all, The Fireworks. Aaron was absolutly enthralled by the firey lights.
And he cheered after each one.
Joseph wasn't a fan of the noises but he like the fireworks as long as he wasn't on the front row.
Michael and Stephen lit the fireworks.
Sarah really enjoyed the fireworks too!
Here are Kate and Joseph, with Max, Chris and Miriam watching the fireworks.
Aaron looks so grown up in the chair. He had to have his own chair. He was not into sitting on laps.
Joseph awed by one of the fireworks!
We didn't get home until after 10pm. The boys were tired. It was definatly time for bed.

Playing with chalk

Stephen and Joseph love to color on our front walkway. Joseph has Stephen draw lots of pictures and sometimes he even draws some too.
He also loves to run around in just has underwear or pull-up. This was just before bed so we just had put his pull-up on. He just loves to play with his daddy! I also took a video of Joseph and Stephen showing me all the things they drew. Joseph also does some impressions. But it would not let me upload the video tonight so I will try again later.








Another fun thing around our house are Daddy's ties. Stephen comes home from weddings or church and takes off his tie and leaves it where ever he is at. So Aaron has discovered them and loves to wear them. He is so cute. The boys are just growing up so fast!

Backlog

This is the first of a couple posts tonight. I have been busy. It's wedding season. So we haven't posted in the last month. We haven't really seen anyone or done anything for the past month too. Hopefully we can be more social now. So sorry to all the friends who we haven't seen in forever.

Stephen takes Aaron with him to Preisthood because I teach primary. Well they give out treats in our Elders quarm. Our friend Dan gave Aaron a sucker one Sunday. Aaron has this new thing that if he likes something or is happy he nods yes. I am not sure he really means yes but he nods. It is very cute. So Stephen got out his phone and took a short video of him enjoying his first sucker.


Also this last month my brother Andrew came down for a few days to see the family down in Utah now that he is home. It was fun to spend some more time with him. While he was down here we found a cute little hole in the wall that served Russian food. It was interesting and good. We will have to take him back there, now that we know where to find it, when he comes down again. We also got to go to the park for a little while. Aaron loves to swing and Joseph loves to play. So here is a little video of them playing at the park.

Andrew is Home!

The youngest of my brothers got home from his Mission on Friday May 29th. Andrew served in the Moscow West Mission. It is very nice to have him home.

We left our house on Thursday and spent the night at Jacob's house to split up the drive. We finally got to Helena at 3:30 Friday afternoon.







Joseph had a wonderful time playing in Grandma and Grandpa's big backyard. We even let the neighbor's dog in and threw a ball with him for a while. Joseph and Aaron loved the dog, we need to get them one.









Then Uncle Jacob and Aunt Ashley came up after they were done with their classes. They decided to camp out in the backyard. Of course Joseph had to help put up the tent.







Then came the wait at the Airport. Andrew's flight came in at 10:48pm. It was a long day for the kids who were up way past their bed time. Joseph and Jacob played peekaboo with Aaron and Joseph just loved to talk to his Uncle Jacob.

Finally it was time to go and wait at the gate for Andrew. He was one of the last ones off the plane. As soon as Mom saw him walking towards the gate she had a huge smile on her face. She ran up to him and gave him a huge hug. Then the family all took turns giving him hugs.
Ryan and his family met up with Andrew in Salt Lake and rode in the plane with Andrew to Helena.

It was fun to introduce Andrew to the 3 family members that he had never met before. Everett, Aaron and Ashley. Grandpa also got to love up all his grandsons.

Then we went home and talked until we all had to go to sleep. On Saturday we all just had some fun. The boys got to play and the grown ups got to talk.

We also had the opportunity to take a family picture. Ryan's, Jacob's and our family had all independently decided to wear blue. So Andrew, Mom and Dad had to find blue shirts to wear as well. It was fun. If you look closely you can see the camera remote in Stephen's hand. We tied a puppet to the tripod and blew some bubbles up near the camera to get the kids looking there. Even with those tricks we still had to swap some heads.

When we got back the boys got to play with their sticker books. Instead of putting the stickers on the pages they decided to put the stickers on themselves.










Then in was bubbles and fun out in the backyard. The kids each got sunglasses and had fun wearing those too.
































Grandma Michaelis got a kids bike at a garage sale last summer. So both Joseph and Gage took turns riding the bike.



















Later on Saturday night we had a family dinner in the backyard. We discovered that Aaron loves potato salad. And Andrew discovered that one year olds are great moochers. They were begging off anyone who would look at them.
































Then we had a birthday party for Andrew, Ryan, Stephen, Aaron and Everett. We have a tradition in our family of giving one year olds their own cake and letting them go for it. We stripped them down to a diaper and let them eat. Everett really got into eating his cake and would grap bites to eat. Aaron wasn't so sure about this whole thing and wanted to eat bites out of peoples hands instead of getting his hands in the cake. But both boys had fun and had a bath afterwards.














On sunday Andrew was able to report on his mission and the family was able to sing in Sacrament meeting. While Dad watched all four kids. We sang Joseph Smiths first prayer. Ryanand and Jacob sang a verse in Portugase and Andrew sang a verse in Russian. It was fun.

It was wonderful to spend time with my family. The weekend ended too quickly. Jacob and Ashley had to leave Sunday night. We left Monday morning. Ryan was able to stay until Monday night. Kirsty and the kids were able to stay until Wednesday.

I can't wait to see them all again. I am so grateful for the knowledge that families are forever and that I will be with my family through the eternities.