it's raining grandparents!

My grandparent-starved children got not only one set of grandparents for a week but BOTH sets!!!  It was pretty wonderful. 

The first night Joey's parents arrived - he introduced them to Rock Band.  With his mom rocking the guitar, his dad on drums and Joey on vocals - they pretty much brought down the house.  Here they are humoring me for a picture.

Joey likes to share all of his favorite things with his parents - so they had to visit his favorite grocery store - Aldi.  They told Luke, Lucy and Maryanne they could all pick out a treat.  Luke picked grape juice, Lucy picked a watch and Maryanne picked fresh roses.  :)

 And never was there a girl who enjoyed her "treat" more thoroughly.  She spent all day with these roses - touching and smelling them, singing to them, carrying them around and showing them to everyone.   Grandpa Hale said we'd better watch out for the florist's son.

We kept the kids home from school this day to really monopolize this time they got to spend with G&G Hale.  They played "Sleeping Queens"

Grandpa stealing Grandma's queen - she's not too happy about that.

 Next was Grandpa's education in all things Shopkins.  He was genuinely interested in this strange phenomenon.  My kids were more than happy to explain it all to him.

And to pay them back for his thorough education - they had him read them stories.

When the Songer grandparents arrived - the Hale grandparents went to stay with a family we know in the neighborhood.   They were nice enough to take them in.  Something about her being their youngest daughter - so it worked out.

 This is why you have 12 kids - so you can get to the best ones! :)

last the best of all the gang, right?

Songer grandparents!   Grandpa doing his ab workout.

 and his 3,2,1 blastoffs

And more stories

And as customary - my dad asked for a project and next thing you know.... there's a hole in our wall.

 He found some dead space and some inaccessible space and made us an awesome cupboard right by our kitchen table.  It's cavernous and I put big kitchen appliances and paper and crafts the kids need when they are working at the table.  I love it so much!!

Those actually go really really deep and we keep our pans and griddle in the smaller slots.  And food storage behind the crafts.  I would take a picture of what it looks like now - but I'm way too tired to get out of this bed so this is the pic you get.  :) 

More Beatles Rock Band

Doing our fitness FHE to the "chicken fat" song...

right before consuming Grandpa Songer's famous chocolate malts.  So, it all evens out right?

We put the kids to bed and then the adults all went to Memphis Escape rooms!   This time we did "What's in the Box?"  And it was awesome.

Another fun no-kid night that was not pictured - was a temple and Fat Larrys night.   We did sealings and it was so neat to have the two sets of parents there - very reminiscent of our actual wedding ceremony.  And Fat Larry's was a hoot - the food was delicious and Larry treated us right.  And Momma Hale taught us that sometimes it's ok to have dessert first - especially when it's fried pie.

 Ya know, grandparents really are grand parents.  Just the grandest of all. 

I'm so glad that it worked out to have them all come.  We soaked up every second of having them here.

 Thank you to all four of you for your sacrifice to come and participate in Luke's baptism and do all you do for us and our kids. 
We love you!!!