MEL'S VISIT

I can't decide just what to make this post about, so it will just be a combo of all things that have been happening and going on in my head. It's early, and it was a late night and everyone else is still in bed of course. Mel's visit has flown (of course!) and her flight leaves today at 1:30. As usual I am dreading it. I keep waiting for the visit where it seems like there was plenty of time, and we got talked out, and I was at least OK with her leaving, but so far, no such thing....She has just made a few little side trips to see her friends, lunch here, and coffee there a couple of times, and the rest has been with us. I think her brothers are every bit as frantic as me if they would admit it. At one point Jimmy actually hid her phone from her as he didn't want anything distracting her from all of us, and for some reason they all kept thinking she was going to leave and go visit someone else. Jimmy and his family and Joe and his were here yesterday and they all played game after game after game of Mario Carts on the Wii trying to beat Mel. No such luck...haha I guess they FINALLY decided she was unbeatable....and we moved on to a few games of bowling....we all played that (I am actually pretty good at this haha) to include even Annabel and Lindsey got in on the game...the final 4 in the tournament were Mel and Jimmy, Joe and Evan...Mel won this as well, much to everyone's annoyance, haha...We had a bbq and the food was WONDERFUL....I have had "my guard" for a few days, so I have done quite well. While their tournament was going on, Capri and I baked our cupcakes....She is VERY hooked on the book Pinkalicious, and in this book the little girl bakes PINK cupcakes with her mom where she eats too many and turns pink. I had told Capri the next time she comes we would make some pink cupcakes. She was sooo excited and looked sooo cute to even include wearing her cupcake dress.....She was VERY fun on the whole experience, and I have a feeling she and Grandma will hopefully have MANY more baking experiences together... As you can see from the pics she was adorable on the whole thing. Larissa dusted her face with pink blush, and she was sooo excited to have turned pink herself....haha JD got into the action decorating the little cake that we made from left over batter, though he was licking the frosting faster than I could stop him...haha Jeffie and Capri helped frost and decorate another cake later as everyone had eaten the first batch WAY too fast. The babies were very good on the day and everyone enjoyed them so. As you can see of the pic with Joe and Cody, he is a little replica of his dad....Well I guess that's it for now...I don't need to go into detail how I am feeling as I am sure you are all very well aware....I love my whole family together, though there is sooo many of us now with sooo many kids it is always loud and confusing. But that's OK...it will be quiet soon enough.....believe it or not I tried to nip on the pics, but as you can see there was no way to eliminate anything....