Sweet baby sweet baby sweet

Here they are, all 11 babies in their sweet glory.

Portia, Dahlia, Luke, Gwen, Oliver, Gavin

Adia, Jeannine, Margot, Allen, and Ashton.

The Vegas of the midwest.

Have you heard of Branson? Of course you have. It's the home of Dolly Parton and the rest of the Osmonds. You know, the ones that no one remembers the name of. It's where old people go for vacation. It's very cute, all of these sweet little old couples riding in on their busses into Branson, MO and walking around the little shops and going to see Dick Clark's museum. The thing about Branson is, you see all these commercials for it and think, "huh, it's probably a lot like Vegas." Flashy, but cool. Then you drive in to Branson. It's not like Vegas (not that I have first hand experience. I've never been to Vegas). Vegas has a mini Eiffel Tower, Branson has a giant bust of Ronald Reagan. Outside a t-shirt stop.

Vegas has giant fountains. Branson has a replica of Mount Rushmore with the heads of Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Charlie Chaplain, and a face that is either James Dean or Elvis. It's very hard to say. Also, King Kong.

Like Vegas, Elvis performs everywhere. But the tourists in Branson just might be senile enough to think that Elvis is actually performing there.

Here are some more of the gems that this wonderful place has to offer:

A pizza place with giant instruments poking out of every window.

A giant rooster (are we seeing a giant pattern?)

A highly insensitive Titanic museum. You can't see it, but the marquis says "Now Boarding."

Driving past it gave me the heeby jeebies.

Really low flying helicopters.

Random airplanes on top of mini golf courses.

A roller coaster named after America's favorite pastime. Lumber Jacking.

About 20 minutes outside of Branson, though, the flare and gaudiness is gone. There's a really sweet resort that we stayed in. There was horse back riding. And indoor swimming pools. And miniature golf. And giant hot tubs. And paddle boats. It was beautiful.

She's little and sweet.

It took mom almost the whole ride to realize that there was a spot for Ollie to sit that wasn't on her lap. Luckily she had the only kid who could actually operate a paddle boat.

The babies used the adults' life jackets as tug boats. It was incredibly entertaining, but it did mean that the adults had to turn the boat around several times to go pick up the lost tug boat.

Apparently this is how Dahlia smiles.

just for giggles

In the past few days, I've received several texts from Jeannine and Adam that have made me laugh out loud. (Literally. Not the kid of laugh out loud where you say "lol" and never actually laugh, but the kind where you actually laugh out loud).
The following are those texts.

Wednesday, January 19 10:23 am from Jeannine
"A conversation overheard
Dahlia: We gotta kill Victor before he lies to his dad again
Luke: Kill Victor."

Saturday January 22 9:37 am from Jeannine
"Dahlia just said- 'whenever we find a little tiny baby in the grass without any parents we go find it and get it and eat it'
She was pretending to be a tiger, but still funny."

Monday January 24 5:06 am from Adam
"Holy cow. I'm here in Sacrament meeting by myself with the 3 stooges. During the passing of the sacrament, Luke first then Dahlia ripped loud stinkers and then busted out laughing. At least a 2 row radius turned to look."

I just thought I could share those lovelies with you all. Absolute perfection, courtesy of these two:

just to show off.

For part of my mom's Christmas present, I needed to gather some pictures of the fam. Upon looking at these pictures, I decided that I may have one of the prettiest families in the world. So, I'm going to show you all of the pretty pictures so that you can all bask in the beauty of my family.