Cousin catch up: Braden side

Late January brought Sam and his family to the Treasure Valley for med school rotations, hooray! My boys decided to celebrate by picking up every germ possible during that seven week period, so we didn't get to spend as much time with the little girlie cousins as we would have liked. Buuut we had lots of fun when we did!

One of the highlights for me was getting to meet baby Miko! It's probably hard to tell from these pictures, what with her clearly trying to be anywhere but in my arms, but she loves me. A lot :).

We made it over to Sam and Terri's a few times, where the main attraction was always Grandma Pam's step stool next to the big front window. I think Hazel and Jack finally mastered sharing it just before the Bradens wrapped up their time here. And the center picture where Bailey is kissing Jack's head is very representative of their relationship :).

 Sam and Terri came over to watch the Super Bowl with us and eat Chuck's delicious Macho Nachos, mmmm. I only took one picture, but I think it's a good one:

Chuck and Clyde and I sneaked out for an hour for Clyde's baptism preview at the church and came home to find Jack cozily asleep on Aunt Terri.

 We have the Bradens to thank for our recently rediscovered addiction to Krispy Kreme doughnuts since they were always so nice to share their extra coupons with us:

One weekend we met up back in Utah, where the kids merrily ran around Quinn and Eden's apartment complex stairwells after baby Leila's blessing and holed up in Isaac's room and played with all his toys :).

Obviously the highlight of that trip was getting to meet our newest niece!

[Excuse me for a moment while I stare at that beautiful family picture in the lower left and try to wrap my head around the fact that my little brother has TWO kids...]

Leila's blessing was beautiful and we were so glad we could be there. I think it's so fun that my daughter will have two little girl cousins on this side so close in age - Miko is two and a half months older than Leila, who will be four and a half months older than our baby.

The day before the Bradens moved back to Utah, we kidnapped Bailey and Hazel for a few more hours of cousin time:

Hazel definitely got cut off in the bottom picture, whoops! We loved having the girls over for a bit; it's so fun to see bits and pieces of their little personalities.

 

These pictures kill me - Jack's little desk was usually a battle ground between these two, so to see them sweetly sharing and coloring together is so cute!

 And that wraps up all of our fun time catching up with cousins. We're pretty homebound for the next few months, so we're glad we got all these visits in when we did!! Love you all!