My kids only have two of them....soon to be three, though!  Their first boy cousin is on the way!  WooHoo!  Well, on Wednesday morning the kids and I headed out early.  I dropped the boys off at Grandma Sue's house and the girls and I headed down to Rockford, IL to meet my brother and his family for one night at a hotel.  We were so happy to get to spend even just a little time with them and to cement a few more memories in the girls' minds as to who their cousins are!

The girls did so good on the trip.  Really, I was shocked.  We must finally be getting to that age where car travel isn't quite so much torture.  Here are a few pictures:

After swimming and baths, Anna read some bedtime stories to Charis.  Anna's expression left something to be desired (she's still focusing so hard on getting the words), but Charis hung right in there with her! 

And Leah got a story from Uncle John.  I have a similar picture of him reading to she and Alathea from last summer.  It was fun to compare them and see how the girls have grown.

The next morning, after swimming a little bit, we found a nice playground to hang out in for awhile.  Alathea was so proud of herself for being able to climb up and over this one element on the playground.  It was pretty high and required some courage and dexterity for sure!  Here she is at the top of it, and then I got the cutest shot of her at the end.

Here are all the girls!

I snapped this cute one of Anna and Charis while we were walking into Red Robin for lunch!

And lastly here is the whole group....minus me.    You can't even really tell that Andrea is 4.5 months pregnant!

I'm so glad we got to see them!  Then we headed our separate ways.  I fought traffic back up through Madison, but thankfully Leah slept nearly the whole way.  We hit a couple firework stands to pick up our small stash for the 4th.  Got the boys and headed home. 

I'll post more later about our 4th of July and our friends who were here this week.  I have to sign off for now.  We will be celebrating Matt's birthday this afternoon with his mom.  I tell you, we have rushed from one thing to another for the last week and a half!  And, the calendar doesn't let up all month.  Anyway, I have a cake to bake!