in laws and such

gary and ellie were good enough to fly in last friday to surprise matt for his 30th bday, and the greatest thing about it was that coop knew and kept the secret until they got here. ellie woke matty up from a nap friday night and matt was seriously surprised. saturday we picked out a tree. i finally got a douglas fir, which i have wanted forever, but didn't want to pay for. but we found them for $30, so we pulled the proverbial trigger. the kids proceeded to decorate it with a combination of old and new, store bought and homemade ornaments. this drives me crazy because i like uniformity. my ideal tree would be decorated in french country style and about 13 feet tall. and it would make the entire house smell like a pine forest. for now, this 7 foot fir will do. we hung the stockings with care and settled down sunday evening to enjoy the newest santa clause movie. coop loves jack frost's character and ains says in her whiny, nasal voice, "he's not my favorite." so coop had to suffer through 40 min of my little ponies after his movie ended. it doesn't really seem like a fair tradeoff, but such is life.

the weather had really started to turn cold and so gary and ellie and the kids and i spent all day tuesday at the children's museum. 4 1/2 hours. all day. but the kids loved it and the gparents weathered it very well. when it was time to ride the carousel gary and i both looked at ellie. i haven't loved them for quite some time and gary was saving himself for the blown glass ceiling and its magical nauseating powers. the entry staircase has been converted into what they call "the yule slide," and the kids and the adults loved it. matt was able to meet us there. i know; he can somehow manage an early day when his parents are here to play, but when i need him to help with something... at least in ortho he will have very few "dental emergencies." the kids were sad to see gary and ellie go, but we will be invading their home shortly, so the tears were short lived. ains was pretty quick to settle down until she realized that we were not flying to washington later that night. she took it pretty bad. she spent much of the day sporting a sour look on her cute little face. while they were here we ate good food, enjoyed great company -i even played hearts- and matt and i went out with gary and ellie without our kids.

so here are a few pics of our days with gma and gpa wall.

coop decorating the tree

ains putting her ornaments on the tree, and taking them off, and reorganizing them

the kids with gary and ellie in the dinosaur room

matt and gary relaxing in the playhouse