Aunt Lori and Aunt Brian

Here is my big brother Brian, aka Aunt Brian to my children.

(Took a couple of reminders to correct that.)

He's eyeballing his lovely wife Aunt Lori...

Who apparently did not start sitting around with her hands in the top of her pants only after she got pregnant. She just has more of an excuse now, you know, like feeling the baby or something like that.

We love when Aunt Brian and Aunt Lori come to visit.

Aunt Brian is good at cleaning. Who says gender roles should be so strictly defined?

He also helped me figure out why my lights were acting funky upstairs.

Helped me get Patric's car running.

Trimmed bushes.

Planted a bush.

Made pancakes.

Power washed my patio.

He really wanted to paint my bathroom. Seriously.

See, he's nesting, I think, but he ran out of things to do at his own house...

Along the same theme. Benjamin decided he would go ahead and have a baby too. He even made sure to get a real baby doll to pretend with.

The first thing Elaine said to me when I gave her a hug this morning and she wiped the sleep from her eyes, "Mommy. There's a baby in your belly."

"Hush child. That's a bad word in our house."

Brian practiced the art of hanging around with a child hanging from you.

He'll get the hang of it.

Then we went to our favorite Big Backyard.

Alida was tickled because Elaine and Lori fell asleep and stayed in the car. So while Brian had the boys, I got to just hang out with her for a little while.

Then while we played and Elaine slept, Lori cleaned the van.

We won't talk about how quickly we can make a mess of a car.

These are the most industrious Aunt and Uncle you've ever seen.

Nicholas re-arranged the bottle tree.

And when Nicholas said it couldn't be done, Ben proved him wrong and crammed himself in that tiny portion of the fort.

Then we helped Lori celebrate her birthday.

We provided the cake and the entertainment because five minutes after the kids had cake, they all went crazy on a sugar-high. It was truly amazing.

And the girls gave Lori a spa treatment and did her hair.

And Lori was a trooper.

Not only did she let us cram her in the back of the car with the kids on most trips out of the house,

but she also let us make fun of her wardrobe as well...