Uncle G



Since Jon's brothers live out of state, we don't get too many opportunities to see them and spend time with them.  Perhaps one of the best parts about this trip was the fact that his brother Greg and Greg's wife Sonja were around a lot.  Greg and Sonja have a big black lab fur baby named Casey. The kids have a love hate relationship with Casey that I know have I have talked about on the blog before.  They love the dog, but hate that he is big and a dog :) Ava is probably the worse, she talks about how much she misses Casey and wants to see Casey, but when Casey is present, well, Ava is sincerely freaked out.  Wes I think loves Casey.  The only time he got upset was when Ava started screaming and running.  Wes always feeds off panic. Taylor and Liv are getting better, but do still get a little excited when they first encounter Casey (who doesn't really when a big black lab comes bounding in?)

Despite their relationship where Casey is concerned, my kids LOVE their aunt and uncle.  Livi attached herself to Greg and clung like glue.  I have always been a little afraid that the kids would not know their out of state aunts, uncles, and cousins, so I have made a really concerted effort to keep lots of pictures of them out around the house. We also talk about memories of times they have been around a lot. Last month when their newest cousin Teddy was born, we talked a lot about how exciting it was to have a new cousin.  I showed them pictures of him online and we try to bring him up and talk about him by name as if we just left from seeing him.  I like to think some of this effort resulted in the instant connection that Liv had with Greg.  

I think it helps that Greg and Sonja are great at sitting down and talking/playing with the kids.  They both played trains with Taylor at some point during the trip.  Greg also played the butterfly board game with Alivya and Ava, "soccer", fishing, and taught them all to pilot the boat. Sonja helped me get their plates ready for them during meals, even if she wasn't sure at times what she was doing :) All of this is attention that does not go unnoticed in a house with four kids.  Ava was asking for them all weekend. Evan spent the night on Friday, and Ava heard him Saturday morning as she was walking down the steps.  She got super excited and screamed, "Its Uncle Greg and Aunt Sonja!!!!" 

Hopefully they know that there are four little kids here in Appleton who are totally in love with their Aunt and Uncle.