Thanksgiving

My brother and his family came to town for Thanksgiving. My brother is one crazy dude! I didn't have much opportunity to take pictures while they were here, but I did manage to get a few. My brother has decided to be a firefighter. You can't just simply be a firefighter, alot goes into it. So, my brother has started packing on the muscles, but he has a long way to go if he wants to be as tough as me ;)

My kids call my brother, Uncle Punk. I'm not sure if I have told the story of how Uncle Mark became Uncle Punk. If any of you know my brother, I don't really need to share the story, you already know what a punk he is. But it is a good story, so here goes...when Piper had just turned 2 years old and Finn was 10 months old, Jeremy and I left them with their Uncle Mark and Aunt Jennifer while we went on a mission trip to Mexico with the youth group. Uncle Mark decided it would be funny to teach Piper to call people a "punk". Piper never picked up on it. However, Mark's oldest daughter who is 5 months younger than Piper, did pick up on it and when they were in the store, would look at someone and call them a "punk". This was one of the pranks that backfired on Mark. He is just full of pranks. I told him maybe he shouldn't have tried to teach someone else's kid to say things like that. After that, he became known to my kids as Uncle Punk.


I don't remember if this was the kid's idea or my brother's idea, but someone decided Mark would do a push-up with the kids on his back. Finn is sitting between my two nieces, Mabrie and Allie.

Then Piper got on behind Allie.

And it looked like so much fun that Seven got on between Finn and Allie.

With five of the six cousins on Uncle Punk's back waiting to go up in the air when he did a push-up, we couldn't let Rilian miss out, so Mabrie held on to him so he wouldn't fall off.

Ta da! Strong Uncle Punk has lifted off! I love the surprised and exited looks on the kid's faces.