Family Reunion!

Today we had our family reunion!  We call it the Lakota Family Reunion and we only have it once every 3 years!  It all stems from my Great Grandma and Grandpa and thier 9 children, one of which was my Grandma, Catherine Lakota Mueller.  Now my family, the Mueller side,is huge!  And we are only just one chunk of it!  Here was the Mueller family picture from 3 years ago.  Pretty impressive huh?

3 years ago, I was preggers with the twins and my cousin Jen was preggers with Blake.  Gracie was 2 and Addie was 1.  Seems like only yesterday.

Here are the original Mueller kids that my Grandma and Grandpa Mueller made.  They had 13 kids and although sadly, we have lost my Uncle Wally and Uncle Bob, here are the rest all in one place at the same time!  2 of my aunts live in California and one of my uncles lives in Minnesota.  From the top, you have my Uncle Rich, Uncle Ron, Uncle Jim, Uncle Ray, Uncle Mike.  And the bottom you have my Aunt Peggy, Aunt Cathy, Aunt Marilyn, Aunt Judy, Uncle Jerry, and my dad. 

Here is the other side otherwise known as the "outlaws" since they married into the family.  From the top there's Uncle Toddy, Aunt Sue, Aunt Jan, Aunt Carol, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Tony, Uncle Jack.  On the bottom, there's Aunt Karen, Aunt Sandy, Uncle Jerry, Aunt Rosemary, my mom, and Aunt Maureen.

Our reunion is obvisouly huge!  We had kids games, lots of food, a polka band, a bouncy house, a grill station, beanbag tournaments, egg tosses, and a video game trailer.  This year my sister Amy took over the kids games.  My kids were all about getting some tattooes.

Here they are showing them off.

Here we are!  To think that the next family reunion 3 years from now, Gracie will be 8 and the twins will be 5!  Yikes!

Gracie hit the bouncy house and as soon as my cousin Jen's daughter Addie came, they were attached at the hip.

They are not even a year apart and they remind me so much of my cousin and I running around when we were younger.

Uncle Mike took them to get some drinks.

Here is just a peek at the chaos that goes on.  I feel so sorry for the photographers.  They have to shoot 2 separate huge group shots because you have to fit 350+ people into this picture.  Then they work thier magic and put it together so that you can't even tell it was taken in 2 different pieces.

After we waited in a very long line for food, this girl found her favorite....watermelon!

Presley had fun going down the slide.

Again, Gracie and Addie, 2 BFF's for sure.

Even Baby Logan came up from St. Louis!  Isn't he the cutest?  And on a happy note, my cousin Diane and Bill have finally had thier adoption finalized!!! 

Here is some of the kid games getting started.

We played ring toss.

Presley was all about it.  Especially when he found out he gets a prize!

We played Bozo buckets too.

After games, the polka band came.  Evie brought her chair over with Grandpa to sit and listen.

She was bopping to the beat.

Presley came over too. He could not stop staring at all the instruments.  I think he might be in music one day!

Pretty soon we were all sitting around listening to some good old polka music.

It wasn't long after that when Evie and Presley decided it was time to polka.

They had so much fun dancing around.  Good thing too. If you have Mueller blood in you, you have to love polka music!

And I think it's safe to say that they do.

One tradition we always do is "the chicken dance."  That is so much fun!

After some dancing, it was pinata time.  I helped organize it. We had a pinate for just the under 5 kids.  Presley saw it and started smiling and came running to take a few swings.

Gracie took her turn.

And so did Evie.

When it finally broke, it was candy time!

And of course candy eating time!

Check out all of Evie's suckers.  She would take turns licking each one.

This is such the cutest picture ever!  Evie and Presley were headed back to the pavilion to do some more polka!

Presley just can't sit still when there's music going on.

In the meantime, someone had their golfcart there and Gracie climbed on for a ride.

There they go!

And then the video trailer that was at my Uncle's party a few weeks ago, there was a mad dash to go play games.

Then somehow Chuck took over driving the golfcart.  All the kids took turns riding.  Presley sat shotgun and just smiled the whole time!

And of course no Mueller party is complete without Uncle Jim playing his accordion. 

Our family has certain polkas that we love to hear and sing along too.  Everyone just starts dancing and singing and it's so fun!

My Aunt Judy and Aunt Peggy are great polka dancers. 

The newest member of the Mueller clan, Baby Augie, thought so too! 

My Uncle played my Grandma's favorite polka song and everyone swayed along and sang.  It brought a tear to my eye that she is gone.  I miss her still.  But to think that she created all of this....Wow!  I'm sure she was smiling down from Heaven singing along with us!

After many hours of family fun, it was time to go because this little guy conked out. 

It was so fun today and so great to see everyone. Rarely are we all in the same place and at the same time.  I love being a part of this big wonderful family and am so lucky to be part of it.  The next time we are together again may be in another 3 years.  Oh well, we will always have the memories and the pictures to last a lifetime!