Technically week 19 isn't over yet, but the past few days have been so busy they feel like a week. My sister Emily and her family came to visit on Monday. They stayed at my house until Wednesday when we all went down to Houston. We stayed at my sister Lindsey's house until Friday. That doesn't sound like a long time, but with 9 kids all age 5 and under it was plenty of time. We did lots of activities to keep those kids busy. It was exhausting and so much fun.
Emily and David and the kids flew into Houston from Colorado on Saturday and stayed there until Monday. They went to the Bluebell Ice cream factory in Brenham on Monday and then came up to my house at dinner time. We went on a walk to the tire swing park and I completely forgot the camera. It was such a pretty evening. Emily told me she was surprised by how green Texas is. She said she always thought it was a desert. I used to think that too. It may be hot and humid here, but it's not a desert.
On Tuesday we all went to the 1st Cav Museum on Fort Hood. The kids all loved looking at the tanks and other vehicles. Asher and Bridger thought they were pretty cool.
The helicopters were a huge hit. Derrick kept pointing at them and saying Dah Dah Dah! Which is his word for helicopters (and pretty much everything else).
One of the fun things about Emily's visit is that Titus and Veronica were able to meet for the first time. Emily and I were pregnant together last year. Titus was born about 3 weeks before Veronica. It was great to see them interact (and steal food from each other.)
We got the pool out on Tuesday afternoon and the kids had a fun time playing with it. Tuesday was actually a cooler than normal day, but the pool still felt great.
Emily and the boys played an impromptu smelling game with the spices. Derrick thought it was so funny. He laughed every time he smelled a spice.
On Tuesday evening we went to the nearby college and fed the ducks. There were also geese, fish, and even turtles in the water.
Here's Derrick pointing at a turtle. He says, Tut le.
Derrick spent most of his time throwing rocks into the water. Soon a lot of the other kids joined in too.
On Wednesday we woke up and hurried to get everything packed. Then we drove 2 1/2 hours to Navasota to a Texas State Park called Washington on the Brazos. Lindsey and her boys were waiting for us there. We had a really quick picnic because the flies were driving us crazy.
And then we went to a living history farm that is part of the park. Lindsey has a state park pass so all of us adults got in for free. The park ranger asked us how many of the kids were over the age of six. We all kind of laughed and said, "None of them." So all nine of them got in for free too.
The most interesting part of the farm was this house.
We sat in the breeze way and enjoyed the shade and breezes while a lady told us about the family that lived here back in the day.
I thought we would just look in the rooms and then be on our way, but there were lots of fun things to do. The cousins all had fun playing with these blocks.
Lydia liked seeing where the baby would sleep.
Out back there were some chickens that Derrick liked looking at.
The most entertaining thing to do was pretend to do laundry. The kids had so much fun scrubbing cloths and then hanging them up on the clothes line. (Derrick just threw rocks into the rinse water the whole time.)
Charlotte stayed out there for a long time hanging up laundry.
After we finished up at the house we went to look at the barn. The barn just holds tools because it never gets cold enough for animals to need to sleep in the barn. Emily and David posed with the yoke in case they ever need to teach a lesson about being equally yoked together in marriage.
Here are the three of us sisters posing together. It's like we are the musical group SheDaisy or something - one blond, one brunette, and one redhead.
The weather was super hot so pretty soon we decided to ditch the 1800's life and return to our air conditioned cars. We all drove to Lindsey's house. The heat had given me a head ache and I was seeing a few spots as I drove. I took some medicine at Lindsey's house and soon I was feeling much better.
None of us wanted to go outside the rest of the day. That was okay because we had a movie planned for that night. We all watched The Lego Movie. It was, well, AWESOME. Everyone needs to quit raving about Frozen (which is not that great people) and talk about The Lego Movie. I can't believe how hard I laughed during that movie. The kids all loved it too. If you haven't seen it yet you are really missing out.
On Thursday we went to a little farm near Lindsey's house where you can pick your own thorn-less blackberries.
Charlotte and Lydia loved picking blackberries.
Everyone had a great time. The area was so pretty.
Charlotte and Lydia were so good at picking the black blackberries and leaving the red ones.
Derrick walked around the whole place looking for some water to throw rocks into. There wasn't any water - or rocks really- so he settled on throwing clumps of dirt at this mound.
I love this picture. The girls are so cute together.
At home we gave the kids some blackberries to eat. My kids remembered that they don't actually like black berries.
One thing we wanted to make sure we did was have a big birthday party for all the cousins. We don't live close enough to attend every birthday party so this "cousin's party" was so everyone could celebrate together. Emily was really good at taking care of the details.
The kids played a game where they walked around with plastic eggs on spoons.
We did a real quick present exchange. The kids each had a present. They sat in a circle and passed them around and then opened the present. It was kind of crazy, but everyone was happy. After the presents, David walked out of the guest room with a bed sheet full of balloons. He dropped it on the kids and they all screamed for joy. Lydia was especially happy about the pink balloons. Last week, when we celebrated Billy's birthday, we'd had one pink balloon that the girls loved - until it popped. They were so upset. I told them that we'd have lots of pink balloons at the cousins party. That made them happy.
The kids had fun playing with the balloons for a few minutes. We never did get a picture of all nine of them together at the same time. Someone was either asleep, or grumpy, or too busy, or what not.
Then it was time for cake. Emily made a yummy chocolate cake for all the kids.
We put 9 candles on the cake and sang Happy Birthday to the kids. They all blew them out together.
And then we gave the kids a piece of cake with a candle on it and sang happy birthday to each kid. We did it really fast. It was like: light the candle, sing, blow, light the next candle. That was really fun. Derrick really liked it - remember that was about the only thing he liked about his real birthday.
As if all that wasn't enough we then put the kids in their swimming suits and took them to a splash pad.
We were there for over an hour. Even Veronica had a great time playing in the water.
Most of the kids took naps when we got back from the splash pad. Lindsey took the older boys swimming at her neighborhood's pool.
At five we left all 9 kids with two brave teenage babysitters and went out to eat at a nearby Tex-Mex restaurant. We've been planning on doing this since before everyone knew that Brandon would be in Korea during this visit. It would have been fun to be there with Brandon, but I had a good time anyway. Even though we've all been married for over 5 years I think this might have been the first time we all went out to eat like this.
Here I am with my gorgeous sisters. We thought it was funny that we were all wearing similar shirts.
We returned to the house and paid the babysitters handsomely for their hour and a half of service. They had done a great job - especially considering that Titus cried the whole time and Derrick had an extremely poopy diaper.
All throughout the visit, Lindsey made sure we all did a little job after every meal. They were all written on little Popsicle sticks. They were things like sweep the floor, wipe off the counters, clear the table, etc. We drew a stick and then did the job. Those jobs helped keep the house clean and Lindsey didn't feel like she had to do all the work. I don't know who was in charge of cleaning up the shoes, but they did a great job. I like seeing lots of shoes at houses. It means something fun is going on.
Bedtime was a little rougher that night. It started out with a little walk around the lake behind Lindsey's backyard. Lydia tried to put her hand in the water and fell in. The water wasn't that deep, and her head never went underwater, but it was still scary for her and me. We had a long talk about how she needs to listen when I warn her of something, how we were both worried, and that I will always try to save her.
And then the night was really rough. Lydia and Charlotte both had mild coughs all week. Lydia woke up coughing and struggling to breath. I tried a few things to help her out, but what finally got her breathing normal again was to take her into the bathroom and run the shower for a few minutes. The warm, moist air helped her stop coughing. An hour or so after she fell asleep, Charlotte work up with the same cough. And after I got her situated I found Derrick wandering up the stairs from the living room (even though he'd been sleeping up stairs). Veronica also woke up several times. After that rough night I decided that we wouldn't try to stay at Lindsey's until Saturday - like I'd sort of been thinking. Instead we'd go home that afternoon like I had planned.
The kids were all awake at 6:30. Emily was a saint and got up with them and let me go back to bed. After I woke up for real at 9:00 we got all the kids ready and took them to a place called Monkey Business. It was a place with lots of bounce houses. At first Derrick was really overwhelmed and wouldn't do anything. Then he started jumping off the little seats. I love this picture of him in mid air.
After he got comfortable with the place I took him up the stairs to the big slide. He was scared at first, but he loved sliding down with me. He wanted to slide over and over and over again.
Here's David going down the slide with Bridger.
And here I am sliding with Derrick and Charlotte.
Emily took this picture with her phone. It's blurry, but it really shows off how big the slide was.
Lydia played around for a while and went down the slide with us a few times. But soon I found her on laying on the floor. I took her over to the baby area and she fell asleep.
When everyone was all played out we went back to Lindsey's. We had a quick lunch and I finished packing the car. Then we all said goodbye. Emily and David would leave for the rest of their vacation in Florida on Saturday. I'll see them again when we stop by their house in September. And I know I'll see Lindsey again soon. But I don't know the next time we will all be together again.
Our 3 hour car ride home was pretty uneventful. Our car has a built in DVD player. The kids love watching movies on long car rides. We didn't need to stop. Most of the kids slept most of the time. No one even cried.
When we got home all the kids cried as I got them out of the car. I think the week had caught up to them. I put a movie on and they all just kind of relaxed for the next few hours.
I'm so glad that Emily and David wanted to spend part of their vacation with my family. Even though we don't get to see each other as often as we would like to, I'm glad that we can get together occasionally. I'm also glad that we are all friends. Even if we aren't close physically we are still very close emotionally. My sisters really are my best friends.
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