Violet was SO excited her cousins were coming!! I printed out a calendar for her at the beginning of December and marked on it which days everybody was arriving. She crossed off a day each night before going to bed and counted how long it would be before they arrived. Calvin and Violet anxiously waited at the door when we knew their van would be pulling up and they bolted to the door when they arrived. Calvin remembered Emma from last year's visit to Dallas. We all enjoyed pizza for supper and got the girls set up in Violet's room. Violet ended up sharing the queen size air mattress with Anja the first night, Emma got the twin mattress, and Kristina slept in Violet's bed.
Many people from our church offered winter gear for the girls to wear so they could play outside in the snow. They were outside playing before everybody was awake, even before breakfast! Violet and Anja wandered off and made plenty of snow angels. Violet came inside super hungry. Everybody ate eggs, cinnamon streusel muffins, and toast. Lisa and Sten brought up their fancy espresso maker and provided all of us caffeine-addicted java-loving coffee hounds delicious latte drinks. Yum!
I got out the funfusion beads (perler beads) and the girls went to town making tons of things - we glued magnets to all of them. I think each of us made at least 3 or 4 different ones. Even Dave and Sten got in the action making their own beaded melty creations. Lisa heated up some chili she brought for lunch, and then made some chicken noodle soup to eat for later.
The girls were in and out all day, spending time at the table making crafts or playing outside. Even Calvin went out for awhile and played in the snow.
After a taco supper, we all drove out to Holmes Elementary for "open swim" from 7-8:45. Everybody seemed to love that idea! All the kids enthusiastically got their swim suits on and we headed out to the pool. Everybody gravitated towards the shallow warm pool where it was nice and cozy - but we eventually bit the bullet and went in the big "cold" pool. Everybody had lots of fun, even Calvin, who was tall enough to navigate the little pool all by himself. I went off the diving board a couple times. Emma and Anja even got brave enough to jump off the high dive!
Vanessa even got in the water with us. She was really unsure and hesitant at first but I just held her close and let her get comfortable with the water at her pace. She stayed snuggled up to my shoulder most of the time, but started reaching out her hand and splashing the water over my shoulder and seemed to enjoy the warm water after 20 minutes or so.
We didn't get the kids to bed until around 10:30 that night. All the older girls wanted hot chocolate to warm up after walking back to the van with wet hair in the freezing weather. Those Texas girls aren't used to the "frigid" temps even though it isn't all that cold for an Iowa winter right now (32 degrees!). As we had hot chocolate the girls worked on more perler beads and Violet excitedly made one in the shape of a dog for Dave. It is so fun to see her light up when she gives something to him that she worked hard on. Nobody fought bed time, all the kids were exhausted. I'm heading there myself! So far this has been wonderful having the Armitage family here - we got some "alone" time with them before Josh and Carrie and Martha arrive tomorrow. Violet is absolutely LOVING having the girls here to play with and I barely even see her during the day, she is 100% occupied! Calvin jumps in where he can, I don't think he feels left out. The girls are so sweet and help out with chores, and play with him too.
Wednesday:
- wake up at 8 am, ate breakfast (cold cereal, poached eggs, english muffins)
- made more perler beads...I think Kristina counted 31 of them on the metal door
- Lisa made chicken noodle soup for lunch
- most of the kids went outside to play for awhile
- Calvin and Vanessa napped, Lisa and I went to grocery store to get rest of stuff for the rest of the week
- made spaghetti sauce for dinner, cooked noodles and heated up garlic bread
- went to BBC gym to play around for awhile, kids melting down, very tired, got them to bed right away.
- Josh and Carrie and family arrived at 10 pm, they got their kids to bed, stayed up and talked til midnight
- we anticipate Martha arriving around lunch time tomorrow.
that was the short version, i'm going to bed! Will write more later.
Ok, so there won't be a longer detailed version, the time is flying and all the days are melting together in the craziness of everyone being here.
Thursday, Josh and Carrie went to meet with our financial advisor...kids all just played around..made lots more perler bead designs. We also made another run to Hobby Lobby to get more beads and pallat designs. Some kids went outside to play...food was made...Martha arrived around 11 am bringing lots of stuff...we had a variety of things for lunch, some ate black bean chili, some ate chicken soup, some had leftover pizza. Martha brought a huge pot of soup for dinner, we heated that up (it had zucchini, sausage, noodles, etc...delicious soup!) when it was supper time.
After dinner we all went to the gym at BBC - Kristina and Emma minded the kids (we paid `em some babysitting money) while the adults played volleyball. We all quickly discovered how horrible we are at volleyball, but it was REALLY fun!
Violet, even though she was having an absolute BLAST playing with her cousins, was run ragged. She looked incredibly tired by the time the days were over.
Snow kept falling. I think we got 6 inches that night. Dave was out snowblowing right away Friday morning, and everybody was excited to get up and head to Lee Whitmore's gym. Lisa made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. I think we got breakfast eaten, packed up, and in the vans by 11 am. It is an adventure to pack up and move this many people! We jumped and bounced ourselves silly for two hours, and finally came to an ending point when the kids started to get hungry. The snow was still falling, I think we got another 3 or 4 inches that morning. It was a challenge driving there and back, but we made it. We had to use a shovel to get out of the gym parking lot because Lisa's van got stuck in a pile of snow that a snow plow created on the edge of the road. Lunch was another "heat up whatever leftovers you want" - there was pizza, chicken noodle soup, Martha's soup, chili, sandwiches, etc.
Lisa got work making pizza crust dough and homemade sauce for "Chicago-style" pizzas. It smelled amazing in the house and the pizzas turned out really good!
The 6 younger kids took a nap that afternoon, and watched Renee's new Tinkerbell movie when they all woke up, so there were a few hours of down time. Violet has been napping in our bed because the room is dark and empty. Calvin napped in his own bed and Vanessa slept in the crib in my closet. At night though, Calvin has been sleeping on a twin air mattress on the floor in our room since Martha slept in Calvin's bed. It all worked out really nicely. Violet shared her room with Kristina, Emma and Anja, Sten and Lisa slept in the guest room with the queen bed, and Josh and Carrie and family camped out in the basement rooms.
Christmas Eve was "Christmas" for everybody. The kids ate pizza first, then watched Charlie Brown Christmas while the adults ate the pizza - then we had a massive clean up effort to pick up all the toys, vacuum the floors, and prepare for opening presents. Boy, the kids were motivated to clean up!! All were excited and patienty waited while Kristina played "Santa" and handed out presents. Violet's favorite gift was the Leapfrog Tag reading system from Martha, one Berenstain Bears book from the Armitage cousins, and a "paint your own" Hello Kitty "piggy" bank from Renee. She got out her painting smock and wanted to start painting right away, but when I told her there might be more presents she sat down and waited for her turn. Calvin got a bulldozer from Austin which he immediately started pushing around the house.
After all the excitement, we got the kids to bed, and turned on some relaxing music. Dave played some silly videos on his computer, and we hung out and talked. I think we got to bed somewhere around midnight or 1 am most nights. We're all pretty tired, but its so fun to be together.
Josh went to bed last night and started throwing up - he was up a lot of the night sick in the bathroom, poor guy. We are all praying nobody else gets it!
He seems to be feeling better today, he's relaxing in the basement dosed up with Theraflu and Immodim.
The Armitages left around lunch time today. Sad to see them go!
My favorite sayings this week:
Sten-Erik: (re: Vanessa) "She's not one bit ugly."
Austin: (while asking Dave what was on his crazy Santa shirt) "What did he kill?"
Calvin: (when daddy was telling him to go potty in the middle of the night while helping him get his pajamas down) "Wite here on the floor?"
Martha: "I feel like I've been washing dishes since 6:30 am!" .... she says this at 11 am.
Emma: (re: Martha saying she hadn't ever dealt with buying something on Ebay and prefers Amazon).. "Is it all the biddin' and gamblin'?"
Emma asks to Uncle Dave "Do you like my dad?"
Some pics:
Kids were anxiously awaiting their arrival! Their van pulled up shortly after I got a text from Lisa saying they were just 3 miles away.
Perler beads became the event of the week ~ SO many things were created!
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