Cousins!!

Last year when we got together with Dustin's side of the family, I realized the kids had not seen their Tennessee cousins in almost 4 years. I never grew up having cousins my age and I was kind of ashamed that I taken such a blessing for my kids for granted. So a few months ago I invited Wyatt and Alex Anne out for a week of cousin camp.

It has been the highlight of our summer so far! Alex Anne and Ellie are about 2 weeks apart in age and Nate and Wyatt are 2 months apart. My house has been full of energy and laughter. As I see the kids together, I can't help but be a little jealous. I'm so grateful for the time we've had with the kids and the memories we made.

We pulled into the garage at 9:30 pm. Luke had been asleep for a few hours but everyone was so excited that they woke him up.

I think I got the kids into bed around 11 and that was the last time that the kids went to bed before I did.

Sunday we wrote up a list of everything the kids wanted to with each other over the week. Dustin took one look at the list and told us that we would probably have to cut some things out. Not only did we do our entire list, we even ADDED things to it.

 

Sunday we played Clue (and every single day following)

 

The girls wrote a show with parts for everyone titled: Sweet Revenge. Complete with hair, make up and costumes! It was about young dancers and involved a lot of accents.

 

There was also an EPIC ball fight that required me to remove all pictures from my walls. 

Uncle Doug and cousin Cody came over for dinner (and the show).

 

There was sno-cone making and slip-n-sliding.

 

And once I put the little kids to bed, the girls stayed up doing each others hair and watching movies.

Monday morning I came home from the gym to find all the younger kids cuddled up in Nate's bed watching a movie on Wyatt's iPad.

We headed up for a day at Big Surf. Dustin and his brothers would go here when they were kids and they came out to visit their Grandma, so it seemed fitting to take them there.

 On our way home we decided we needed some frozen yogurt for a snack so we would have our taste off. I personally think Menchies frozen yogurt is kind of disgusting and much prefer Swirl-It but we had to put it to a test.

Winner: SWIRL-IT. Full disclosure: I took half the kids to Swirl-It and let them load up their yogurt with candy and Dustin did the Menchies run and just got plain yogurt.

While I got ready for our date night, the kids all played Mario Kart on the wii, which was another reoccurring game of the week.

We had made plans months ago with friends to get together for dinner out while the kids got to have their own unsupervised kid party at the Simpson's.

 

 

12 kids, pizza, easy cheese, fruit, a trampoline and Murder in the Dark. I think they had a great time.

Tuesday morning started off early. The kids moved their morning cuddle session to the couch for more Mario Kart.

We drove over to Waffle Love for breakfast. Everyone agreed it was delicious.

Later that morning we went to burn off some energy at X-treme Air. Which I learned is building an American Ninja Warrior type obstacle course.  I don't know why I am so excited about this information.

Because our list still had a million things on it, we had to knock out a few more on Tuesday. I took the girls to get pedicures and we all got our eyebrows waxed.

After that we headed over to the store to buy all the ingredients for the "World's Largest Ice Cream Sundae."

I cannot even recall everything that was in this sundae. It was a giant party tub of ice cream, marshmallows, mini twix, mini rolos, m&ms, nuts, whipped cream, cherries, marshmallow fluff, caramel and chocolate syrup. . . I think everyone got sick after just a few bites.

This was how much was left of our $25 sundae once the kids were done eating.

That night we grabbed In n Out for dinner, played some Clue and cuddled up to watch movies for the night.

Wednesday was our last full day together so we had to really crank out the rest of the list. Unfortunately we were really tired and moving even slower than any other day.

The first thing we could manage was getting out of the house to go to Costco. We had to drive a whole extra 5 minutes to make it to one that happen to have an open foot court since ours is getting remodeled. They were making smoothies, which was perfect for our list.

 The guy assured me that he did not hate me for taking 6 samples.

 For the cheapest meal of the week, I fed 6 kids an assortment of pizza, smoothies, ice cream and churros for $17.

When we got home the kids put together the cutest movie ever, which I wish I could share, but I cannot figure out how. After that, we went swimming.

And then came straight home to change into clothes for BOWLING!!

 I don't think anyone loves bowling as much as Luke does, but all the kids did great and we even got some strikes!!

That night my living room was turned into a giant fort that all of the children slept in.

Before we headed out for a Midnight Run to Dairy Queen.

 And with that our list was complete!!!

Today we are packing them up to take them to the airport and all so very sad.

We have had the best time with our cousins and I have just loved seeing all of them together.  I'm so grateful for the amazing cousins my kids have.  ALL of them!