Cousin Craziness This Summer

How many times do I mention my kid's cousins on this blog?  I think almost every post has something about cousins.  My kids have two cousins in this town that are close to their age and during the summer we spend almost everyday with them.  Then only a few hours later they have three more!  

During the raining part of the summer we tried bowling with Cohan and Ireland.  At first we thought there might be multiple games, but we quickly learned one game was enough.

When we came home from bowling that day, I saw my sister-in-law from St. Louis and my niece in my yard.  They thought we were out of town and had to stop by for work.  This turned into Lucie staying with us the remainder of the week.

On the 4th of July we had friends over, but the majority of the kids were...

Cousins!

Luckily these three have these special people in their lives because they are the most antisocial kids!  They prefer to just be with each other when in social situations.

Unless we have special friends over:) 

We did have a break after the 4th and they enjoyed time with our chickens,

Avery and I had a date getting our nails done,

We visited the library,

We snuggled,

and Avery went to ballet camp.  

But of course her brothers and cousins came to watch her perform.

A little McDonalds to celebrate with Papa H.

We had a fun dinner enjoying their cousins new house!

Then Lucie and Gretchen came to stay with us for a week.  It was a fun week, but 5 kids all day everyday was a lot for me:)  At least they will have the memories.

I took them in their PJ's to get two new chickens for our flock.

Of course we spent time at the pool.

two cool dudes!

Once again, we have used today to regroup and gear up for more fun in the sun with their best friends!

32 years and 9 Months of Being Friends

Since having children, my closest in age cousin, and I have not spent much time together. We used to see each other every summer-mostly at the lake-write letters to each other, and talk on the phone when growing up. We lived in Chicago and then Minnesota and they lived near St. Louis. Our moms made a commitment to keep us close since we didn't have sisters. It was nice to have someone to talk to while growing up and it was the next best thing to having a sister. Once college arrived I was even closer to her-I came to Stephens and my parents moved to st Louis-this lead to me coming home ALL the time. That meant I was usually with my Aunt and Uncle and Abra!

Now we see each other at family events, but we have a lot of cousins to catch up with. This past week, Abra and my Aunt Sharon came to the lake. My mom got to catch up with her sister and Abra and I got to catch up...even if we had an age range of kids that were 6,5,4,3,2,1!!!

The week basically went like this: wake up to coffee, swim, nap and spend the evening on the deck talking to late in the evening!

We also snuck in a shopping trip and I got suckered into buying my kids

Toys even with two of their birthdays a month away! 

My mom got them new puzzles. I didn't realize how much they enjoy them and how good they are for them.

Avery spent two days on hers.

Of course my kids are tired:)

So we decided to talk Mark into joining us down here to have some family time. It was much needed because we missed him a lot!! We saw our first family movie and have just laid around.

33 years is a long time to have someone in your life! My hope is our kids develop these cool relationships with their cousins... even enough to have them as their maid of honor! Thank you Abra and Aunt Sharon!!!!!