A night with the Kiddos

Some of my roommates are lucky enough to have family close by. Kirsti's brother and his wife live only about ten minutes away with their two kids, Kai and Nea. Esther's cousins also live only about 15 minutes away with their four kids. So we decided we were going to have a little slumber party. It was originally supposed to be the four older ones, Kai and Nea and then Ashton and Eliza. On the way to our house, Ashton got sick and he was pulled out of the sleepover headcount. The poor kid was heart broken. His dad said that he knows now what it must feel like to watch your child to go through a horrible break up or experience some sort of major heart ache. Ashton was so sad, his little voice would quaver as he asked his mom to, "please pass the purell".

For the ones that did make it to the party, we had a grand ole' time. First we roasted all sorts of things over the fireplace (a definite perk to having a working fireplace in our house). We roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, juju candies, and pickles. I've personally never roasted pickles before, and honestly didn't have any desire to eat the ones we did roast - but I guess it rocks some people's boats. Then we cleaned up, put Nea to bed (she's 2) and got the older ones (4 and 5) ready for a movie. After we got everyone snuggled down, we popped in "High School Musical" and enjoyed Eliza singing at the top of her lungs to almost ALL the songs.

The next morning we made breakfast for the kids and then they ran around playing while we started our Saturday Morning cleaning ritual. After everything was cleaned up, I played my guitar while we sang their favorite primary songs. I'm pretty sure we sang "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" more than a few times. Our neighbors downstairs were probably a little confused about why we were jumping around in our living room at 10:00 on a Saturday morning. I just have to say, I love that that song is probably one of the first ones ALL of my nieces and nephews learned. An excuse to jump around and have a good time is one that even the youngest of us recognize as a good one. It was so much fun. The kids had a blast and us grown ups got to act like kids for a while. I have to admit that some of my favorite moments were when Kai would just run up to me and give me big hugs or crawl up on my lap and snuggle with me. I think he has a crush on me :) Loved it.