Week 4: Boys

So we are only on week 4, I had to double check that because I was sure it should be about week 17 or so. This past week seems like maybe it could have been at least 3 or 4 weeks long.
My nephews were here. Dalton, Grayson and Gabe. Sunday morning before church, Hayden says, “Now there will be more boys than girls!” Yup, the testosterone was flowing!
Monday we did the water fountains and Playground of Dreams. Always a good time. At lunch I learned really quick that 6 kids eat a lot of food. I braved Fred Meyer for more groceries with all 6 of them. Crazy, huh? Acutally, it went extremely well. They were all well behaved. As we shopped along, some guy saw us, turned to his wife and said, “whoa, she’s got an army!” The boys laughed and laughed about that pretty much all week. Heath took a Frisbee and they all played during Hayden’s soccer practice at the park. Not sure Hayden was into playing soccer so much that night, he kept looking over at the Frisbee players.
Tuesday we got to start swim lessons for Sage. The boys all took their Nintendo DSs. Well except for Gabe, he had lost his by this point. We rented a couple of Wii games so that it could be all video games, all the time. Well, almost…That afternoon, I invited Michael, Brenna, and Nathan down to slip and slide with the guys and Sage. OK, 9 kids now. I must say, the 3 additional kids made life really easy-who would have guessed. Everyone was completely entertained, all I had to do was provide towels and popsicles. As if that wasn’t enough, when Heath got home we headed out on the river for some tubing and wake boarding. It was a gorgeous night! The cousins loved riding the tube. Hayden decided that he would rather hold the flag, a job he asks about every single time we get on the boat, but rarely gets. He said he really likes to ride with Uncle Kyle, so he will just wait till Kyle comes back and let the guys have turns instead. Dalton tried out the wake board. I would have loved to have gotten some pictures, but I was on the beach with the girls, and Hayden and Gabe who were having the time of their lives swimming and eating sand. He made it up though, so we screamed like crazy people as Heath drove by pulling him. Way to go Dalton! He was pretty pumped up about it.
By Wednesday, my house was as trashed as thoroughly as possible. I am amazed that only one DS was missing. Me and Dalton had turned the place upside down looking for it. Meanwhile, the other kids had pulled out every single toy we owned making our search slightly more complicated. No luck. After swim lessons, we went to the park with a couple of other moms from church. Hayden had a soccer game that night, so we all packed up to cheer him on. He did awesome! There is about 145 kids on the team so playing time is limited, but he makes his presence known. I love to watch him play, he is so serious about it.
Thursday we played the beloved candy bar game. Who doesn’t love a game where the playing pieces are candy bars and everyone wins??? We were hoping to take the boat out again, but believe it or not, the wind picked up. Grrrr…we went out for pizza instead-after some much needed quiet time watching a movie. Then, as if the candy bar game wasn’t enough, we did mystery ice cream game. 6 unmarked pints, you guess the flavors. Well, it was a tasty day. We all pretty much agreed that the ice cream game was our favorite between the two games. AND, I finally found Gabe’s DS buried under Sage’s carseat(???)
Friday, our time was limited, so we had to squeeze lots in: swim lessons, a little geocaching and a picnic, then we hit open gym at the gymnastics gym near us. 2 hours of running, jumping, bouncing and flipping. Too much fun. I sent them home with Heath, wore out. Then Marlee and me went shopping.
We loved having the boys here-Thanks Gretchen for letting us have them for the week!

Favorites:
Heath: Playing guitar hero with Dalton after all the small people went to bed
Lori: watching the boys crack up playing the Rabbids game, and dancing around to the crazy songs on Grayson’s ipod
Hayden: DS downloading with Grayson, playing on the beach with Gabe and Sage on the Bonsai.
Sage: The candy bar game, swinging at the park with Gabe
Marlee: the Ice cream game, the potato rounds at Eatza Pizza