Photo recap

Here are a few pictures from the weekend. These weren't even the best, but I don't have permission from all the parents to post kid pictures. I'll try to stick to the ones that aren't close-ups and the photos of my own adorable children. The funniest picture was of one of my nephews standing in the middle of 10 people with hearing protection ear muffs, like you would use when shooting a gun or mowing, or just trying to survive a family reunion.

Lunch at the park on Friday:

Breezy naps at the park:

Poor Coop and Sweet A had fevers and were sick, so Coop sat in a little chair all day and watched the action with a blanket over his lap, like an invalid who had been wheeled out to get some sunshine. Sweet A actually asked to get in the stroller for a nap, and then stayed there for two hours.

Catching a little one-on-one time with Granddaddy:

Water balloons and the sprinkler provided hours of entertainment:

Here's the hot life guard (those sprinklers can be super dangerous when the crowd gets rowdy):

No bathing suit for this little man, but we did pull out the hat:

4-day weekend recovery

I'm an Every Weekday in May blogging failure. Let's just get that out there in the open. Better to accuse myself than have someone else point it out. However (here comes the justification), I was planning to post on Friday and Monday, but I was having too good of a time with our extended family that it seemed wrong to spend time on the computer and neglect the real people in front of me. Not that you aren't a real person, of course. But it almost became a matter of principle, one I think it's easy to forget on many levels. So there may be other days I love on my children and forget about the computer. I don't hear anyone crying, so I'm not overly worried about the lack of blogging. I do admire people who keep their word, though.

Hundreds of pictures were taken over the weekend between the various cameras that were present, including a group shot of all 35 of us. (I think my computer is sick again though, so I'll have to wait on the photos until it gets a clean bill of health.) The kids woke up today asking us if we would be spending time with the cousins again, and I think it may take them a few days to recover from spending 4 days in a row with 20 other children.

We are so blessed to have a family who, while diverse in opinions and tastes, all share the same faith and Lord. Getting together is a lot of work and yet we still feel refreshed when all is said and done. Advice, encouragement, wisdom, and humor are all passed around, leaving us very thankful for our time together. And, I must say the whole long weekend was made 10x more enjoyable because we were going home every night...it's so nice to be an "in-town-er" for one of these things.

Friday and Saturday nights included some family worship, and both my brother-in-law and father-in-law had some thoughts I look forward to sharing. If I'm really smart I can figure out how to post a clip of all of the kids singing...it was amazing to look at my husband's parents and think of them as two people who decided to get married and have a family, and then look around at all these children and realize what an impact those first two people have had on the world.

Sweet thoughts, but now I'm back to the everyday. WH is working late tonight and I need to figure out what to feed the kids for dinner. We already had cereal for lunch, and I think there is some rule* in the Mommy handbook about not having cereal for two meals in a row. Laundry calls, and my husband left me with the charge to make today fun and joyful for the kids so that the "coming down" from such a delightful weekend would be gentle (vs. a crash landing).

*Except in unusual situations.