Cousin Week!

Just look who’s at my house!

Yep – it’s my nieces Katie and Annie. They’re here for the week along with their sister Emie and all 4 brothers.

Why? Because it’s cousin week again! Of course Aunt Julie came to help – along with her two boys, and Nana and Poppa. That makes a grand total of 14 kids and 5 adults.

For those of you newcomers, Annie is my biological niece, and her parents adopted Katie and Emie from the Ukraine. All three girls have Downs Syndrome. When you take those 3 special girls and add their 4 brothers,  you get one busy family – and two very tired parents. So once a year we take all seven kids for a week to give them some time much needed alone.

And boy do we have fun!

This morning the girls did the Jillian workout with us – using blocks as their weights. What a hoot! Both Katie and Annie took breaks through-out but little Emie never stopped!

We played play dough, frosted cookies, made bread sticks, spent hours on the swing and in the sandbox, picked lots of flowers, played with the doctor’s kit and gave lots of “pokeys” (shots), and of course – chased chickens.

And it’s only the second day! 🙂

But we’re not always moving. We’ve had lots of cuddle time to read stories and giggle. I loved our walk to the pond before supper to throw rocks in the water. The girls played for a little while, then just sat quietly, mesmerized by the ripples on the water as the wind blew.

After a few minutes they’re charged up and ready to go again – on to another adventure!