Cousin Sleepover!

We had the cousins for a sleepover last weekend.  It has been a while since we had them overnight last.  One of the biggest changes has been potty training.  D is the only one who still wears diapers, but she wanted to keep up with the big kids.  There was a lot of this kind of potty party fun:

 We took the kids to the park (to wear them out).  The merry-go-round was the first stop.

WEEEEE!

 Ryan and Allie wanted to go to the slides shortly after.  D followed them up, froze at the top, and then sat down on the stairs.

 Recognizing a photo op, Allie joined her

 Not one to miss a picture, Ryan jumped in.

 And then they scattered (and it happened just like that in under a minute!).

H, in the meantime, wasn't finished with the merry-go-round so she enjoyed some time with Uncle Lucas.

Who managed to talk her into joining us, but not on the slides.  She preferred the monkey bars :)

 What's this?  A cousin dance party!  D liked to climb up to the slides, but not go down them.  She would get up to the highest point and dance!  Pretty soon Allie (whose blonde curls are barely visible behind Ryan) joined her, and then Ryan and H jumped in!  Oh, and you can see my hand too - I also joined the dance party :)

 D would only go down the slide if I went with her.  So down we went!

 Then H wanted me to go down with her.

 Our park is pretty spread out, and every time we moved to something new we made it a race (to run them and wear them out more).  Where is D?

 She's coming.  Her little legs couldn't quite keep up with the big kids.  But she tried!

 At first they offered to swing on the big kid swings, but they couldn't keep their eyes off the 2 in the bucket swings.  And soon...

 ...they were all 4 in the 2 bucket swings together!

 Our plan worked.  They all slept great.  D & H woke up during the early morning because they were cold, but otherwise, not a peep!  The next morning they woke up 1-by-1, so they watched Little Einsteins as they waited for everyone to trickle in.

 I planned a lot of special treats (that I made ahead) including whole wheat waffles for breakfast (to go with the berries H & D's mommy brought) and "ice cream" sandwiches (made from these 2 recipes: cake mix cookies - made with applesauce in place of eggs -  and banana "ice cream" - with frozen cherries added because I only had 1 frozen banana...).  I let them dip the "ice cream" sandwiches in sprinkles...which got a little messy, but was so fun!

 Before getting dressed we headed to the basement to let the cousins add to our mural wall.  Where is D?  Well, I thought I gave her a container of paint that had a secure lid she couldn't remove.  I turned to hand paint brushes to the other kids and turned around in time to see her remove her lid from her container...rather explosively.  This resulted (as you can imagine) in me removing her to clean her up (I left the paint on the carpet...it's just remnants in the basement so I don't consider it ruined)...which resulted in a complete meltdown.  The poor girl was exhausted from trying to keep up with the big kids.  She ended up taking a 2 hour nap that morning (unusual) and another almost 2 hour nap in the afternoon!

What they are painting (according to them): Ryan - a mirror, Allie - a boat, Harper - a mirror.

The older cousins were thrilled to show off their mural to Nana & Poppy, and H couldn't wait to show it off to her mommy and daddy as well!  What's that?  Nana and Poppy?  Oh, did I forget to mention that Nana and Poppy surprised everyone by coming down for one last visit on the way to take Poppy to the boat?  They did!  Unfortunately, they arrived and I set down my camera and didn't get a single picture of them with the grandkids...fail.  Oh, well.  We had a super fun cousin sleepover.  At one point during the morning H said, "Kim, I have so much fun at your house."  Thanks, kiddo :)