Life With 4 Kids

Life has been busy, and when it gets busy I never have time to post.  I'm trying to play catch up!  There were a couple weeks where I got to have 4 kids.  Ben and Tonia took off to China for a couple weeks and left the 3 little ones with me.  I pushed Tristan's crib and dresser together on one wall, borrowed a twin mattress and set up the pack and play for the other wall so the kids could all share the same room.  Tristan was in heaven.  He loved having all these kids here.  The first couple days I had to remind them to look out the windows.  If the sun wasn't up, they had to stay in their room or they would have to sleep in the garage.  Super easy.  They figured it out pretty quick, and even though they'd wake up pretty early, they'd stay in there and play until Tristan couldn't handle being hungry.  The 6 year old was a super champ... she even changed a dirty diaper. 



The first day they were here we sat down and made a list of all the fun things we could do in Lubbock.  They were here for 15 days and we had 17 things.  We did all of them.  Here are a few pictures to give ya an idea of what we were up to.  We helped host a birthday party for a friend.  The girls were really good at picking out decorations and helping decorate.  They also wrapped presents, put shoes on little kids and helped sing.  

We went and picked apples at an orchard.  We kind of came at an awkward time.  They had just had a huge festival where everyone came and picked most all the ripe apples, and the rest of the ones weren't quite ready to be picked until a few days later.  We still enjoyed our time there.  Chunky came with us, but found a good friend to play with the whole time.  We only saw glimpses of the 2 dogs chasing each other.  The girls had a good time playing and running around the orchard.

They have the prettiest gazebo there-I kept trying to get a picture of these goofballs but I never quite got all of them looking at the same time. *sigh*

On the way home we stopped and took a couple pictures in the cotton fields.  It's a West Texas thing to do.  Tristan was pretty pissed he wasn't eating fruit snacks in the car, so this was short lived.

Jeff hosted a swim party for them one night in the back yard.  Tristan was the clown as he tried to eat his ice cream with a giant spatula and ended up just pouring it on himself.  I thought they were going to cry they were all laughing so hard.

Took them to the South Plains Fair again.  The rides weren't open this time but we did enjoy a fried corn dog.  I had a couple friends say, "You're brave!" But in all honesty, these kids were so good it wasn't a big deal.  They knew to stay right next to me, they didn't *really* wander off, and they never complained.  Well.  Except on the way out to the car.  But I don't blame her... it was like a mile walk through the dusty parking lot to get to the car.

The girls brought the flower girl dresses from my wedding to wear to church.  I told them I'd wear the bridesmaid dress so we'd all match.  Everyone at church kept telling me how good they were-that the little one in nursery knew all the hand motions and words to the songs, and the older 2 could tell them the answer to any question.     

We took a road trip to the zoo in Amarillo.  It's a really small zoo but it's PERFECT for these little kids.  I'm used to the Houston Zoo, where you never actually get to see the entire place it's so big. 

But this one was small enough they could all walk without being tired, but big enough they got to see enough animals they had a good time. 

So this one is totally out of order, but their stay started with a trip to the Fair.  The rides were super fun!!!  I am missing quite a few pictures, but we had a lot of fun.  We went to the jewelry store and picked out new jewelry.  We went grocery shopping.  We went to the castle park a couple times and to the children's museum as well.  We had picnics at the park and made cupcakes.  They played with glow sticks in the bath.  We chased lost dogs and went for walks to feed the horses.  It was a really good time. I honestly miss them now! They are such good, sweet girls... I hope I get to see them again soon :)