cousins

i have lots of cousins.  some of my best memories are spending time with them.  on my mom's side of the family we combined our names to be the "hood-cap-tacio's- we were tight like that.  i'm one of the oldest on my dad's side of the family which allowed for different types of relationships.  i remember most of them as babies which is sweet.  it's now been fun to introduce them to my babies.  cousins are built in friends. 

we were so thrilled last week to host our cousins!  we did miss our sweet baby drew who stayed back in nc.  for a whole week my house was full of some of my favorite kids- jack, will, annie, ty, addie, hailey and hannah.  that's right- we had seven kids ages 7, 7, 6, 6, 4, 4 and 2.  only the 7 year olds are twins....how cool is that- my sister's girls are the same age as my boys!  my older sister jennifer so graciously planned a "cousin" vacation.  on the last night we watched the girls lay on a blow up mattress making faces at one another, giggling and chatting.......i mentioned to jennifer that it looked like fun.  once we put the littles to bed- we jumped in my bed and chatted the night away- cause we're tight like that. 

since we were having so many kids i though it best to plan a few activities.  we went to the park for a nature hunt and made tie dye t-shirts. we made homemade lemonade and popsicles and logged many pool hours.  we read stories and danced and ate lots of snacks.  we watched firework and roasted hot dogs and made sticky s'mores.  we rode bikes and played with wet chalk and jumped lots of rope.  we played babies and painted nails and a quick game of ball.  we laughed and some cried but we all had a so much fun.  it will go down as one of the best weeks of my year.

here is a little of what it looked like:

 first annual cousins weekend :)  i think when i put it like that my sisters will want to do it again! 
i don't have any pictures- but we had a surprise visit from grandpa and mimi at the end of the week!  the kids threw him a party for his birthday!  i wonder what happened to the last piece of cake??  happy birthday dad!  we love you!