Today we have our nephew visiting us. He'll be staying for a few nights. The boys are having the best time! We've done so much today I'm not sure I can recap it all. The guys woke up refreshed and ready to go. They played a while in their room before I heard them this morning. Once I got up though, it was a whirlwind of CRAZINESS!!! The boys played well together. Of course, there were a few little disagreements and a few fights, but that's to be expected spending all day together. They've seen each other for three days straight now so it's bound to happen. Overall, they've done great. And they have done a decent job of entertaining themselves. I've been kept busy getting this or that for them. Getting them their meals, snacks, drinks, etc. has been a full time job in itself. That's not even including cleanup...when that's possible. But I'm loving every minute of it! I love a busy house with the sounds of laughter and play. Speaking of play, boy do those guys know how to play. 
They first built a big wooden train set, covering the entire bedroom. My nephew, Jack, enjoyed wearing a Batman cape, but was so busy running around it was VERY difficult to get a good picture of him.
At one point Max told me that they were pretending to be penguins inside of a tornado. 
I had built them a fort with the bottom bunk bed that they used for the tornado. I looked inside and they were in fact penguins inside of a tornado coloring pictures while wearing superhero capes.
The guys are gearing up for the Fourth of July and carried small United States flags around for a good part of the morning. I'm not even sure how that got started. They played balloon ping pong for a long time. It was during this time that Jack first said (without prompting at all) "This is the best day ever!" My heart melted of course!
We also spent some time with good 'ole board games. As for Belle, well that sweet girl really has no choice but to just go with the flow. But I probably spent half of the day trying to get her to nap. I guess there was just way too much going on and the volume and energy level was a little bit higher than usual due to the boys' excitment. She slept only 45 minutes at nap time and then refused to go to bed at the usual time. It took me an hour and a half to get her down. I fear we've really messed her schedule up with the busy weekend and the crazy days around here lately. I sure hope we can get her back on track soon. I don't want her to be miserable. She has really enjoyed having her cousin here though. They spent some good play time together when all of the three boys decided to pretend to be babies, complete with only crawling, gesturing to be picked up, and baby coos and whines. It made for a very interesting hour (at least) of play. It was actually pretty helpful to me. They wanted to lay on my bed with the baby and they couldn't go running around without me letting them off the bed. And even then, they wouldn't run, they would crawl. I got a whole load of laundry folded and put away!! Whoop whoop!!! It's the small things :) Belle sat up on her own for a little while today. 
I had to make sure to stay close because she would fall over without any notice. Blink and she'd be down. She's so precious playing with her toys. 
She's my first child to ever as a baby want to just be on her own and play. Now, of course, she calls out to me if I'm not in range of sight, but as long as she can see me in the room she will play in her jumperoo, lay on her quilt with her toys, or even spend time playing in her pack 'n play. I'm obviously blessed here because if she didn't like to be on her own at all, I would never be able to take care of all the kids. I must have spoiled the two boys, because I don't remember them being as mellow. Nico is a little bit more laid back than Max, but Belle definitely has the lowest maintenance score for babydom. I'm sure that will change come teen years. I love it when I'll be playing with my sweet baby girl and she'll hear her brothers or her Papa talking in another room and she'll smile from ear to ear and start kicking her legs in excitment. I pray that those kiddos stay close and happy to hear from each other. I imagine them being best friends growing up and as adults. I'm going to work on that! Okay, back to today. This afternoon the boys were starting to get a little antsy for something new so I busted out the wii! 
The two older boys, Jack and Max, raced Mario Karts while I continued to attempt to get the baby to nap. Nico did Nico things as usual. He likes to spend time each day playing quietly on his own. Of course he got tired of that and started messing with his cousin. He thinks it's funny to hear Jack telling him to "quit". I can't quite figure it out. I guess he's just craving his attention. I starting giving Nico back rides to distract him from messing with the older boys. That "little" guy is only two pounds lighter than his older bro, and they are two years and three months apart in age. He can definitely hold his own against a 6 1/2 year old and a 5 year old. When they were done racing on the wii, I got them dressed for swimming. Fernando took the three boys to the pool as soon as he got off work. This gave me some time to get dinner cooking. While I was getting them ready to go, I overheard Jack say again, "This is the best day ever!" And my heart melted again :) While Jack is staying with us I wanted him to feel like a part of our family. I also wanted him to feel special so I had him tell me his favorite foods. Luckily, his favorite foods happen to be foods that my boys will eat too, so I'm trying to incorporate those favs into meal planning. We had breakfast for lunch today because Jack got very excited about the thought of waffles. Nevermind that Mema had just made them for us the day before. We had homemade belgium waffles, fresh blueberries, and fresh peaches. Dinner was tacos (another of Jack's requests), peas, apples, and guacamole! After swimming, the boys sure had an appetite, they ate very well! The boys then cleaned Max and Nico's room and took baths. While they had their baths, I set up the tents. 
They are having an indoor campout as we speak! Jack's in the dinosaur tent. Max and Nico are sharing the "adventure" tent. I can't believe I had never thought of that before. I heard Jack say another time "This is the best day ever!" as I was setting up the tents. Fernando confided in me that Jack had told him (while getting ready to "camp") "This could not be better!" The boys got in their tents for story and prayer time. Then when lights went out, they got to play with flashlights for a little while. Then they turned on this push light that we have that glows blue stars. Just like real camping, only with air conditioning, bathrooms, and no bugs!!! AWESOME!!! My kind of camping. It does my heart good to know they are having a great time together. The only thing that would make it better is if we lived closer to my sister and bro-in-law and we could do this more often. It's going to be fun when we can have little Henry here too!
They first built a big wooden train set, covering the entire bedroom. My nephew, Jack, enjoyed wearing a Batman cape, but was so busy running around it was VERY difficult to get a good picture of him.
At one point Max told me that they were pretending to be penguins inside of a tornado. 
I had built them a fort with the bottom bunk bed that they used for the tornado. I looked inside and they were in fact penguins inside of a tornado coloring pictures while wearing superhero capes.
The guys are gearing up for the Fourth of July and carried small United States flags around for a good part of the morning. I'm not even sure how that got started. They played balloon ping pong for a long time. It was during this time that Jack first said (without prompting at all) "This is the best day ever!" My heart melted of course! 
We also spent some time with good 'ole board games. As for Belle, well that sweet girl really has no choice but to just go with the flow. But I probably spent half of the day trying to get her to nap. I guess there was just way too much going on and the volume and energy level was a little bit higher than usual due to the boys' excitment. She slept only 45 minutes at nap time and then refused to go to bed at the usual time. It took me an hour and a half to get her down. I fear we've really messed her schedule up with the busy weekend and the crazy days around here lately. I sure hope we can get her back on track soon. I don't want her to be miserable. She has really enjoyed having her cousin here though. They spent some good play time together when all of the three boys decided to pretend to be babies, complete with only crawling, gesturing to be picked up, and baby coos and whines. It made for a very interesting hour (at least) of play. It was actually pretty helpful to me. They wanted to lay on my bed with the baby and they couldn't go running around without me letting them off the bed. And even then, they wouldn't run, they would crawl. I got a whole load of laundry folded and put away!! Whoop whoop!!! It's the small things :) Belle sat up on her own for a little while today. 
I had to make sure to stay close because she would fall over without any notice. Blink and she'd be down. She's so precious playing with her toys. 
She's my first child to ever as a baby want to just be on her own and play. Now, of course, she calls out to me if I'm not in range of sight, but as long as she can see me in the room she will play in her jumperoo, lay on her quilt with her toys, or even spend time playing in her pack 'n play. I'm obviously blessed here because if she didn't like to be on her own at all, I would never be able to take care of all the kids. I must have spoiled the two boys, because I don't remember them being as mellow. Nico is a little bit more laid back than Max, but Belle definitely has the lowest maintenance score for babydom. I'm sure that will change come teen years. I love it when I'll be playing with my sweet baby girl and she'll hear her brothers or her Papa talking in another room and she'll smile from ear to ear and start kicking her legs in excitment. I pray that those kiddos stay close and happy to hear from each other. I imagine them being best friends growing up and as adults. I'm going to work on that! Okay, back to today. This afternoon the boys were starting to get a little antsy for something new so I busted out the wii! 
The two older boys, Jack and Max, raced Mario Karts while I continued to attempt to get the baby to nap. Nico did Nico things as usual. He likes to spend time each day playing quietly on his own. Of course he got tired of that and started messing with his cousin. He thinks it's funny to hear Jack telling him to "quit". I can't quite figure it out. I guess he's just craving his attention. I starting giving Nico back rides to distract him from messing with the older boys. That "little" guy is only two pounds lighter than his older bro, and they are two years and three months apart in age. He can definitely hold his own against a 6 1/2 year old and a 5 year old. When they were done racing on the wii, I got them dressed for swimming. Fernando took the three boys to the pool as soon as he got off work. This gave me some time to get dinner cooking. While I was getting them ready to go, I overheard Jack say again, "This is the best day ever!" And my heart melted again :) While Jack is staying with us I wanted him to feel like a part of our family. I also wanted him to feel special so I had him tell me his favorite foods. Luckily, his favorite foods happen to be foods that my boys will eat too, so I'm trying to incorporate those favs into meal planning. We had breakfast for lunch today because Jack got very excited about the thought of waffles. Nevermind that Mema had just made them for us the day before. We had homemade belgium waffles, fresh blueberries, and fresh peaches. Dinner was tacos (another of Jack's requests), peas, apples, and guacamole! After swimming, the boys sure had an appetite, they ate very well! The boys then cleaned Max and Nico's room and took baths. While they had their baths, I set up the tents. They are having an indoor campout as we speak! Jack's in the dinosaur tent. Max and Nico are sharing the "adventure" tent. I can't believe I had never thought of that before. I heard Jack say another time "This is the best day ever!" as I was setting up the tents. Fernando confided in me that Jack had told him (while getting ready to "camp") "This could not be better!" The boys got in their tents for story and prayer time. Then when lights went out, they got to play with flashlights for a little while. Then they turned on this push light that we have that glows blue stars. Just like real camping, only with air conditioning, bathrooms, and no bugs!!! AWESOME!!! My kind of camping. It does my heart good to know they are having a great time together. The only thing that would make it better is if we lived closer to my sister and bro-in-law and we could do this more often. It's going to be fun when we can have little Henry here too! Here is our favorite parts of the day:
Jack: camping (even though he hadn't done it yet) and swimming
Max: playing Mario Kart with Jack
Fernando: ice cold beer after swimming, reading books to the boys at bedtime (one about "Jack Truck" and another about a cat that goes camping) He really got into the theme of the evening when he picked those out.
Jen: playing Sequence with the three boys. That is definitely our new favorite game! Even though for about 20 minutes Jack refused to play. After he decided to play one round, we ended up playing more! Victory! I loved breaking through his stubbornness. He is definitely related to me!
As Jack would say, "BEST DAY EVER!!!"
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