Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Crazy Gang

The Cousins Unite
"We're going to our cousin's house?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"

"Two and a half days."

"We're gonna spend the night??"

"Yes."

"Yes! Whoohoo! Yea! Awesome, yayaaya. When?"

Brian and Amy had a beautiful renewal of their vows ceremony which you can see pictures of here, and then went on a second honeymoon. Jason and I got the privilege of taking the kids from the ceremony back to their place for the weekend. It was non-stop fun, and we loved every minute of it.

At times I had a glimpse of life with Jon&Kate plus 8. It was more than Adiah's beautiful Almond eyes smiling at me, it was the pressure of finding shoes for 14 little feet every time we went anywhere, pouring 7 cups for meal time, preparing food for 7 different tummies, and getting 14 little eyes to sleep at night. But, since my crew was mostly independent and self supporting, I could see how in a few years Jon and Kate are going to come up out of the exhaustion and really enjoy their large family.

First thing Saturday Jason left with Amy's Dad for the day to go install surround sound stereo equipment, which left me all alone with the Crazy Gang. OOh, that works good. Ok, I'm changing the name of my post title, and that's going to be my new name for all seven together, The Crazy Gang! Anyway, the crazy gang and I set off to Hobby Lobby, (yes I'm insane) and bought supplies to repurpose Amy's old kitchen table and 5 chairs into a craft table for their game room. No, keeping up with 7 kids isn't enough for me to do, I have to add more to my plate! The girls had a blast working on it all weekend and Aunt Gina had to keep reminding herself that it was a craft table and didn't have to be perfect. Niece Emily (a perfectionist to some degree herself) was perfect at reminding me over and over of this fact which helped alot.


Everyone had fun all over Brian's property. Jason and Emily enjoyed chasing each other through courses on the dirt bikes, Emily took everyone for a ton of rides and games of Taxi, which involves driving the ATV Golf Cart over hills and up the drive way. They also took turns swinging on the natural vine rope swing on the side of the house, that is until Uncle Jason took a turn and BROKE it!

Swimming is always a favorite past time and the kids made no shortage of the opportunity. Once Jason returned on Saturday evening, and all day after church on Sunday the kids took turns jumping in the pool and helping me paint the table.



Saturday evening Jason made a spaghetti dinner for everyone and we ate outside. The kids loved it and Ridgedon said, "Uncle Jason makes the best spaghetti ever." Don't worry Amy, it was your jar off the shelf, and your ambiance that created the mood, so the glory is all yours! Adiah sat in my lap and ate hers, and mine, and by the end we were both covered in noodles and sauce. It was fun, like finger painting!


Jason and I had to work on Sunday morning leading Children's Worship and we did an awesome job of getting everyone ready and making it to Sunday school on time. All of our friends who had prayed so diligently for Adiah over the last couple of years were absolutely delighted to meet her and lay hands on her. She was in beautiful form smiling and cutting up for everyone. Thankfully Mimi showed up just before church started and she held Adiah in the back of the auditorium while Jason and I led worship. After a quick lunch at our favorite, Golden China, where many other patrons stopped by to tell us how impressed they were that we had so many kids and they were all so well behaved (Go Us!) we headed back south. Mimi got her suit on too and everyone had fun swimming.

The weekend actually went by too quickly and I wasn't ready to turn them over to Amy's parents!! We were having so much fun, but it was time to share, and I had to be a big girl and make the right choice! :)

They really are the best of friends and have so much fun together. They still have their tiffs, well the girls do, but they handle them like siblings do, and get over them so quickly. Their hearts are so beautifully tuned toward each other and you can see it all over them when they're together. God has really blessed this generation of children with a strong support system that I know they'll cherish throughout their lives.

2 comments:

Amy Woods said...

A few things:

1. Seriously!! Jon&Kate plus 8 is RIGHT!!!
2. The table IS perfect!! Thank you!
3. About the rope swing, Jason...GGGAAAWWWW!!!!
4. I'm sure Jason added a dash of love and a pinch of FAB to the spaghetti to make Ridge love it so much! He can have the glory!!
4. Thank you sooooo much for helping us that weekend!

The Crazy Roots said...

1. Totally
2. So glad you like it.
3. SSSSOOOOOORRRRYYYY! :)
4. He is good at heating things up. ;)
5. It was completely OUR PLEASURE! Thanks for being married so long and going away on a fabo trip so we could borrow them and the place!