Fun with the Cousins

Today was a wonderful day . . . such a gift from God. We had plans for Kate and all four kids to come over to play. We told the kids the night before. You would not believe how many times the girls need to rehearse the next day's or today's plans. A LOT. Fortunately, it is usually just a great way for us to interact with them and it is usually always positive. Having lived incredibly unpredictable lives, most kids from hard places need a huge amount of predictability and the knowledge of what is going on to feel secure in their new world. Letting the kids know plans ahead of time, talking about them and writing plans on the calendar has been very helpful for our kids so far.

Since the girls knew Kate and the kids were coming in the morning they took showers pronto after breakfast! They were excited and kept asking or talking to me about them coming. And they were waiting by the window when Kate's crew got here. I loved it!

The kids definitely had the best time playing together yet. Praise God! Greysen, Abram and Isaiah had a blast trying to wrestle Brady (who is such a good sport!). All four girls were off to the girls' room to play at first but then shortly after went outside to ride bikes. (My girls made sure I called Kate to tell her to bring the kids' bikes.) After snacks (picture above), we all went to the park and everybody had a blast!

It was so fun to watch all eight kids playing and having fun. In the past my girls have been reserved and slightly withdrawn when playing with Kate's kids or playing at the park with any other kids around. But, not today. It did my heart so much good to see them all having so much fun.

Watching EIGHT kids playing around on the playground, I said to Kate, "that is a lot of kids for just the two of us!"