One of our gifts to our kids for Christmas this year was to give them a kid-free night, so we had a slumber party for the grandkids on the Friday after Christmas. Riken is still too young to sleep over, but five of Ken's grandkids, aged 6 months to 9 years, were here. We had a blast! 3 year old Haiden made door hangers for himself, his sister and his cousins (with a little help:)
We bought them all matching jammies and got them all to sit relatively still for a photo.
The Dads warned us when they left not to leave both babies on the floor at the same time, as 9 month old Rylee would attack 6 month old Oaklee. I like this look.. Rylee's like "What? I wasn't bugging her."
K, this one means a lot to me. Haiden has taken a long time to warm up to me. I've tried to respect him and give him his space, try to sit down and play with him or read to him if he seems like that's ok, but never like force him to give me a hug or anything. When I was holding Oaklee and Haiden came and climbed up on my lap, on his own, I had to have a photo. He's even smiling:) He usually looks away when I get the camera out, so this is huge.
Andrea's kids are so full of life and personality. Zane got a new MP3 player for Christmas and has headphones in his hoodie. He was listenting to a random assortment of Michael Jackson, the Dixie Chicks and the one Eminem song that Ang allows him to listen to.
Alec is more serious and analytical. He's setting up the Millionaire Monopoly game as soon as they arrived. He was the first of Ken's grandkids to really welcome me into his life, and he always has a hug for me when he sees me. If Ken happens to go over there without me or he goes to a soccer game or something when I have a college class, Alec is always bummed that I'm not there. He's a great kid.
Rylee is ready to walk, into everything, full of energy and not cuddly at all. So when I sang "la-la-la", the song that always lulled my own babies to sleep, I was in heaven when she fell asleep in my arms.
Having the kids sleep over was a wonderful experience for us. I'm sure I didn't do everything exactly the way the Moms would have wanted things done, but everyone had a good time. I got to bond with all five of the kids, and Ken was remarkably patient through the whole night and into the next morning. I think we'll do this on New Years Eve from now on, since we're just boring old people who don't want to go out to parties. We'll keep the grandkids so the parents can have fun on New Years and not worry about getting home to the babysitter.
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