8 kids and 8 days

Last Sunday was our first full day with three extra kids. Today is the last (sigh - I'm thinking about keeping them). Aunt Tiffany and Uncle Paul took their three older kids to China and we got to babysit Avery (8), Storie (6), and Rush (4) for a week. Let me preface this by saying that the one thing we miss the most about Houston is the proximity to our cousins so this was an awesome event. We tried to do something fun everyday. There was a lot of giggles, a lot of late nights, and a lot of dessert. So, in no particular order, our fun cousin summer camp week (which is what they kept calling it). 

The  Zoo came to town and we had to check it out. Hmmm, it was actually a little disappointing but we did get to pet a python and get scared by a tarantula.

At the Children' Museum. Avery found a fossil in the outside dig.

They also have a scavenger hunt. You have to find all the sculptures around the area with clues. They ran around in the 100 degree weather and found every one!

Bowling night! Rush is very excited about his score.

We waited until evening to hit the Monohan Sand Dunes. Luckily Midland actually cools down at night and the sand dunes are a fun place to play. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers with our friends Andrew, Debi, and Mary and then went for a walk to see if we could scale the highest one for a good view of the sunset.

Dying of thirst!!

Waiting for the food.

Three simaltaneous sleepovers. Mary stayed the night so we put the four older girls in the big room to watch movies, eat brownies, and work on homemade jewerly.

The 6 year olds got their own room and movie while the 4 year olds got yet another. I thought I would have time off that night but instead spent the whole time tending all the needs of our little party divas (what do you say for a boy?)

The lemonade stand the first day here. We set up next to the plantetarium on the night Venus was being viewed. There was competition across the way but we smoked em!

Seriously? How can anyone resist selling to this guy? The girls walked among the crowd with cookies and brownies. By the end of the night they had earned enough for three full hours at Chuck E Cheese.

A cool pic of Venus from the plantetarium camera lens

More sand dunes from Ben's camera. These two were buddies the whole week.

Help!!

Just one we traversed. One of many.

Debi and Andrew contemplating what having more kids would be like.....

Ben had more pics and we had a few cool ones Andrew took but for some reason it is refusing to upload anymore. Perhaps it is the universe telling me I have uploaded enough. Too bad, there was an awesome one of the sunset! Besides the pics each kid got to pick out a different favorite dinner every night. We read the entire second book of Gregor Overlander out loud (thanks to Avery's excellent recommendation), went to the library, watercolored, put on on puppet shows, and I can't remember what else. Personally, I think we should make  the cousin summer camp an annual event!