We live within a mile of all of the Shogren/Regier cousins. We see them often, but we've never done a big sleepover. So I thought it was the perfect idea for a special Christmas treat.
Jon picked up our three Regier cousins on his way home from work. We had tacos for dinner (we eat these about 2-3 times a week in our house). After dinner, we split the kids up. Ryan and the twins did Legos upstairs, Jason & Aaron played ninja turtles downstairs, and Alli baked sugar cookies with our help.
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| Turtle Power! |
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| Rolling out the cookies, it was nice how self-sufficient she is when it comes to baking. |
Our newest Shogren cousin, Grace, made a quick appearance so that we could get a photo of all 8 kids together.
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| This was the best shot I got of the 8. Its hard to get 8 children to all sit still, look at the camera, AND smile. We wanted to give this to Grandma Shogren so she could have one picture of all the grandkids together. |
We only got Aaron to cooperate with the large photo shoot if he was given a chance to hold sweet Grace afterwards.
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| Aaron LOVES his baby girl cousin. |
After the picture, the kids decorated the sugar cookies and Caleb went to bed (1 kid in bed, 6 more to go).
The little guys snuggled up with their matching blankets and watched a Doc McStuffins. I read them a book before bed. Then tucked them into their separate "beds" in the same room. I figured that we'd have to go in a few times to tell them to settle down as Aaron is the king of making up reasons to get up after he's suppose to be in bed. About fifteen minutes later, we heard some crazy noises. Jon investigated and discovered that Jason & Aaron were playing soccer in the dark. He told them to stop and said that he'd have to move Aaron to a different room if they didn't go to bed. They were quiet and within twenty minutes, both completely asleep (Getting the 3 and 4 year old to sleep the same room checked off the list).
Downstairs, the four "big" kids watched a newer movie version of The Little Rascals. I heard lots of laughter, so I think it was a hit with all of them.
After the movie, the twins were tucked into bed. Ryan & Alli stayed up with us for a little while. We watched basketball, picked some new apps for Jon's phone and looked through some photo albums.
Then, we got Ry to sleep in the twins room and Alli to quietly sneak into Caleb's room to sleep on the extra bed. We had all 7 children asleep by 10:30 pm. I considered the night a success.
I might have counted my chickens before the eggs hatched. Caleb woke up twice between midnight and 1 am. At 1:30, he wouldn't go back to sleep. He noticed Allison was sleeping on the spare bed in his room, so he started laughing. We didn't want him to wake up all the other kids. So, we tried having him sleep downstairs in the pack n play. It was a no go. I tried laying on the couch holding him and that only lasted 20 minutes. Jon took a shift with him. Eventually, we gave up and let him watch a baby songs video. Then at 4, we snuck him back into his crib and he slept until 9.
We both went back to bed at 4. At 6, Ryan woke us up to let us know he'd thrown up. Poor guy! He went home and the others slept another hour or two. I did manage to step in the vomit with my bare feet as I tried to clean up without turning the lights on since the boys were sleeping. Lesson learned. Definitely worth turning the lights on. Major props to my husband who (like usual) took over the vomit cleanup duty since I start dry heaving as soon as I step into the room and smell it. Is that too much information? And, I guess I'm even with my sister-in-law Shawna who did vomit duty for me with Aaron a few months ago when he threw up in her kitchen while over for a playdate.
When everyone was up, we made a big breakfast with bacon and one of my personal holiday favorites: Danish Pancakes. The kids all chowed down. Then Allison played school with the twins upstairs while Aaron and Jason colored.
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| These two guys colored almost an entire coloring book. I'm thankful because I think we have about a million coloring books. Anytime we can knock out one, I'm happy. |
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| We did our daily reading of the Advent book with our cousins and gave them turns opening doors. |
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| All ready to take the cousins home. What a fun sleepover! |
All in all a great sleepover and lots of fun memories. I told Jon that I'm definitely considering it a success despite Caleb's middle of the night partying and the small pile of vomit. I'm sure we'll do this again before too long.
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