Nephew Weekend...Part 2

We survived, the kiddos went back home this afternoon - after church was over. It really went pretty well, and thankfully my folks are in town to help with logistics. I work at the church getting all the preschool Sunday School classes ready and making sure everything is running smoothly - its enough of a job for Steven to be solo parent with our own 3, couldn't imagine him trying to wrangle 5 boys - so the two cousins spent the night with their Gran and Grandad last night to spread the fun. Here are a few more pics of the activities...
It snowed here on Thursday night, so the kids enjoyed it on Sat. morning. These are the bigger boys throwing snowballs. The snow was a little too dry to really have much fun with it. It wouldn't stick together too well, so the balls kind of fell apart before impact.

The kids also enjoyed some home-made craft dough to mold and shape. They all decided to make "bear pies." Huston isn't pictured because he hadn't gotten up yet. He's the late sleeper.

Next was the costume party - we have a trunk full of boy dress up stuff. At the end of the morning we had 2 pirates, Darth Vader and a cowboy. This picture doesn't really show much of the fun, about 10 min. before I took this, Huston had fallen off of the top bunk, so everyone is a bit sober looking. I love the "cowboy face" on my younger nephew, though.

All in all this was a good experience. I am glad I was able to help my brother and his wife receive a bit of a break this weekend (although unfortunately they were both a bit under the weather). Most importantly it gave the new cousins a chance to interact (for those who are not aware, my brother and sister-in-law have just started the process of adopting these boys, along with a younger sibling).

I hate comparing kids. I don't think it is a very healthy thing to do usually, yet we seem to naturally want to - even kids compare themselves...I try to remember that God has called us to each be our own individuals and to focus on Him for direction for our lives, not on those around us. But I do see that some comparisons can be healthy, it can help you to gain a different perspective. I was very proud of my boys and how they treated each other and their cousins this weekend, it helped me to see how much they are really growing up (which is kind of hard to watch sometimes!). It also helped me to see what great kids these new family members are - to come through all the "rocky times" their young lives have seen and go through so many recent adjustments they are really great and healthy, normal acting kids - and that is impressive to me. I am not sure as adults we would cope as well as they have to all these recent new experiences.

Now I would do this again, believe it or not :-) - but probably not for awhile, mostly because of the new transitions we will have to go through in this family with the baby girl coming soon. By then these boys will be older and will probably teach me even more about a lot of different things.