Jake and Katie: Cousin Madness

Every summer Jake's mom gets all her grandkids together for a week of summertime fun. But with 11 grandkids 8 and under I'm sure you can imagine it's fun but borderline crazy too.

Caleb, Naomi, and Norah are getting to the age where they play pretty well together. They played forever on the trampoline.

Norah and Kylah even got to come and play at our house one night. We had a great time!

Leah and Sarah got some time in the playpen together this week. I've been hoping Leah starts to crawl soon but after seeing Sarah in action this week I decided she's fine sitting on her little bootie for a few more weeks. My hat is off to Heidi. I don't have the energy to have a crawler yet.

I don't think I've mentioned Naomi's current fascination with bugs. She likes to just watch them and talk about them. Sometimes she will swipe at them if she's feeling brave. Here she is watching some ants on a cheese-it.

On Friday we got the kids pictures done in coordinating outfits that Jennifer made. I will stick with the optimistic report. It didn't go exactly like we were planning but could've been a lot worse. Naomi was afraid of the photographer but ended up warming up to her. Leah was afraid of the big flash. She did not warm up to it. At all.

To wrap up the family fun Jennifer and Jodi took everyone to World of Fun. It was a great day. Not too hot, overcast, and not too crowded. Naomi got to ride the viking voyage and most of the little kids rides. Jake was so awesome and took her on everything. She only cried on one, the little mini detonator one. Funny enough she was fine the first time she rode it with Jake but later she went with Michelle and Norah and got scared.

Leah didn't get to ride any rides this time. She spent the day chillin' in her stroller. She was such a good girl for us. She's a jewel.

This was Naomi's favorite part. Ocens of Fun and World's of Fun are one park, now so we went over and got in the water to cool off a bit. This little pirate ship was right up her alley.

Later on in the afternoon we ran into some problems with the weather (namely torrential downpours) We took shelter in the Charlie Brown gift shop for a while before making a run for the Cinnebon shop. In the end we decided the best course of action was to run for the car. We were bummed to leave early but it was kind of fun to have such a dramatic ending to the day. After getting all dried we had a great dinner and funnel cakes for dessert.

Val and Jeff are the King and Queen of fried dough. Since the funnel cake stand at World of Fun was closing up shop because of the rain these two honored us with a showing of their majestic skills. I ate myself sick on funnel cakes, fried oreos, and fried reeces.

Oh, and in the midst of this awesome week was Jake's 30th birthday! We celebrated with a cake which was supposed to pictured here but I cut it off. That night we went to Melting Pot with Josh and Val and feasted on Endless fondue. It was amazing.