Friday, October 9, 2009

4 Kids- Aged 3 and Under

My sister and her husband had a wedding to go to tonight and my parents, who usually help out with babysitting duties, are away on their anniversary trip to Seattle. My brother and his wife were also invited to the same wedding, making them unavailable to babysit, so I volunteered to watch my niece, Jenna, and nephew, Nathan. I knew in my head that it would really be a big undertaking but I decided that it would be fine. John was initially supposed to help me but when his schedule got switched up, he no longer had this date off. Thankfully, my trusty sister-in-law, Sarah, came over to help me out. Boy, she was a lifesaver!

Let's face it, when you have a 3 year old, a 2.5 year old, a 10 month old, and a 4 month old all together under one roof, it's going to be crazy no matter how you slice it. Even though each kid was truly at their very best tonight, it was still pretty hectic around here! The kids were dropped off at around 3 and I had a nice snack waiting for them... Sliced apples with peanut butter to dip it in. Jenna just had plain apples and cheerios because she's still too young for the peanut butter. Anyways, that was a great way to kick off our time together because it occupied the kids for a while!

After snack time, the kids played and played and played some more. I must say, they all interacted really well together and there were only a few quarrels between the oldest two... Brooke and Nathan. Everyone shared great and the babies were just awesome and content the whole time! We had a super kid friendly dinner of chicken nuggets, french fries and green beans and all of them devoured it! YAY!! I think Jenna had THREE chicken nuggets and tons and tons of green beans. I love a baby who likes to be fed:-) Lol

Bath time was really another one of those activities that was my saving grace because it occupied the three older kids for a good while. They all had so much fun splashing and playing together and truthfully, I was just happy to have them all contained in such a small space!!

Bedtime was going awesome. Perfectly smooth and wonderful, actually. Adrienne had fallen asleep and Jenna followed shortly behind her. To wind down the big kids I had a movie night planned- We made popcorn, drank juice boxes, each kid had one thing of Smarties, and we snuggled up in my bed to a Christmas movie (it's never too early)! Then... Jenna decided to wake up. The rest of the night was history from there... She was bright eyed and wide awake until her mommy and daddy came at 10:30. Thankfully, all of the other kids slept great, though! Actually, I was able to spend some rare hours of alone time with my precious niece that I wouldn't have ordinarily been able to enjoy.

The night really couldn't have gone any better! I'm so blessed to have 4 wonderful babies in my life to make me smile and laugh constantly. As wonderful as they are, I'm wiped out so I'm going to put my feet up and rest now! Goodnight, world!

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