• Jan. 14, 2008
Invasion of the In-laws
Fortunately for me, my in-laws are the friendly sort. Last Tuesday night Danny's brother, Mark and his family, came to visit us. They had car issues on the day they wanted to leave and weren't able to get on the road until roughly 6 pm. They pulled up into our driveway around 1:30 in the morning. After spending about an hour together, we all decided to take a bit of a nap before the sun began to rise. We had people sleeping in all bedrooms in the house, plus the kitchen, the living room and one in the basement. Oh, did I tell you that the headcount in my house was SEVENTEEN?!?!
Yep, we were a family of 17. The adults were outnumbered 3 to 1. Believe it or not, everyone gets along amazingly well. Lisa and I seemed to be on the same track many years and had babies in the same year. A lot of my kids have a built-in buddy of a cousin. Lisa's first son, David, and my second daughter, Tara, were born 3 weeks apart. Three years later, she had Micah in March and I had Zak in May. Two years after that, I had Josh in January and she had Matthew in August. Then she had Angelica two years after that, who is a primary reason that we have Megan (who is 3 years younger than Angelica). Megan was born 6 months before her cousin Nathanael. Then came my Darcy 11 months after Nathanael. Three years after that Lisa was surprised by Sam, and two years after that I was surprised by Lily! In a span of 19 years the two of us had 13 children between us. And if it seems like it's always someone's birthday, that's because it IS always someone's birthday. Every single month of the year, there is at least 1 birthday or anniversary. May has the most, with 7 birthdays between all the aunts, uncles and cousins!
For the most part the cousins get along like siblings. They are great with each other, but will definitely squabble like brothers and sisters if they don't happen to agree on something. I think that because my boys are so outnumbered by girls in our house, they really see their cousins as extended brothers. Megan simply adores Angelica and is basically attached at the hip to her the entire time they are together. There seemed to be plenty to keep the kids busy. The trampoline was a big hit, especially since the weather was in the 60's the first couple of days they were here! The kids jumped, they biked, they played X-box, they climbed trees, they played Wii, they shot air-soft guns, they raked leaves (ok, maybe that wasn't exactly FUN, but that was Uncle Mark's idea).
Mark seems to delight in seeing what needs work around my house and fixing it! He fixed 2 sinks, helped snake out a toilet (that we found a pudding cup stuck in-yeah, that will make it difficult to flush!), he raked leaves, he changed the headlight on my van, helped my husband put in a new dishwasher, and helped our landlord with the well. I'm sure he did other things too, and I'm just having a mental block. I'll check and see if he does windows and if he's available for hire.
We had a great time together. I won't put all our week's adventures in a single post. I'll put the rest of it in, as it happened (only it was last week and not this one)
Comments
• Jan. 15, 2008
Sounds like a nice time!
Posted by donna2238
I am looking forward to hearing more about the weeks adventures!
• Jan. 17, 2008
<i>Untitled Comment</i>
Posted by debbiecorley
How fun! We have a built in buddy system, too! We vacation every year with Dennis' brother's family who have kids almost the exact same ages as ours. It is like stair steps, actually, with each of the seven kids about 10 months apart from ages 15 to 5.
My brother was here at Christmas and he fixed a few things for us! Isn't that a huge blessing!? WOW! We are so *not* handy, so we have to hire people to do everything for us! URG! Or, wait for a handy dandy family member to show up and take pity on us! :-)
Edited by debbiecorley on Jan. 17, 2008 at 3:37 PM
