Boston 2014: The whole fam damily

On Saturday afternoon Anthony and Meredith's families each arrived to bring our group total to 9 children (age 5 and under) and 11 adults. My parent's house was chaotic to say the least. 

 My kids had not seen Will and Lauren since our family reunion in Maine back in August 2012. That is way too long to go without seeing cousins, especially when they are so young. Luckily they all hit it off great. Although, they did better when the age groups were separated. Sadie and Will tended to tease and torture their younger siblings. 

Lauren loved on the babies frequently. It was sweet to watch how gentle and cute she was with them. And she has the cutest little voice, which makes me laugh when she gets sassy. She liked to tell the other kids, "you're makin' me a headache!" when they were getting loud.

 It was also fun to see the 2014 grandbabies all together again. I think strangers might have a hard time picking out which of the 3 are twins. Not because they all look exactly alike, but because they are all the exact same age and Derek and Nolan look different from each other. The twins arrived with ear infections and terrible colds, poor kids (and parents). Camille got sick later in the trip. 

This Addy is one busy girl. She enjoyed pointing to the babies and saying "baby". She also wandered around the house trying to get into things all day. I was tired just watching the Gessells keep up with her. Camille and the twins will be her same age now when we all get together again next August, which could make things quite interesting. Eventually Addy and the 2014 babies will all seem the same age (all 4 will be in the same grade) but for now they are far apart in development. 

 

The living room ended up being a main gathering spot since there were people sleeping in every other corner of the house. Lots of fun. My parents brought the tv from the basement up and put it on the living room mantle so movies could be watched without interrupting any children sleeping. 

 

Nearly all the grandkids ended up sick at one time or another during the trip. Sadie and Elise had terrible coughs that were much worse at night, so I would take the cougher somewhere else to avoid waking up my other kids. This meant I got very little sleep. The picture below is me and Camille at midnight one night. This night Lou and Millie traded off waking up all night. Camille was just starting to get sick and couldn't breathe through her nose and Elise was hacking up a lung all night.

Electronics bring people together. With so many people in the same house and so many sick kids sleep was hard to find. Tablets are a tired parents best friend. Any time a kid brought out an iPad or Kindle there were numerous willing participants.