Kid Heaven

Little Hema is always wanting to have friends or neighbors or cousins or all of the above over to play. On Saturday he had 10 neighbor kids over to play in the back yard for several hours. He had so much fun. I love seeing a yard full of kids, it makes me smile. Later on Saturday, Jake dropped off his 4 oldest to stay the night. Then Marilee came over with her 5 kids and hung out for a while and left the oldest 3 to sleep over too. Here's Abby helping Marilee change James.

James is so tiny. Here is a picture of him next to my Cabbage Patch doll (Ramsey Clifford) that I've had since 6th grade.Of course baby James is much cuter! Here's Maren, she didn't get to stay over with us.In case you are counting, that is 7 additional kids to stay the night - so we had 9 total kiddies from 1 1/2 years to 10 years in age. So much fun!! They were all so sweet with each other and play so well together. There was some Star Wars Lego being played. Playing in the tent. Snake catching - which is a serious obsession for all Hawkins boys - especially these ones (Isaac, David, Dallan and JJ)! Here I am with the kids all ready for bed.

All the boys slept in the tent outside and Hema told them spooky stories and they laughed and played and probably kept the neighbors up - but they had so much fun. Here is a picture in the morning when only Hema was awake. Can you spot all 6 of them?

Luckily our church is at 11:00 so we had plenty of time to get everyone bathed or showered, fed, dressed and ready to walk to church.

Believe it or not, we got to church 20 minutes early.

We were so sad to see all the kids go home tonight! We love our nieces and nephews so much and are so glad that they are such good friends to our kids! We really need to do this more often and to have the other over too! It sure made me hope that we get more children of our own too!

And last but not least, Sweet Abe the Babe is home from the hospital. As soon as Abby found out that he got home today, she sat near our door counting down the seconds for her dad to pick her up. She hasn't been able to hold the baby while he was in the NICU and if you know Abby, she loves babies and is so good with them. It has been killing her. Here is a photo of Jake and Abe.