Life as a Yowler

Last week I drove my kids down to Indiana to see my mom’s side of the family. She has three sisters. Two of them live in Indiana and one in Colorado. My cousin Dawn from colorado came along with my aunt(her mom) Brenda and met us there. All of us cousins have kids around the same age. Our kids got along so well and had so much fun. My aunt Marla and cousin Laramie planned so many fun activities.

I was nervous about the drive down  because I drove by myself with four kids. It actually went much better than I was expecting. All the kids were strapped of course, so I realized it was actually easier than a day at home. We took forever to get there, but I knew we would. I stopped twice to nurse the baby. All four kids pooped on the way down. We stopped for food. I opted for drive through for obvious reasons. It took us 6.5 hours total instead of around 5. Not too bad for traveling alone.

Check out all these cousins. My cousin Mindy has two. I obviously have four. Laramie has four. Dawn has three. Dawn’s older boys and Joah got along really well together. Joah doesn’t have a lot of boy cousins his age. He had so much fun playing with them.

My cousin Dawn’s youngest, Everly, loves Isla.

Laramie has a big pool at her house and every day we took the kids swimming.

Popsicle break by the pool.

Swimming was a huge highlight for my kids. The one day they swam four hours straight. They slept like rocks that night. We did so many more activities including a piñata on the last night. They also hammered ice blocks to win prizes that were frozen inside. The kids went on an egg race. They played yard twister. They dug for pennies in a rice box. They did sparklers. We had a bon fire one night. We definitely didn’t get bored and the kids slept a like rocks each night

Laramie has this huge play house outside at her house. It seems more like a tree house. The kids spent lots of time playing in it.

I snuck away from family one morning and went to visit my good friend, Jana. She was my college roommate. We don’t see each other often, but we can always reconnect and pick up where we left off. She has three girls who are all so sweet.

She fed us lunch.

Their golden retriever had just had ten puppies. The kids were in heaven. They “loved” all over those poor poor puppies. They were great sports.

The grandmas and moms decided to split up and take turns shopping one day. The ones who stayed back had to babysit. After us moms got back from shopping we found these two goons like this. They had just watched twelve kids. I am the only one who fell for it. I was like “oh my gosh. What did Joah do?” 😂 They said it actually went well.

It was such a refreshing week for me. I had so much fun and laughed more than I have in a long time. I have so many good memories growing up and traveling to Indiana with my mom and brothers. She used to take us all the time to visit her family. Marla has always had the party house. It has such a warm, friendly, fun environment. It was so fun sleeping and hanging out in that house again. Each night after we put the kids to bed we stayed up late talking, telling stories, and laughing. I felt like a human again. I don’t get too many late night girl talks these days.

All week long I had so much help and support. My aunts have already raised their kids. They know what it’s like. By the way as a crazy fact….all four girls(my mom and aunts) have five kids. My cousins and I are in the same demanding stage of motherhood and we all pitched in and helped each other. Whoever was available at the time would help whoever’s kid. We only accidentally starved one of them. 😬 Sorry about that Bodie. Long story short he is the most laid back little dude in the world. He never cries or whines. At 5pm I was like “did anyone feed Bodie a bottle today?” Everyone’s looks said it all. I said “oh my gosh. Quick let’s feed him two or three and Mindy will never know. At least we fed him food right? Just not a bottle.

My aunt Amy graciously volunteered to drive us back home. It was SO helpful having her along. Lots of the Indiana crew traveled to Michigan for Lance’s open house today, so she will have a ride home.

It has been a very busy and crazy couple of days. All the memories that were made, make it more than worth it!