Zeke's blessing weekend

My mom came to town last Thursday and is LoViNg being grandma! I don't think the kids mind clobbering her with love either.

We had the house full of 8 kids 5 and under, with 7 of them between the ages of 18 months and 3. So to get the kids outside for awhile I set up a sensory activity for them. My father-in-law got some of the "green" packing peanuts in a box from his latest eBay purchase. These packing peanuts are made 100% from cornstarch and dissolve in water. They are nontoxic and easy to clean up so I thought it would be fun for the kids to play with them. I set up trays full of the packing peanuts, set out small bowls of water, and hid little Halloween dollar store toys in the packing peanuts. I thought it would keep their interest for 20 or so minutes but after an hour they were still going! The adults just sat around taking pictures, playing themselves, and blowing bubbles for the kids- a fun time for all!

The kids had a GREAT time playing in the packing peanuts and water! We put little toys in the packing peanuts for them to play with and the favorite were the tiny bottles of bubbles. Most of the kids enjoyed the packing peanuts more after they started to dissolve in the water and got really sticky and gooey. Hudson and Maddie enjoyed getting in the trays and had no problem getting messy! I was happy that they liked my activity and when the kids all took wonderful naps after playing I was even happier.

After Rosalee had played in the water and packing peanuts she took some of her "treasures" and started organizing them on the steps. If you look closely you can see that her pants are oddly wet. Note to self- don't put your potty training daughter in underwear and then let her play in water.

Maddie had a nice time sitting in the water washing her feet off in Trouble's water bowl. But I guess she needed it after playing in the cornstarch and water...

Sadly I only got a few pictures from the blessing day. I was up late Saturday night preparing the food for the Sunday lunch as well as finishing my talk that I had to give at church. (Seriously who asks a new mom to speak in church, let alone on the day her kid is getting blessed!?!) Normally I would have been bugging everyone to hold the baby and would have chased my family around with the camera but I was too exhausted to think straight. I did think, "oh I should get a picture of Jesse with Zeke" but when I turned around Jesse was coming up the stairs in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. There were a lot of family and friends that came to the blessing and then to our house afterward for lunch. When I get some pictures of Zeke in his outfit and of the four of us I'll post some of the things that were said in his blessing along with the names of those who came.

Zeke with his great grandpa James

Rosalee and Kaylee having a conversation during lunch. I wonder if Kaylee found it equally as weird as I do that Rosalee was dipping pickle chips into her marshmallow frosting.

Here's the only pictures I took yesterday of Zeke in his blessing outfit. He was passed out asleep on the couch with everyone in the room talking, playing, etc. I took the next picture to show how much taller Zeke is than Sydney. It amazes me that they're only two days apart and he's about two inches taller than her. This will be one of the rare times I'll be able to say that my kid is the taller one. Poor Zeke, he woke up to have his cousin chewing on his hand.

Zeke was tired from being handled by everyone and had an EASY time sleeping at night.