Creative Kimpire: From Dusk til Dawn

This was my motto for the weekend.

Kids are exhausting. I know that the majority of you reading this are parents and already know that. We had a sleepover on Friday night with my brother’s 4 kids and then watched Phil’s brother’s twin toddlers most of the day on Saturday. All the children were well behaved but I didn’t get much sleep so it was a great preview of parenthood.

The sleepover came about because Kate has been asking me for weeks if she could sleep at my house. She’s never spent the night before and Haleigh and Coen had stayed several times when they were her age. Lincoln had never stayed before either. I imagine he wouldn’t have made it all night if the older kids hadn’t also come.

Anyway, we had a really fun together but of course, there were... moments. Like, when I had spent the day moving boxes and clearing out the main room in the basement to make a play area, and had planned several activities and dramatic play props and Kate says, “I’m bored.” 😑

Or when I’d given Kate and Link a bath (with lavender soap to “calm them” 🙄. That didn’t work, by the way.) and had them brush their teeth and Link got up from his sleeping spot, heading for the kitchen and I asked him where he was going and he said, “to get candy.” Ummm, I think not, buddy.

He said he wanted to color and I wanted him to sit so I told him he could. A few minutes into it I caught him peeling the paper off my crayons. Our conversation:

Me: “Link, what are you doing? I don’t want you to peel the paper off my crayons.”

Lincoln: “It broke.”

Me: “Ok, you can peel that one but don’t peel anymore.”

2 minutes later.

Me: “Link, why are you peeling another crayon?”

Link: “It broke.”

Me: “Did you break it?”

Link: “No.”

Me: (I’m pretty sure he broke it) “I don’t want you to break my crayons.”

Link: (In true two year old fashion) “Why?”

Me: “Because, as with most things in life, they work better when they’re not broken.”

Link: “Ok.”

I guess he just needed a logical explanation 🤷🏻‍♀️. The crayons and coloring book he was using belonged to my Grandma when she was in the nursing home. I’m sure she would’ve been amused by his antics.

At around 12:30 I hear another, “I’m bored” from Kate. Well guess what: I don’t care that you’re bored. Go to sleep. “Cool Aunt” runs out at midnight, then I turn back into a 31 year old who is up way past her bedtime. 😂

Haleigh was really into watching The Greatest Showman and as soon as that ended and I turned on The Secret Life Of Pets, Kate and Link both settled down and fell asleep. But you didn’t think they stayed asleep, did you? No, that would’ve been too easy. I had turned off the tv and went to sleep in my bed and a short while later, Kate woke up because she had a stuffy nose. So back to the floor I went, beside her on the air mattress. I could’ve slept on the air mat but I didn’t plan on staying and didn’t want to risk waking her up when I got up. She feel back asleep so I went back to my bed and was woken up again around 2 because Kate woke up (I think Lincoln might have fallen on her. He was sleeping on the ottoman that was pushed up against the wall and couch, and the air mat beside it). She said she wanted Mommy but I told her Mommy was asleep and she could see her in the morning. I laid beside her and she fell back asleep. Back to my bed I go. I was sleeping good until around 5 when Link woke up and told me he wanted to go home. I told him Mommy and Daddy were sleeping and he could go home when it’s daylight. He was beside Kate on the air mat at this point so I laid beside him on the floor and slept there until 7:15, when my child, Sophie, decided it was time for me to get up. She licked and pawed my face, as is her typical morning routine. It was bad enough that she woke me up, then she went and licked Kate and that woke Lincoln up. If you were ever wondering who the loudest child in the world is when they wake up, it’s Lincoln. Now you know. He’s just like his dad. He got up and I asked him if he wanted some cereal and milk and he said he did so while I was getting it, he walked to the sliding glass door and yelled, YELLED, for me. “Kim, Kim, Kim!” I whisper-yelled, “what?!” And he said, “The light is on!”, as if it’s the first time he’s ever seen sunlight. I said, “No, buddy, it’s morning. That’s daylight.” He wanted to eat out on the deck, which was a good choice since it got him out of the house so he couldn’t wake anyone else up with his revelations 😂. SMH, I love that kid. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They all played together nicely, even the older two, who love each other one minute and scream at each other the next. I made a fort out of our hot water tank box that I saved for them and we already had a pop up castle that we bought for the dogs 😂 so I told them to team up and choose a space to live. I gave them “mailboxes” (one was a cascade pacs container)and writing utensils and told the older two to be nice to each other. Haleigh told me they’ve been “actually getting along” because of some sort of agreement about which Harry Potter houses they would each belong to 🤷🏻‍♀️😂. Things were going well and they started writing notes back and forth right before I had them come upstairs to eat dinner. That’s when they told me that Coen had written an invitation to the girls to come have a picnic and the girls sent a threat to kidnap Lincoln 🤦🏻‍♀️. Most people probably would’ve expected that to go the other way around but Coen is sweet and those girls take after their aunt so.....😂

The plan didn’t come to fruition though, luckily. They got distracted doing other things after dinner. We played a game I found on Pinterest called Left, Right, Eat that involves a die (singular of dice, if you don’t know 😉) and candy. It was comical watching them play because Coen was collecting Starburst and Kate doesn’t like them but she was sitting to Coen’s left and he kept rolling a 2, meaning he had to give them to her. She would get mad and throw them back at him. Lincoln is a great sharer and didn’t mind at all that he had to give his candy away, he just didn’t like that he couldn’t eat it right away. We kept catching him with half a wrapper off and asking, “why” when someone would tell him he couldn’t eat it yet 😂. He also enjoyed playing “pickup” with balloons and pool noodles. He eventually gave up the pool noodles though and just used his hands lol.

Link feeling confused with all the rules about his candy 😂.
We made tie dye pillowcases, which they thought was pretty cool. This was my first time ever using tie dye though so we had to you tube how to do different designs. Haleigh and Coen made Link’s for him because I’m not crazy enough to allow a 2 year old to squirt dye in my kitchen 😜. He didn’t really seem to notice they were doing something without him, even when I asked him which design he wanted. He chose it and went back to playing with my sudoku board. It has 81 little wooden balls and he loves playing with it. All the kids do, actually. It’s a miracle one hasn’t been lost or eaten thus far.

I didn’t get to take a picture of Link’s because he took his lol

Shortly after I took them home, the twins arrived for the day. Running on little sleep and full of apprehension about the amount of energy I was going to need to muster to stay ahead of two toddler boys, I wasn’t the most hopeful for having a good day. I was totally wrong though and enjoyed having them very much! They loved playing in the basement and are very good at entertaining themselves. I mostly just sat and watched them play. They got along for the most part. We only have one tractor trailer truck toy and that was a sought after item. If one put it down the other would pick it up. There was a squabble over it once or twice but it was a minor. They also enjoyed playing “pickup” with the balloons. Ayden was fascinated by a car and tube that I strapped to the bottom of a basket to put it at an angle. We experimented with knocking different things over with the car as it came out. They played with play dough and liked when I ran the car over it to make tracks. Ayden got the idea to try it with the semi truck 😂. Oakley really liked pretending with the Pom Pom balls, cup, and spoon. He kept bringing me things to “eat.” They both allowed me to paint their feet so we could make a picture for their mommy and daddy. They came to the table to eat and get diaper changes without arguing. They were super pleasant for the whole visit. We offered to take them home so Nathan wouldn’t have to drive several hours out of his way to get them and I also wanted to get out of the house for a bit. The boys fell asleep on the ride and slept until they got home. They both gave us big hugs when we dropped them off 🤗.

They totally put themselves in there 😂.
We had a great time with all the kids but it was still exhausting lol. Going from zero (tiny humans) to six is a bit much. I slept in today and recovered by soaking my aching back in the hot tub. I’m not sure if sleeping on the floor, moving boxes, or picking up babies caused it. Actually, yes, all of that caused it. We’ll do it again sometime...in the distant future 😂😜.