Cousins are the Best

My nephew has been visiting for the past few weeks, and it's been a whirlwind of fun. He's been staying out here for years, flying out alone for the first time last year. He's a sweet kid, who my kids adore, and I can't help but want to be the awesome aunt when he's out here. Most of the time he stayed at my parents, but this is the most time he's spent over here at his cousins, sometimes for the entire day. He went to Brian's soccer camp with Keegan and Donovan, swam with us at our friends' houses and in the local pools, and strived to keep up with my speed demons on their scooter.

He spent a couple evenings at our house, and I made these yummy dinners. Steak, corn, rice (I haven't seen anyone eat this much rice since I went to Japan), and banana splits. Of course Jordan didn't want bananas, Donovan didn't want whipped cream, and I had to practically bribe Keegan to try the hot fudge (he loved it).

The boys all got matching haircuts (well, at least haircuts).

They rode on bumper boats and we played mini-golf thanks to grandpa.

And finally slept. This is way more peaceful than it looks. The kids sleep great at grandma & grandpas (well, Donovan crawls in with grandpa), but it took me an hour of settling them down and playing lullabyes on my iPhone to get them to sleep. Last year Jordan kept changing his mind when bedtime came, making my kids cry when they couldn't sleep together. We had them sleep in the living room in the hopes that would keep my kids from crawling into our bed (yes, mostly Keegan still does that, when he's half asleep and we're both asleep). Jordan hated waking up alone, so I ended up carrying my kids back a couple times, cleaning up dog pee and folding laundry for a couple hours in the middle of the night. The glamorous life of a mom.

Bye Jordan, we will miss you. See you in Dallas.