The Cousins Arrive

Dear Diary,

Remember how I was upset because the cousins were coming to visit us, but we had to move it back two months because of a wedding?  And then after we postponed the cousins’ visit, the wedding was changed? (And Mom didn’t even tell me?)

Yeah, I was a little upset.

Well, on Friday night we watched The Wizard Of Oz as a family. (We kids had never seen it before). When the movie was over at 9, Mom and Dad told us to get our goat chores done as fast as we could, and then get to bed.

So I fed the babies, and then got ready for bed. I gave Mom and Dad a kiss, got a drink, and went to the bathroom. Then I went and climbed into bed.

I was feeling a little sad b/c if we had not canceled, I would have been playing/talking with my cousins instead of going to bed.

I decided that I was going to pray for my cousins. I started praying for Tyler, then Victor, and was just about to start on Lindsey, when I heard voices and the front door opening several times. I was swinging my feet off off the bed to investigate when the door opened. And Katrina was staring at me!

I ran to the door and grabbed Trina and started hugging her, then Emily, then I think I hugged Uncle Pete… I’m not really sure. I just remember hugging everybody. 😀 I was so excited!!

I had no idea that Mom and Aunt Shannon were planning it. I think I was almost more amazed that they could keep it from me, (I find out almost everything) than the fact that my cousins were standing in front of my bedroom!

As I started thinking about it, a lot of things that Mom had done made sense now…
 
…Cleaning the entire upstairs. She said it was because Dustin (our videographer) was coming to film some videos soon and she wanted to be ready for him. I guess she wanted it clean so all of us older girls could sleep up there.
 
 …Laying the girls on top of the blankets, not in them. She said that if Jade threw up, (she had been coughing so hard that she actually threw up once, and came close to doing it again) she did not want to have to wash the sheets. I guess she wanted them clean for Uncle Pete and Aunt Shannon.
 
 …And there were a couple of other things that I remembered then but can’t think of right now.

So I went back into my room to grab my pillow, and blankets (it’s COLD upstairs!!) and climbed up the stairs. Oh, I also grabbed my little flashlight that I keep under my pillow. It really helps Lindsay find her way to the beds after turning the lights off without stepping on anybody.

 
When I got upstairs I hugged my cousins some more, and then went to go and get some quilts/blankets out of the chest for padding. (Because that floor is hard. No joke.)
 
So when we had our beds made up, we demolished moved the castle, (the cats broke it, Fletcher!!) because it was in the way. Then we all went downstairs and listened to the adults talk, and got drinks, and wasted time, and avoided going to sleep. LOL
 
After a while Aunt Shannon said that we had a busy day tomorrow, and we needed to get to bed.  So we went upstairs. But why would we go to sleep?!? I mean, only babies (and adults) need sleep, right? 
 
So we talked, and talked some more, and went to go see if the boys were awake by pounding on the floor above their room. So I tried a nice gentle knock, in our code. Knock knock, knock-knock-knock, knock knock. Then Katrina knocked. Loudly. Boom boom, boom-boom-boom, boom boom.
 
And then the toilet flushed.
 
We all jumped.
 
We ran back to our beds, tripped over Lindsay, (who was actually asleep) and tried to act like we were asleep. I think we lasted about 0.3 seconds before we burst helplessly into laughter. You know, keeping it as quiet as possible. It did not exactly work…
 
After that, we started actually trying to go to sleep. It was really hard to do though. I was still so excited!

I decided to keep on praying for the cousins, but I could not think of anything to say. All I could think of was “Thank you Lord for letting them come, Thank you Lord for letting them come, Thank you Lord for letting them come”.

So I gave that up. By that time it was 12:30 and the adults went to sleep. I could hear them getting ready for bed. Then I remembered/realized that we had a wrestling meet in the morning and I should probably fall asleep. So I did!

 
It was an awesome surprise!!

Brett