Boston 2014: Home again, home again jiggety jig

On New Year's Eve we loaded up all the kids at bed time and headed to the airport to welcome Matt home from his two year LDS mission in Boise, Idaho.

On the way to the airport Elise declared she was seeing fireworks and I told her it was just the lights on the tall buildings downtown. Then I saw actual fireworks and remembered it was New Year's Eve and maybe I should listen to my kids once in a while. 

We all waited impatiently for Matt to come walking out of the sliding doors. The kids were excited to show off their sign and their new dress-ups from the Salazars. Lauren was wearing hers under her coat. The excitement quickly waned for the kids and they started running away. 

Hill and Ben kindly kept my kids on their shoulders so we could stop chasing them. 

Each time the doors opened we would gasp to see if it was him, until finally, it was!

There were lots and lots of hugs. My mom and Matt got the first hug and squished Millie between them. She was not happy about it. Elise was feeling shy until she finally declared "huggy!" Sadie was very cute and wanted to hold Matt's hand as they waited for his bags. 

 

We put the kids to bed immediately at home and then ate our high-class Ma Magoo's dinner (a favorite of Matt). Then we sat around talking about his mission and showing him hilarious Youtube videos from his time away. Lots of clips of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Thursday morning some of the adults took the grandkids to the gym at the church to get some energy out. Apparently Sadie dragged Nana around for a while. I wouldn't know because they generously allowed me to stay home and sleep.

We spent a lot of the remaining day showing Matt some great movies: Frozen, The Lego Movie and Pitch Perfect. We also made a Friendly's run for some delicious sundaes. I cannot miss Friendly's when I go home to visit.

On Friday I got up and started packing. The kids played with their cousins and said some sad goodbyes. Luckily, we would be seeing Matt in a couple of days when he flew out to Utah to get back to school at BYU.  It was fun to get a preview of what it will be like for the cousins to play together in August at our next family reunion. My girls are really looking forward to it.

We got to our airport gate in record time and had an hour to kill so we got some Dunkin Donuts. The girls were, again, great on our return flight to Utah. Elise slept on the floor for 2 1/2 hours of the flight. Shortly after this picture Sadie handed me the iPad, said she was tired and went to sleep. The only little stinker who didn't sleep was Camille. But she didn't cry, so it was fine by me.

 We were all thrilled to see Dad waiting for us. Even Camille, although she did try to pretend she didn't know who Daniel was for a day or two. 

It was an exhausting and fun trip. It took me a full week to recover and my suitcase is still sitting in the floor in my room with a few random clothing items inside. Some day soon I will fully unpack. 

Boston 2014: Fun

We spent Saturday and Sunday mostly at the house, with a trip to church on Sunday where Camille ended up naked after she barfed and pooped all over the 2 outfits I had for her. We also had a lovely visit from the 4 Bennett kids and their spouses. 

Monday we got to the Boston Children's Museum just as it opened to try and avoid the crowds. 

That effort was somewhat fruitless, as we ended up waiting in an entrance line that went all the way outside the building. While it was busy, there are so many activities at the museum that we all had fun. 

Addy mostly just splashed in the bubbles. But she did walk away with a brand new Boston Children's Museum shirt since she threw up all over herself on the way there. 

We split up since the kids all wanted to do different things. We spent the longest time in a camping exhibit where Alicia told scary stories around the fake campfire that captivated children we didn't know. As we were gathering our stuff to leave that area some random kid peed in the tent so we counted ourselves lucky. 

When we got home the 5-year-olds helped Ben again as he did some work on cars. He was so great with them.

On Monday night we had a birthday dinner for Anthony consisting of Bertucci's pizza. Camille loved the rolls. Hillary made a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake for the birthday boy. Mealtimes were particularly crazy. We had the kids all sit together and that may have been a mistake because they acted up and didn't eat much.

After all the kids were in bed the John siblings attempted to go to a movie. The movies were completely sold out so we opted to Red Box The Giver at home. 

Tuesday was Chuck E Cheese day. My kids now associate Chuck E Cheese with Boston because we go each time we visit. 

Elise mostly spent her tokens on rides. 

Sadie went around with Uncle Ben (see adorable photo below) so I don't know exactly what she spent her tokens on. I do know that Bryce, Ben and Steven found a game that would give them a ton of tickets so they played that for a while and then split the tickets between the kids. They ended up with over 2,000 tickets so each kid got 400.

That night the adults successfully made it to a movie. I thoroughly enjoyed my 2 hours of escape into the third Hunger Games movie. 

Wednesday was mostly a hang out at home day, as we were all exhausted and Matt was arriving that night. But here's are a couple of impossibly cute pictures of Millie when she was trying pineapple banana baby food for the first time. It was a little tart.

Boston 2014: The whole fam damily

On Saturday afternoon Anthony and Meredith's families each arrived to bring our group total to 9 children (age 5 and under) and 11 adults. My parent's house was chaotic to say the least. 

 My kids had not seen Will and Lauren since our family reunion in Maine back in August 2012. That is way too long to go without seeing cousins, especially when they are so young. Luckily they all hit it off great. Although, they did better when the age groups were separated. Sadie and Will tended to tease and torture their younger siblings. 

Lauren loved on the babies frequently. It was sweet to watch how gentle and cute she was with them. And she has the cutest little voice, which makes me laugh when she gets sassy. She liked to tell the other kids, "you're makin' me a headache!" when they were getting loud.

 It was also fun to see the 2014 grandbabies all together again. I think strangers might have a hard time picking out which of the 3 are twins. Not because they all look exactly alike, but because they are all the exact same age and Derek and Nolan look different from each other. The twins arrived with ear infections and terrible colds, poor kids (and parents). Camille got sick later in the trip. 

This Addy is one busy girl. She enjoyed pointing to the babies and saying "baby". She also wandered around the house trying to get into things all day. I was tired just watching the Gessells keep up with her. Camille and the twins will be her same age now when we all get together again next August, which could make things quite interesting. Eventually Addy and the 2014 babies will all seem the same age (all 4 will be in the same grade) but for now they are far apart in development. 

 

The living room ended up being a main gathering spot since there were people sleeping in every other corner of the house. Lots of fun. My parents brought the tv from the basement up and put it on the living room mantle so movies could be watched without interrupting any children sleeping. 

 

Nearly all the grandkids ended up sick at one time or another during the trip. Sadie and Elise had terrible coughs that were much worse at night, so I would take the cougher somewhere else to avoid waking up my other kids. This meant I got very little sleep. The picture below is me and Camille at midnight one night. This night Lou and Millie traded off waking up all night. Camille was just starting to get sick and couldn't breathe through her nose and Elise was hacking up a lung all night.

Electronics bring people together. With so many people in the same house and so many sick kids sleep was hard to find. Tablets are a tired parents best friend. Any time a kid brought out an iPad or Kindle there were numerous willing participants. 

 

Boston 2014: The calm before the family storm

We got to my parents house by 1 AM on December 26. The Gessells and Salazars were the only other John children in Boston so we got to spend a couple quieter days before the rest of the family arrived.

 The minute we got settled down to bed that first night Sadie started coughing again. I didn't want her to keep the other girls up so I took her to the family room to sleep. She was scared to be left alone so I ended up laying next to her until 5 AM and then climbing into my bed upstairs until 8 AM. Sadie still managed to rise bright and early, but she was greeted by Nana and Papa instead of forcing me to get up.

Later that morning Hillary and Ben took Sadie and Elise to the Disney Store to pick out their Christmas presents. They selected beautiful dress-ups to wear to Disney on Ice. When they got home we all headed downtown for the big show. The arena was much smaller than the one in Utah, so most of the seats were close to the action 

The girls (and women) were captivated the entire 2 hours. Disney on Ice is totally worth the money. Granted, we go once a year or every other year and pay about $15 per ticket, so we aren't spending loads of money on it. 

 Elise waved furiously at all the Toy Story characters. It was adorable.

 Mills was her usual agreeable self. 

On Saturday morning the Vieira family drove out to see us. It was wonderful to catch up with them. We have each added two more kids since we last got together in 2010. The kids played well and we chatted for a couple hours. Kim and I have been friends for almost 20 years.

That afternoon we walked over to my elementary school playground. It was a balmy 55 degrees so my kids insisted coats needed to come off. While there we also said hi to another one of my childhood friends, Katherine, whose parents live next to the school. I had hoped to see more friends during my trip but since my kids all took turns being sick and we were busy with family, I never ended up making it happen.

Sadie has definitely gotten both stronger and more courageous in the past 6 months. She went across higher monkey bars several times and slid down the fireman's pole repeatedly (something she was too scared to do last summer). She insisted I take pictures to send Daniel.

 We arrived home just as Addy woke up from her nap. Sadie opted to stay outside and help Ben change the oil on my parent's cars.

It was very fun to see my kids interact with Hillary and Ben. I didn't realize how much I missed them until we saw them again. They were so great with the girls and helped me a lot with them during the trip. 

Next up: the rest of the family arrives and the craziness really begins!