Bring in the Bloods!

In December we got the best news ever- Aaron's brother Stephen got a job in Tucson! The plan was for them to live with us while they waited for their house in West Virginia to sell and then move into their own place nearby. Claudia flew out with the kids on Jan 8 (two days after we got back from our vacation). Stephen drove their van across the country and arrived with a very numb butt two days later.

We now had a literal pile of kids with 10 people in our 4 bedroom house

They paid to have Stephen's car shipped across the country. In retrospect, they should have just sold the car. They had a terrible experience with the car shipper and the moving company.

We got creative with sleeping arrangements. Luckily our kids have been trained to sleep anywhere by years of camping and cramming into Airbnbs. Annie slept in a pack and play in the laundry while Elliot slept in our walk in closet. Stephen & Claudia got the guest room, Ethan got Annie's room, and Brianna, Eowyn, and Tata got Elliot's room. 

Elliot couldn't move into a new "room" without decorating it with some art. This little guy cracks me up every time.

My kids were in heaven from day 1. They ADORE their cousins, and it was so good for them to have some older role models. They started a spy club, a ninja school, opened a salon, and played countless games of "the floor is lava."

Elliot is working hard on his tree climbing skills to be able to keep up with his monkey cousins

You can see Elliot's foot behind the tree. He refused to go on the "baby part" for the picture but couldn't quite make it up to the top part. Keep working on it buddy!

Ethan and Annie are the ultimate frenemies. Annie is only 6 months older than Ethan, but she will be quick to tell you that she is a big kid and Ethan is a baby. If anything goes wrong in the house, Annie blames Ethan, even if he isn't anywhere nearby. There were a few instances where the two of them would start fighting over a toy, and Annie would start to choke him while Ethan clawed at her face. She actually still has a fading scratch mark on each cheek like a football player. I worked hard on brainwashing Annie to like Ethan by being quick to point out all the cute stuff he does and having her pray every night to be nice to Ethan. I don't know what did the trick but gradually they started playing better and better together. They LOVED running away from "the monster" (Stephen) and hiding together. They really became great buddies, and Annie still talks about him all the time even though they have been gone for a few weeks now. 

I believe this is when we built Nephi's boat for home church

Bree is always leading the kids on some sort of adventure. Having an 8 year old around is AWESOME. 

The kids (well mostly Bree) spent hours making puppets for an outer space puppet show. A grand total of maybe 30 seconds was spent on thinking through the script. We all enjoyed the bloodlings’ performance, despite several considerable plot holes. 

Bree is a woman of the stage. She had us all gather to watch a dance show starring hits like "I like to Move it" and "Monster Moves." It was obvious that she didn't want the attention to end, and so she kept telling Alexa to play more songs as both her audience and backup dancers started to wander away.

Confession: I am not a dog person. Most of this is because I'm allergic to them, so my attempts to interact with their species were rewarded with puffy eyes and itchiness all over my body. I admit that I was a bit daunted by having a dog as big as Chocolo move in with us, despite the fact that he is hypoallergenic (he's a standard poodle), but Choco is a champ who won us all over! He is super well trained and doesn't bark, so honestly I forgot he was there most of the time. He spent most of the time in his kennel in the corner or outside. Every time Claudia got Choco out to take him on a walk, she would tell Annie "Choco is my baaaaaby." Annie would yell back "CHOCO IS NOT YO BABY." 

Annie used to be terrified of all animals, but after a few months she was petting and hugging Choco and talking about how much she loves him. It was so good for her to overcome her fears. 

Tata's stoic face reminds me of those colorized photos from the 1800's

I loved having Claudia around all the time. I've always liked her, but we definitely got to know each other better. She was very patient with me as I practiced my Spanish with her. We both love Volleyball, so it was fun having her come play at the church twice a week. The biggest deal was that we traded off cooking every other day. It took me a little while to calibrate to cooking for 10 people, but I would way rather cook a big meal every other day and then not have to worry about it at all the next day. It is true that there was more chaos in the house with the extra kids, but it always seemed manageable with two of us there to find the missing shoe or break up the fights.

The Bloodlings after Volleyball

One day Bree asked if she could have the seeds I was scooping out from a squash. I said she could do whatever she wanted with them outside. I'm not sure exactly what they were doing, but it involved spitting the seeds and then marking each one with chalk. It looked like a crime scene with all the pieces of evidence meticulously labeled with who spat each individual seed.

A mixture of targets and charts? Not quite sure if anyone know what the objective was here but they all had a grand time

I arranged a seed spitting competition that I thought I could easily win with my adult sized lungs. Eowyn whipped all our butts by spitting it twice as far as I could. I think it is because she's missing her two front teeth.

This picture conveys the general vibe of the Blood house during this time

Bree convinced the kids to lie down and let her jump over them from the chest

A lovely braiding job by the gals of the Blood Salon. There was definitely more spraying with the water bottle than was strictly necessary.

Look closely at the blocks- it is two little block people holding hands