Three Day Sleep Over

So, you know when we had sleep overs as kids they started at 8:00, and everyone was home by 11:00AM the next morning? Not the O'Hara/Richards' sleep overs! We start on Thursday at 3pm, and end on Sunday after church! Actually, we were just supposed to go to O'Hara's for supper on Thursday. The guys went shooting, the girls hung out, visited, played outside, and Tracey & I visited, and went through some devotionals for the kids. Sean had picked up a monkey bar set for free off of Craig's List earlier last week, and the kids have really been having fun on it...so much that they stayed on it in the rain to watch an awesome rainbow. The guys returned home with ice cream & cones for us as a treat. Thanks guys! Afterward, the guys watched some funny videos, and the rest of us were playing cribbage. Alyona is just learning, as well as Declan. We had a fun time, and then we realized it was after 10! Good thing there was no school the next day. The girls concocted this story about sleeping over, and then stood in the hallway with big puppy dog eyes, pretending to cry. So, we said OK. I took the boys & Alexis (she needed a break from the girls!) and we headed home.

Ryan was up at 7:30, Declan and Alexis around 8:30--and they played hard until 11:30 when we had to meet Tracey and the girls for "kid swap". Declan had an online class today at 1:00 that we forgot about...and the girls wanted to sleep here. SO, we swapped kids, I have all 5 girls, Tracey has both boys, and we headed back home! We've spent the afternoon dressing up, playing games, making a restaurant, and crafting out of the craft cupboard. They were very creative when I gave them free reign of the cupboard. We'll see what they come up with tomorrow!

Alyona was discussing this dish that she loved. She spoke of several, and we tried to look them up on the internet, but did not have much success. It would help if we knew how to spell them correctly! My Russian consists of the little we learned when the girls got here. Alyona remembered one dish that she'd seen other people make, so she asked if I minded if she tried it. It was fairly simple, and I figured worst case scenario, we'd toss two eggs, some mayo and a sausage link. She mixed up the most incredible salad I've ever had. It was like an egg salad, with sausage, carrots, and she said she'd even had it with corn in it. It was so good, we made more hard boiled eggs, and will make another batch for tomorrow for lunch! Thanks Alyona for sharing a bit of Ukraine with us!

The girls all had showers after supper, and then they settled in for a high school musical movie....oh the singing. Afterward, Alexis came up to snuggle with Bill, the other three girls, Tanya, Kristin & Kimberly were tearing up the living room dancing, while Alyona was in our bedroom, singing to her MP3 player, watching herself dance in our full length mirror!

Tomorrow Sean & Tracey have a dinner to attend, so we will be getting the boys back, and will have all 7 here tomorrow night. I will be a challenge to see if we make it to church on time Sunday.