The week of Sleepovers

I am exhausted. This past week has been a whirlwind. We've had two different sleepovers, each with 4 kids in this tiny apartment of ours. It was a busy week, and I feel like I haven't slept in days, but it was awesome. The kids here have become so special to me in the past three months, and I cherished these fun times with them.

The first sleepover was with my class. I challenged the kids at the beginning of the summer to read 150 books as a class during these three months of school. I promised them some sort of fun surprise if they made it. Well, they blew that goal out of the water and read well over 200 books, so they got their fun surprise. The sleepover was all the kids could talk about at school for several weeks. Everyday they asked me "How many days til the sleepover?" It finally got to the point where we just wrote a countdown on the board and updated it each day. The sleepover was Sunday night and during church Sunday morning, I looked across the room at one point to see Luke holding up 6 fingers and pointing at his watch. He was counting down the hours until the sleepover started. Cute huh?

The kids got to our apartment at 6:30. They absolutely love our apartment and they love coming over. They look at all of our pictures (Mortimer...this is where you come in :) and they love the sign that D-rae has up in our room that says "Don't pass gas." All of this usually occupies them for a good 15 minutes, which was perfect for me and Des to finish up their pizzas. We all ate dinner together and then started the first of three movies that we watched that night. After 3 movies, a game of Apples to Apples, getting fake tattoos, and lots of brownies and popcorn, we finally went to sleep at 1:30.

I woke up the next morning at 7:15 to Elizabeth Fouts staring at me from her sleeping bag on the floor. She just smiled and I could tell that she was ready for the fun to continue. After french toast and half of movie #4, we sent 4 adorable kids back home and we crashed. Ok sidenote, you know that part on Kindergarten Cop where Arnold Schwarzenegger walks in the door after his first day as the teacher. He shuts the door and then falls face first on his bed. Well, that's pretty much how I felt after I shut the door behind the kids. I even re-enacted it and started to fall face first on our floor, but stopped myself when I realized D-rae had no idea what was going on. I was exhausted...you get the idea.

Sleepover #2 happened on Friday night with just the Fouts kids. Nick and Renee were out of town for their anniversary, and D-rae and I jumped at the chance to watch their kids. We had them from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, and it was so fun. After school on Friday, we went to our apartment. Things were complicated a little bit because our water had been out for a day, which tends to make cooking, bathing, brushing teeth, etc. a little more difficult. But that's life in Africa. It always keeps you on your toes.

D-rae took the three older kids to play while Avery, who is 3, stayed to help me cook dinner. I made spaghetti while she drew pictures and then taped them up in my room. When the kids got back, we ate dinner, watched a movie, and ate more brownies and popcorn. We got a little more sleep this time because their bedtime was 9, but I woke up to Avery jumping on top of me at 6:58 the next morning. After breakfast and another movie, we went to their house to hang out for the rest of the day. It was great to be with those kids, and I know that we will really cherish that time since they're leaving in just two weeks.

So as you can tell, it was a full, but really great week. We got to spend a lot of time with our kids, and I wouldn't trade the late nights and early mornings for anything. It's funny how much I felt like an adult this past week. I know, that's a funny thing to say. Go ahead and laugh. But there is just something about cooking meals for kids, putting them to bed, and waking up with the sun to take care of them again that makes you feel all grown-up. Des and I were talking yesterday, and I mentioned that I think watching those 4 kids for a day was probably the most responsible thing I've ever done. Who would have though Africa would make me so mature? Hopefully you're all laughing at this point. I know that I laughed a lot with these kids, and I hope you enjoy the pictures!