Just 4 kids...

Every few months, the tías like to ask for permission for all of the kids to spend the weekend with them and their families. This past weekend, we were given permission to take the kids home. Personally, I'm a big fan of these weekends and support the idea whenever it's brought up! It's so much fun to spend time with just a few kids, and we're able to do things that we aren't able to do when all 14 kids are at the house. As volunteers, we also keep kids at the baby home with us. Although they don't get the experience of leaving the house and being with a typical Bolivian family, we make sure to plan lots of fun outings so they aren't stuck at home all weekend!

This weekend (Sunday) included Día del Peaton (Pedestrian Day) and no one likes to work on this day… Without transportation for the majority of the day, the tías have to walk to and from work which can take hours (they live 45 minutes-an hour away by trufi). There are three Pedestrian Days each year, and the tías like to request these weekends as the weekends to take the kids home. I really enjoy Pedestrian Day as everyone spends time outside, and it's so fun to see the super busy roads closed! Those of you who have been here will agree with me when I say it's the only day you can let kids near Blanco Galindo (very busy main street near all 3 of our homes)!

This weekend, Lindsey and I kept S., R., Baby A., and Baby C. here at home. They were AWESOME! S. and R. became quite the pair which was neat to see as both are pretty independent at home and rarely play with other kids. It was great to see how much fun they they had playing together, and S. is quite the talker while R. is more reserved. Another advantage of having these two together is that R.'s speech improved a lot! S. did correct her quite a bit, but I think just being around another person who talks so well really helped her! Of course Baby C. and Baby A. were the perfect babies all weekend long!

I'm going to post lots of pictures in order, but rather than caption them, I'll just write it here…

Friday night- All of the kids left the house by 7:30pm. That's the time we usually start putting kids down to bed. We let S. and R. stay up late to watch a movie. We also popped popcorn as a treat.

Saturday- In the morning, we went to the park! We have several big parks here, but we decided to go to one pretty close to the house. We hadn't been there before though. We brought a picnic lunch to eat and had a lot of fun! We planned on only staying for about an hour or an hour and a half at the very most… We finally left 4 hours later. The girls had a great time playing and the babies were very well behaved. We made a quick trip home to change clothes before heading to La Horita Feliz. After that, we went back home and put four very sleepy babies to bed. Then the real task began… Lindsey and I cleaned the deposito (huge storage closet at the baby house… before picture below)! Check back later for a blog post on that…

Sunday (Pedestrian Day)- Everyone slept in after such a busy day yesterday. With no church, we spent the morning at home. Lindsey and I worked on the deposito some more while the babies napped and the big girls played outside. For lunch, we decided to have another picnic. We packed a picnic, loaded the babies into slings, let the girls ride on toy cars and headed over to Blanco Galindo for a picnic lunch. After lunch, we headed home for naps for everyone and went back to work on the deposito. That pretty much consumed the rest of the day. 

Everyone came back early Monday morning. I know S. and R. were excited to see the other kids, and everyone seemed to have had a great time! Sometimes the babies cry A LOT when they come back, but we had very few meltdowns. I'd call it a successful weekend for all! We're already thinking of when we can do it again!