Thanks to my browsing in Pinterest I came across this idea of having a "Cousin Camp" for my girls with a few of their cousins. After much planning it finally happened a few weekends ago.
We sent invitations to Kailey, Kaitlynn, McKenzie, Rebekah and Amy. We were super lucky it worked out to have our 2 Boise cousins here.
I didn't let the girls see hardly anything I had planned until the morning of Cousin Camp. They made a big sign for the front door to welcome everybody.
I had a schedule hanging up so they knew what to look forward to.
The girls kept me on task pretty well.
We had matching water bottles for everybody and I even cut their initial with vinyl so they knew which cup was theirs.
Cousin Bingo with their names on the squares. We played with M & Ms.
Super fun popcorn containers I got at a garage sale. We used for those who stayed awake long enough to watch a movie. :)
My girls sharing their snacks. Pop Rocks and Licorice.
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Home made suckers with Jolly Ranchers.
Paper Bag Journals. They had 3 different tabs they could take in and out of the pockets. 1 had treasures from cousin camp, 1 was for their favorite memory and the other for a cousin to write a note to them on it. I love how they turned out with their own personal touch.
We made crowns, send the kids on a little scavenger hunt around the block while I made dinner and had stories by the fire in the back yard. I love how intently each girl was listening while they told their stories.
We even had special visitors - Heidi & Kenny came to have smores with us. Sadly McKenzie ran into the house to throw up when we took this picture and was sick that night so I sent her home with her mama. :)
Thank goodness everybody slept super great all together down stairs. They were ready to party in the morning though with rainbow waffles.
We got right to work with coloring after breakfast.
There were 4 eyes glued to a paper and they got to make it into whatever they wanted.
Then we made their Tshirts with their names on them. I cut their names out of vinyl and planned to spray a watered down clorox on them to look like this one. Kailey and Ella's were the only ones that would react to bleach though. (super weird) So we just traced the vinyl with sharpies so you could still see their names.
Super cute! Sure love these girls!
Alissa & Amy are best cousins!
Ella & Bekah
Molly & Kaitlynn.
That afternoon we were so lucky to have a neighbor Emily Hales over to paint the kids faces. She is working on a Personal Progress project for Young Womens so she was looking for some events to paint faces at. I was glad to volunteer. :) She did fantastic & the kids LOVED it!
While they were getting their face painted we decided to start a few of our games. Like water piñatas (water balloons hanging from string) and eating doughnuts on a string with no hands.
We also did a game where a person from each team puts on a shower cap covered in shaving cream and the partner has 1 minute to get Cheetos puffs stuck in the shaving cream. The one with the most wins.
It was funny.
A snow cone break.
Pictures of all 8 of the girls. So thankful for cousins and the opportunity we have to live close to all of them. They sure do make life fun and memorable and have become some of my kids very best friends.
Amy was the only one missing from these.
She was having too much fun inside playing with Alissa's toys.
The last treat was chocolate pudding, oreos and worms. :)
I hope it was a memorable event for these cute girls. They sure were fun to have over and their anticipation and enthusiasm before the actual day was enough to drive me to continue to plan. I am thankful for the opportunity I have to be a stay at home mom and have the time and energy to do fun things like this for the kids. We have been so blessed.
