So many piggyback rides

Admittedly, this first picture isn't a piggyback ride. It's a picture of Andrew diffusing a temper tantrum. These three little girl cousins—ages 3, 4, and 5—have a lot of fun when they get together, but emotions can sometimes run a little high:

But there were so many piggyback rides going on at Rosie's house last weekend! Usually it was Alexander with Oaklyn on his back and Zoë with Ireland on hers:

Oaklyn and Ireland (but mostly Oaklyn) really enjoy wrestling so they were constantly instigating wrestling matches with Zoë and Alexander.

Even Rachel was roped into a few piggyback rides.

Poor Benjamin was instructed to not engage in roughhousing with the children since he is prone to forgetting his increasingly hulking stature (and sometimes sisters get stitches). Our trip was so very short this time that we didn't want to have to spend any percent of it in the urgent care. Benjamin was very respectful of the boundaries we set with him. Hopefully we can find a happy medium for him so that he can enjoy himself a bit more but also not get the kids (and himself) too riled up.

We lugged our roller coaster up to Tennessee with us (squishing into our clown-car van with all eight of us) and Ireland and Oaklyn were very happy to set it up in their playroom after church on Sunday!

Here's Phoebe going (backwards):

And Oaklyn:

And Ireland:

We'll miss this little roller coaster, but it had a good run at our house and we're glad it will continue to live a happy little life at Rosie's house.

(Besides, the last time we came a certain someone *cough*Benjamin*cough* popped one of the girls' new-from-their-Christmas-stocking "NeeDoh" cubes and sat on their little toddler bike and broke it. I ordered a replacement "NeeDoh" cube—they used to be like $5, like just back in January, and now they're often more like $20–40 for some reason, so I was glad he popped it then! And I figure the roller coaster is a fine replacement for the toddler bike...)