Lauren Luyendyk (née Burnham) is the first to admit she’s struggling with her and Arie Luyendyk Jr.’s 4-year-old daughter, Alessi, starting prekindergarten.
“We feel like we’re in a spot where our kids are more independent and they’re easier to manage altogether now. Like, they’re starting to have cute relationships [with each other].“Alessi likes to help them out and they help each other all the time, actually,” Lauren, 31, exclusively told Us Weekly of their eldest daughter and 2-year-old twins Senna and Lux. “But Alessi has started pre-K this year, so she’s doing three full days a week and it’s been kind of a hard transition for her.”
Arie, 41, was quick to point out that “the transition was harder for Lauren,” admitting that his wife “pulls her out of school early every day.”
“She’s probably having fun. [Lauren’s] like, ‘No, she’d have more fun over here,’” he continued.
Lauren fessed up to wanting Alessi at home with her.
“She’s like, ‘I just got in the pool, Mom — did you have to pick me up now?’ But I don’t know, it’s hard!” she told Us. “Like, maybe, he’s right. I did go in [to] the principal’s office and started crying yesterday. … I don’t think I’m ready yet for her to go to school.”
Arie subsequently noted that both of them feel like it might be too early for Alessi to be gone all day, three days a week.
“We have the whole thought that, you know, ‘She’s not in kindergarten yet, so why put her in school for long hours?’ Because she’s gonna go to school from kindergarten all the way to high school,” he said.
The Bachelor season 22 couple recently spent a month traveling with their three kids, going from Michigan to Holland (to meet their great-grandmother) to Aruba.
“We decided to bring our babysitter with us. So she was there as an extra set of hands ’cause we’re definitely outnumbered with three of them — 4 [years old] and under. So yeah, we had help,” Lauren explained. “People always say, ’It’s not a vacation, it’s a trip.’ And it felt like a lot of work, but I feel like the memories are worth it. And it’s just so fun to be able to show them new things and expose them to different cultures and stuff like that.”
Arie agreed, adding that the family traveled with “10 bags” and shipped items home along the way. “It was challenging. But like Lauren said, it was super fun,” he told Us.
The Luyendyks’ stop in Aruba included the couple participating in Aruba I Do, the Caribbean’s largest vow renewal ceremony.
“We were not planning to renew our vows so early, but we heard about the Aruba I Do event, and we thought it was really cool and a fun opportunity for us to bring our kids with us and just have fun on the beach, celebrating love. So that’s what we did,” Lauren explained. “It was such a good time. We got to see couples that had been married for, like, 60 years to people who had just gotten married earlier that year or this year.”
The twosome even wrote new vows, telling Us that they aren’t worried about any “reality TV curse” attached to the tradition of renewals.
“My mentality, at least going into the vow renewal, was, ‘We got married and it was the most magical day of our lives. We had all these ideas of what our future was gonna be.’ And then after we had our kids, like, things get harder, we go through different trials together,” Lauren said. “Our relationship’s not always perfect. So it’s fun to kind of come back together and be like, ‘Hey, we still love each other and we got through all these things together and we’re still strong and we have like an amazing future ahead of us.’ And that was that’s what that was for us.”
Arie added, “The vows that you write each other when you first get married are so different. Your life is so different after having kids. So I think the vows change too. And I think it is just a nice way to celebrate your love and also kind of reset your expectations for one another.”
