He's Gone, Again....

It's harder this time around. I am alone with the girls this time around. My entire family is out of town right now, parents in Chicago, brother in Mexico. It's just harder this time. Before I had Judy here to keep my mind busy and the first two months I went non-stop from activity to activity. It also doesn't help that it's winter right now and I haven't been going out as much before he arrived.

His visit was wonderful, but far too short and went by far too fast. We had barely a day to sit and do nothing. We had two family portrait sessions in two weeks. Three family dinners in two weeks. One dinner out alone,a dinner out with my family, and a dinner out with just his family. We also had Christmas Eve dinner at my parents house and Christmas dinner here at our house. Both dinners were delicious. The girls received way too many presents from everyone. We had Lilly's play to go to and Kale spent a day volunteering at the school. We had a morning of baking with the kids, Meme, and Judy. The women went out shopping the morning after Christmas. Kale took the girls to the movies twice they saw Bolt and The Tale of Despereaux. It was a busy busy two weeks but it was a happy two weeks.

Thankfully Delilah and Sophia are better. Delilah hated her meds and they had to be force fed to her or hidden in food. FUN! She has also not regained her appetite as of yet. Hopefully she will get it back soon.


I leave you with our second family photo shoot:

Kale, David, and Judy

In-Laws David and Judy

Delilah didn't want to hold still but sat still when we sat her on the sled.

Sophia and her silly smile.

Aidan's sillier smile.

Lilly

This isn't the best one of the four of them, but it's the funniest.

Four generations of Kale's family. His Dad David and his grandma Margaret aka Nanny.

Alone Tonight!

Kale and I are getting to go out to dinner alone tonight, thanks to my mom offering to watch all the girls for us. I think she may even keep all four over night for once. Not that I really care, usually once Delilah is in bed she is there for the night.

Kale had lunch with Aidan today and read her class a story or two. He even took Sophia with him, which was nice. I got to be alone for awhile as Delilah went down for a nap and is still down. She doesn't feel well and had her immunizations given to her yesterday. I was surprised they let her get them as she was coming down with a cold. I think she is moving on to ear infection now. FUN!

Kale and Sophia are going back to the school here in a little while for Lilly's holiday party. Then after school we are dropping the four of them at my mom's house for the rest of the evening. He finally decided he wants to eat at Olive Garden and have dessert at Cheesecake Factory. Fine by me.

Tomorrow the six of us are going to see Bolt and having lunch at Panera Bread, after the girls clean their rooms. And we have to put our tree up still. :S This is the first time since I have been an adult that my tree has not gone up the day after Thanksgiving. I just couldn't lift it by myself and we have been so busy the last two days.

We were lucky Kale was able to get on the very first flight out of Jacksonville on Wed. I was worried we were going to miss our family picture appointment. That was a whirlwind day. We picked Kale up, went to Walmart, came home, got ourselves and the younger two ready, went and surprised the girls at the school, came home, got them ready, met Jason & Rosy so they could follow us, got our pictures done, high tailed it to the school just in the nick of time for Lilly's play, watched the play, and came home where everyone (my parents and the teens also) had pizza for dinner. It was tiring, but a good day.

All of our days, I think, will be tiring but good. Kale just caught Sophia painting her finger and toe nails. One of my aunts bought Aidan make-up, AGAIN, this year. They never think of me when they buy such things. Last year Aidan painted the walls and her toys with the nail polish. It's not peel off nail polish either, GRRR!

Hope everyone has a fun weekend!

It's Snowing!

It's not the first time it's snowed this winter, but it's coming down a lot faster than last time. Maybe it will be enough to cancel today's Girl Scout Ceremonies, I don't feel like going and being social. And of course both girls have ceremonies the same day and time, so that is wonderful. My aunt is taking Lilly for me, so at least I don't have to feel the guilt of "No one is going to my ceremony!" Although Aidan maybe upset that I am going to hers instead of Patience, we will see. I also have to go get a dessert to bring with us. And I have to go to the post office to return the wool dress coat I bought and didn't notice the sizing was junior's sizing. Needless to say it did not fit. I ordered a new one in the appropriate size already.

Some pictures of recent acquisitions:

Kale's New "Top Coat" for Dressier Outings

My New Dress Coat

My Dress for Our Family Pictures

K made two of these dresses out of fabric I bought this past fall. One for Sophia and one for her "friend Abby".

Here's Abby modeling the dress. I would post one of Sophia modeling hers but it was just mailed out yesterday.

After Judy decided she wanted a family picture also, I decided for my side of the family's picture we would all wear brown and pink or black. I couldn't find anything I liked for Lilly so Keisha offered to make me one. I just had to pick a pattern and she found the fabric. She is my hero, she made the entire dress in less than 12hrs. Impressive to me as I have little to no sewing experience. I also don't have a picture of her modeling it as it was also mailed out yesterday.

I have also recently bought Aidan and Delilah wool dress coats, Sophia's my mom bought a couple of years ago at a yard sale for only $3. It's in perfect condition and only needed to be dry cleaned. I bought Lilly's last year in an after Christmas sale. I almost always buy coats a little big so they last longer than one season. We will be a well dressed family this winter. :)

12 Days and Counting.....

Very, very soon Kale will be back, the 16th to be exact. He gets in at 11pm that night and I am picking him up myself. Green has volunteered to come over and sit with the sleeping children. The girls don't know exactly when he is arriving, just that it's soon and before Christmas. Lilly will be very excited he will be able to attend her Christmas musical on the 17th.

-------------------------------------------------

Black Friday

As is the tradition for the women in my family we went shopping on Black Friday. Green was kind enough to spend the night on my couch and "take care of" (be the adult in the house just in case) the older three girls. Rosy insisted I leave Delilah with Jason and Alan, I wasn't going to argue. I am just glad for my brother that she went straight back to sleep after I dropped her off at 4:40am. As always I have to be the first one up that morning because I am the driver and I have to pick everyone up. I picked Rosy up, dropped Delilah off, and picked Patience up. It's really not bad, I live 10mins from Rosy, Patience lives across the street from Rosy, and then it's 5mins to my mom's from there.

We went to Walmart first, arriving just before the doors opened. There was a line formed all the way around the outside of the store. We joined at the very end and it took us about 15mins to get inside. It was very cold that morning, only 20 degrees. Rosy was not ready for that, this was her first time getting up at the crack of dawn to join us. She went the years before, but after 8am usually. My mom bought her 50" Plasma TV my dad wanted, Rosy bought a trampoline, Meme picked up some gifts for the girls, Stella bought shampoo and nail polish remover (we teased her about this), Patience bought toys for her grandson Matthew, and I bought pj's and toys for the girls. My mom got right through the line and took the tv home while we shopped and stood in line. Patience and I didn't take too long in our line. We had a nice older lady in front of us and she was not letting a line jumper in our line. It was very funny to watch her tell him no he couldn't "squeeze in". Other than that we didn't see any arguments. After I got through the line I went to keep Rosy company, it took her awhile to get into line since they had to find a flatbed cart for her trampoline, that sucker was heavy. I couldn't even lift one end. It took us and hour to get through her line to pay. Then the worker loaded it in the van and we had to take it to her house or nothing else would fit.

We didn't get out of town (out of walmart) until 7:30am, then we headed to north KC. We spent another hour at Toys R Us. Then Kohl's, Target, lunch at Applebee's, and Old Navy. We were home about 3:30pm. I found Green as I left him, sleeping on my couch. The girls were dressed and had been fed, he woke up long enough to handle that much. It's a good thing Lilly is older and can take care of things. Delilah gave Jason a run for his money, she and Alan like to fight. There was an incident with Alan's poopy diaper and her grabbing it and flinging the poop everywhere. We laughed our butt's off at that one when he called to share. All and all it was a fun day, I wasn't sure I would be able to go this year and I am thankful my family stepped up to the plate to help out.

---------------------------------------------
The Days Ahead

We have a ton planned for when Kale is here. It's going to be a whirlwind visit, I think our heads will be spinning by then end of the trip.

17th: Trim the Tree, Family Picture (ENTIRE Family, all 14 of us), Lilly's Musical
18th: Delilah and I have doctors appointments at 1pm
19th: My parents are watching the girls and we are going out to dinner ALONE/Jason, Rosy, and Alan leave for Mexico and won't return until the 5th of Jan.
20th: Kale is taking the older three to see Bolt
21st: Kale's b-day dinner (his b-day was 11/22) at Famous Dave's with our extended family
22nd: Painting Sophia's room white again and switching her room and Delilah's
23rd: Kale's parents and Nanny arrive/We will go out alone again
24th: Christmas at my parents with everyone
25th: Christmas of course/plus Kale and his dad are taking the older three to Tale of Despereaux/Judy and I are making dinner/My mom and the teens are coming over for dinner
26th: Probably family pictures with Kale's family (since Judy all of the sudden after 5 years decided she wants to get it done professionally again, AFTER she has said numerous times that regular snapshots are good enough)/My parents and the teens leave for Chicago
27th: His family leaves
28th: Not sure yet
29th: He leaves at 6pm :(

The only positive thing about Jason, Rosy, and Alan being in Mexico for Christmas is that they are letting Kale's family stay at their house. That way we aren't cramped here and they don't have to spend money on a hotel. Otherwise it sucks, we will miss them like we do every year.

I may be hit and miss again during all of this. I have been very lazy, bored, and tired lately.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Things That Have Been Going On

First and foremost my grandfather has been in and out of the hospital for three weeks or more. This week they really thought he was going to pass. It's been hard to be in limbo. Technically he is not my grandpa, he is married to my mom's mom, but he has been married to her since before I was born. I credit my mother greatly for not clouding our love for him with her opinions of him. She did not like him and until recently didn't have a very good opinion of him. But she never let it show to me, I never even knew anything about her not liking him until I was an adult. So even though he is not my blood grandfather, I love him all the same. I am worried for him and really worried for my grandma, when he goes she will be very lonely and she can't drive so she will be stuck at home. She hates to ask for help, but will have to learn after he passes.

In other news Judy (mil) broke her foot this past weekend. Not bad enough to require a cast, but she has to keep it wrapped and wear a special shoe. The only reason this really affects me is because she will be coming out when my grandpa passes, to take care of the girls while we go to the funeral. While I hope he lives for years to come, I am realistic and I realize he really only has months to live (hopefully). When we thought he was going to pass on Monday she still planned on flying out she just asked if my parents would leave the teens with her to help. My mom didn't have a problem with that, it will just be a little crowded here at my house. No big deal though. The rest of us, probably including Green will drive out and go to the funeral whenever it happens.

Last night my uncle blew through town with his girlfriend Rhonda. We all went out to dinner together, even though I had already fed the girls when my dad called and told me to meet them at Applebee's in town. We had a nice visit with him. And Rhonda told me she has a cabin 30mins from Jacksonville. She said she will pick me up from the airport, let me stay the night, and then take me to the base the next day for my flight to Cuba. :) That will help out a lot, then we won't have to pay for a hotel for that night in Jacksonville or a shuttle to the base. I was a little worried about doing all of this on my own anyways, but now I won't have to.

Last night was a good night of sleep for me. Delilah slept from the time I went to bed until I got up at 7am this morning. It was a welcome change from her recent behavior, waking me every 1-3hrs all night long. I needed to have some continuous sleep.

Tomorrow Lilly and Aidan are having a "character parade" basically it's a Halloween parade, but they have to dress as actual literature book characters. Lilly is an Native American and is going as Sacajawea. Aidan of course is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. They just have to carry a copy of the book their character is from during the parade. I plan on going to watch the parade tomorrow morning. Hopefully I get another good nights sleep. After the parade I have many things I need to get done before I have to pick them up at 1pm, I am not sure why they are getting out early Halloween I guess. I wish they weren't, tomorrow is pay day and I have a lot of things to do.

I will post pictures of the parade tomorrow. Have a good day!

My Weekend: A Pictorial (Part 3)

On Saturday Fort Leavenworth was having their biannual post wide yard sale. That is why my in-laws came out, to help me sell my crap. While the yard sale was going on Judy and I cleaned out the garage. I went from 18 small rubbermade containers to 8 and from 4 large rubbermade containers to 3. Their were many many trash bags of stuff (mainly clothing and paper) either taken to goodwill or recycled. While we were in the garage as the day warmed up it began to smell like dead creature. I thought for sure a mouse, squirrel, or other small animal had been locked in their and died. Judy went about looking for it when I opened the freezer up and found the smell. Now, I don't normally keep much in there, usually only frozen waffles, pizza, or ice. I had thought it was empty from last winter when my mom lost power at her house for days and brought all of her stuff to my freezer. I had assumed Green had taken everything out as per her request. I assumed wrong.

At some point this summer we must have lost power or someone left the door to the freezer open for awhile, something had to have happened. There were tubes of ground sausage that had gone bad, expanded, and then exploded all over my freezer. The smell was the nasty sausage that had dripped blood and oozed out all over the freezer. Thankfully Judy took on that task as I was still cleaning and going through everything in the garage. I am not sure I could have stood the smell enough to clean it out. She bleached the freezer after it had defrosted and then turned it back on with baking soda in it. It smells much much better, you can hardly tell the bloody massacre that it once had been.

At the yard sale I sold my couch, chair, and ottoman set for $100. The woman tried to barter with me at 8am, I told her no way it was too early for that. After it had been sold, as the day went on, I wished I had put at least $150 on it. Everyone was amazed I sold it for that price, it was only 2 yrs old and looked like it had no wear at all. I also sold the table set that went with it for $25 and wished I hadn't been so cheap. Oh well, it is all gone and not in my garage anymore. That's the most important thing, I can now park there this winter. I also sold a bunch of other things, I ended up making about $200 that day.




All of the baby stuff is going to Jason and Rosy's house. Once that is out I will be able to park in there again. Last winter I could park in there, but their were containers stacked on either side toward the end of the garage. Now there are only the three at the very end of the garage and then some more near the door to the house. I am very happy about what all we accomplished this past weekend. Even though we felt like we died every evening, I don't think we stayed up much past 10pm any night this weekend.

My Weekend: A Pictorial (Part 2)

Our room

I have been meaning to decorate my room since we moved in, I guess I will do it now that we are staying for awhile longer. I already have all the stuff to do it with.

My dresser is a mess right now. I only made my bed for the pictures. :P

The best part of all, that was where the crib USED to be! I still have her "cage" in my room. I need to put it in her closet.

The hallway out of our room. To the left just down the hall is our bathroom, it's nice to have our own. We never had our own before.

Judy also reorganized the bookcases, my kids don't read much, do they? :P

These flank the bathroom door, the door to the right is Delilah's room.

K and I had gone to a store in Cambridge MA to get these things, they were unfinished and cost me a pretty penny. Finally after years of begging, he got them finished. Or maybe his mom did it, I can't remember now. :P

I need another one though, I found another container full of books in the garage.

The door to the left is our room.

----------------

Lilly and Aidan's Room

Aidan's bed, messy I know, I guess I can't expect them to make their beds when I don't make mine. :P

That is Butterscotch next to her bed, she got him for her last b-day from everyone. She thinks she needs Butterscotch's friend S'more's but I disagree. The empty shelf is one that my FIL put up yesterday, I haven't had a chance to decorate the rooms yet.

Lilly's messy bed. She's lucky, I don't know many 9yr olds with full size beds. We only did it because the mattress was ours and we wanted a queen size but didn't want to "waste" a very expensive mattress on a yard sale or Craig's list. So it went to her.

When we moved in this house 2 and 1/2 years ago, this was Sophia's room. It's the biggest and right next to ours. We had planned on putting any "new" children in with her and giving the older girls their own rooms. Yeah, that didn't work out. Then the room was Aidan and Sophia's for a few months. That didn't work either, Sophia kept waking Aidan up in the morning and they go to bed at the same time. So we moved Lilly in with Aidan and it works out well. Aidan goes to bed an hour before Lilly, she is usually asleep before Lilly goes to bed. And Aidan tends to sleep in or just leave the room instead of waking Lilly on the weekends.

We put Lilly's dollhouse at the foot of her bed and let them pick out about 10 barbies total out of the 30-40 they had. Aidan picked out about 10 ponies out of the 30-40 she had. We let them keep all the furniture for the house and all the clothing for the barbies, babies, and ponies. We had four doll carriages but sold two of them in the yard sale. Looking out of the room you can see Delilah's bedroom door, that landing was covered in books and toys every night before we cleaned the rooms up to where they can play on the floor again.

This room was never decorated, so I have a blank slate to work with. I have plenty to decorate with, I have been collecting things for years. Hopefully I will be up to doing it soon.

My Weekend: A Pictorial

This is only half of our day's work, I will post about the other half of what we did Friday tomorrow. We spent from 9am to 12pm, 12:30pm to 2:30pm, took a break to walk the three miles back and forth from the school, then worked again from 4:30pm to 7pm. All that work to get the four bedrooms more livable. We were told not to expect to move for at least 8mths. So I figured I better get comfy.

------------

Sophia's Room

The walls need to be repainted from where Aidan drew on them and where she spread make up all over them, but that will be Kale's job at Christmas time. The spring horse is actually Aidan's but Sophia rides it more and there wasn't room in Aidan's room for it. The table and chairs were Lilly's, my mom had them made for her first birthday. I am not sure, I may move these curtains to Delilah's room. They are Winnie the Pooh, both of their beds have Pooh, but Sophia's will be changed for a Christmas present.

It's messy right now, she was in there playing this morning.

Sophia's bed and rocking chair (which was Lilly's)

Can you tell this used to be Aidan's room? :P

All the decorations need to come down and be moved and all of Sophia's stuff put up. I have like three name things for her room.

That is the closet of new clothing, costumes, coats, and dresses. It's full from end to end.

------------

Delilah has her OWN room!!!

There is not much in it yet and I need to redecorate, but it's her own room.

All of the princess decorations are from when it was Lilly's room, like 2 years ago.

I have pink curtains to put up in her room. Right now the room blackening shade will have to do. We moved it from Sophia's room since it's more important Delilah sleep later than Sophia.
The cradle was made by a man who lived next door to me practically all my life, it was my wedding gift from him. It's beautiful, heavy, and the feet hurt like h*ll when you accidentally kick them.

You can see where I need to take down Lilly's name and move it to her room. I am not sure if she still wants all the princess stuff or not. That closet is a walk-in and is chock full of our Christmas decorations, clothing, and baby stuff.

This room was the playroom most recently, you couldn't even walk in the room. Judy and I spent ALL day Friday cleaning the entire upstairs. My kids aren't filthy but are cluttered. We didn't find any food, drink, or stuff like that. We mostly found socks, pacifiers, and hair things, besides the mountains of toys. We took 6 HUGE garbage bags full of toys to Goodwill after our clean up. We did it while they were in school so they couldn't guilt us into keeping things they don't play with. We also took out 2 huge garbage bags full of stuffed animals, and they still have two 16 gallon tubs full of them.

Not Much Going On....

I have stayed home pretty much all week and all last week. With the exception of last weekend when we went to the Renaissance Festival and the girls each had birthday parties. Other than that I have been hanging out at home.

This week we started what I hope will be our new routine. We walked to school to pick up the girls Monday and Wednesday, we will do it again today also. It's 3miles round trip, so that's a pretty good distance to walk. As long as it's nice I plan on doing this every Mon, Wed, and Fri. Sophia is such a good walker, she walked both times back and forth with little to no complaints. Aidan has always been my worst about walking and she burst into tears on Wed when she found out we were walking home. Of course then on the way home she asked if we could walk to school everyday, that child is full of contradictions.

Speaking of Aidan, she had her MAP testing done in school and I received the results last Friday. Basically it said she is High Average to High in all the reading components. Half of the math components she is Average to High Average, the other half however she needs to work on. Which included problem solving, so I have to work on that with her. Kale is hoping she doesn't have his math brain and that she gets mine instead. He hates math and isn't very good at it. I love math and have always excelled at math. Math to me is great, it's not subjective, there is always a right or wrong answer.

Delilah took her first steps last night! I am excited, soon I won't have to carry her chubby butt everywhere. She weighs almost as much as Sophia now. Granted Sophia is a skinny butt just like Lilly, but still they are two years apart. Alan has surpassed Sophia now, by 3 pounds. He is a big boy.

I don't have any major plans for the weekend. All I know is I get rid of my kids for a night (the older girls) when they spend the night at my parents. I will probably go home early and relax with just Delilah here.

Judy and Kale's dad David will be here next Thursday and are staying until the following Tuesday. They are coming out to help with the yard sale. Then they are going to Branson for their 40th anniversary, they have never been. They will have a good time there, as long as my fil isn't his normal stick in the mud self.

Well, I better get dressed and get to the post office. I have been telling Kale I would mail his package all week. :S

Have a good weekend!

A little something to look forward to, I hope....

I asked Kale to look into what it will take for me to visit him during the second half of his tour. Probably around our anniversary in Feb. It is a big one, like I said it's the big TEN. If I get to go then it will be the first "vacation" we will have taken alone since Lilly was born.

This is what we know so far:

1) I have to have a passport. That's $100 right there. I have "fixed" not having to pay for that ourselves by telling my parents that I want it for Christmas. Even if I don't get to go it will still be good for 10+ years I think.

2) I have to fly from here to Jacksonville and take the shuttle to the Navy base where I will fly on a military plane into Guantanamo Bay. We have to pay for both flights. So far the flight from here to JAX is looking to be about $140, not too bad. We don't know how much the other flight is yet, he is looking into it.

3) The flights from the base are always early in the morning, so I will have to fly into JAX and rent a hotel room for a night. I am not really comfortable going to a hotel by myself, I haven't travelled alone since I was 18 and more adventurous.

4) When I get to Cuba I can't stay in his room, so we will have to stay in guest lodging while I am there. That's okay though, there is more privacy there then in his house. Plus his room only has a twin bed and we haven't slept in a twin bed together since we were dating. I think we both take up a little more room than we used to. :P

5) Judy has already said she would come take care of the kids for us. :) I knew she would, but it's nice she offered when I mentioned going to visit Kale.

6) On the way back I should be okay to catch a flight out of JAX after arriving at the Base and taking the shuttle to the airport. That's the way we set up Kale's ticket for Christmas so he has as much time home as possible.

I am excited at the prospect of visiting him and being alone for our anniversary for the first time in 10 years. He's excited so his second half won't feel as long as the first half. I just hope the military plane ticket isn't pricey, that could put a crimp in our plans.

Am I Selfish?

My mil had the idea that my fil should drive to Jacksonville in Dec to pick Kale up instead of him flying home from Jacksonville. BUT they would "have him stay a few days in TN with them" before they brought him home. Is it selfish of me to say WTF and HELL NO? I don't believe so. They are his parents, who see him once or twice a year anyhow. We are his family and we normally see him everyday of the year. Plus he wants them to come here for Christmas Eve and day, maybe a couple of extra days beyond that. But he only has 16 days home, This.Entire.Year! I really don't care if they come at all honestly. So yeah, you can guess how far that idea went before it was shot down. Even Kale doesn't want them here for more than 4 days while he is home. Something to do with me and no "contact" while we have guests, I have a weird thing about it. At the same time it irritates him to no end that his mom just keeps brushing the subject under the rug so to speak.

So that's me. One selfish brat. :P

Wordless Wednesday (not completely)

Here are a few pictures from Delilah's Birthday party. The little stroller is from Kale and I, Rosy and Jason gave her the baby. It's really cool because the stroller serves as a walker also. She is doing really well walking behind it.

Judy's complaints this visit haven't been as often, but she has a few. Her chief complaint this morning was my pots are all too big. She wanted a smaller one to make oatmeal, the other one works but she "doesn't like the water spread out so far." If she hadn't used steel wool on my smallest pot ( a few visits ago) then I would have the right size pot. She often uses steel wool or brillo on my nonstick pots and pans, often when I am not home, and no matter how many time we tell her she can't she doesn't listen. I guess I can't complain too much since she bought them all for me as gifts for various occasions.

Yesterday sucked, Kuddle got sick in Sophia's room and had liquid poo all over her carpet. Her carpet is dark brown so we could smell it but not see it and Judy stepped in it. Is it a little wrong that I took a little pleasure from that? She cleaned up most of it with paper towels and I shampooed the carpet twice, but it still smells awful in there so I need to do it probably 2-3 more times.

Delilah went to the doctor yesterday for her well baby and shots. She is now 29" long and 22lbs which puts her in the 50th percentile. My kids start out average or above average then it starts going downhill at 18-24mths. Judy took her in for her shots, I won't do it, I can't watch that at all. Apparently they gave all three shots at once and Delilah was so pissed she held her breath. They were yelling "breathe" at her. She finally did and then screeched. She didn't sleep really well last night but who can blame her.

It is cold here, which is unusual for September in KS. Right now it's only 59 and it is only supposed to get up to 65 today. So I am sure I will endure some complaints from the mil about the weather. We also haven't gone out as much this visit, she doesn't have to pay for gas in my van, I do and I can't afford to go to KC everyday. So I believe she is bored. If she offered to fill my tank I would take her somewhere, but she hasn't so we will stay home (or in town) until Saturday. She is wishing my brother didn't have Kale's car, but his has two flat tires and a donut on it, plus the muffler is busted, so he is borrowing Kale's. I don't need it, so why not.

One more week until she is gone and life can go back to normal. I am glad she comes for the children's sake, even if they act like lunatics while she is here.

Watkins Mill and House

Waiting for our tour to start

Sophia with Lucy the doll, the girls took turns keeping her for the tour guide

Uncle Jason was not as enthralled as some of us to be there

Sophia wanted to pet their chickens

The house, unfortunately we were in such a hurry during our tour of the mill I didn't get a picture of it

Side view of the house, it still doesn't have indoor plumbing or electricity and every Saturday the volunteers make and eat a meal using the outdoor kitchen without electricity

The ice house, it was interesting to find out how they stored ice without electricity

The staff grows their own garden and use the food to have their weekly feast

Grandpa chatting up one of the tour guides

Watkins Mill is located in Lawson, MO. It used to be a farm owned by the Watkins family, now it is a historical site and a state park. When I was a child my family camped at the state park and toured Watkins Mill and House. I knew my mil would love it and I was right. Now I have to take her and my fil back when Kale gets back from Cuba, so she can poke through as slowly as she desires. We did have to rush and we only saw 3/4 of the mill tour, but we had to be back for the Euro Cup soccer game. Germany was playing Spain after all and we have two Germans visiting.

Midland Railroad

Riding the Midland Train from Baldwin City, KS to Norwood, KS and no kidding it passes through Nowhere, KS.

Grammie feeding Delilah.

Eating candy bars great grandpa bought for them, he's great for giving candy.

Lilly and her BFF V. V gave her a Friends Forever necklace that day.

Aidan and one of her many silly smiles.

I feel really bad that I started taking pictures, then got distracted with Delilah, and wasn't able to take any of my grandpa, mom, Marion, or Nadja. We had a good time but it was pretty hot. Plus Delilah cut one of her teeth that day so she was not pleasant. Poor Aidan felt left out since Lilly had V to play with, so my mom let her use her camera. I think she took at least 50 pics, that kept her busy. It sucks to be a younger sibling, so I hear.

K and her family arrive tonight, it's 12:30am on the 4th of July and I am sitting up waiting for them. I have three air mattresses blown up, a full size for the boys, a toddler size for Abby, and an elevated full size for her mom Mary. I think I am ready, maybe not for the extra kid noise, but I am ready for the extra bodies. The rest of today will be fun, interesting, and exhausting. We have shopping, fireworks, a BBQ, and more fireworks to do/go to. Then they leave on Saturday and so do we. It will have been 2 1/2yrs since we have seen each other, although it really doesn't feel like it. We talk, literally, every single day.

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy 4th!