The road to Manhattan
The weekend is being spent in Manhattan, with the boys' grandparents. They are in wi-fi bliss. They're climbing on laps. They're talking gaming strategy with Granddad, the best way to catch a mouse. They're full of brownies, pasta, chocolate pie and soda. They've played board games with Grandma. They watched some exciting basketball on tv, amongst K-State fans. Those are hard to find in Missouri. A most excellent weekend.
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Thanks Kevin
Our house is now well protected, thanks to their Uncle Kevin.
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Fan Club
We're a traveling fan club these days. Caleb has about one month of acedemic bowl, twice a week. I didn't know how to get to yesterdays match, so I followed the bus. It was again fun, watching him be in his element.
The entire ride home, Alex told Caleb how great he did. We're quite the support group.
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the aftermath
The day after loads of fun, is always a hard one. Yesterday we started off our wonderful day with a meal at Red Lobster (one of the boys' favorites) with their Grandma. We walked around the mall with her. They had her undivided attention.
We followed that up with Kaylee's party. Giant indoor playground equipment. Run Run Run. Now, the other set of grandparents have joined us. The more grandparents the better. Kevin was there, not many people rank higher than Kevin in my boys' mind. He might rank higher than me. He gives them guns as gifts. He's pretty cool.
We followed that up with a pizza dinner at Kevin and Kristy's house. Pizza. Again, cool in my kids' mind. Christmas gifts were passed around. Another gun was received. That's ok though, we gave Kaylee an electric guitar. It is sure to drive Kevin crazy. Although, I think he liked it more than she did.
Jonas got to stay the night at my folks' last night. Alex and Caleb got to stay up late and watch an episode of The Office.
It was a fun, fun day. Today, nothing but boring football to entertain them. It will be rough.
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3 years old
Ah, my beautiful neice turns three!
We had a wonderful time at her birthday party, followed by a belated Christmas at her house. The boys got BOTH of their grandma's for the party. It's hard to top two grandmas. We went went went all day. We came home exhausted. It was a delightful time though.
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Perfection
Since Caleb has been in Kindergarten, coming home, and telling us all of the interesting facts he learned that day (my memory is of him telling me that Lincoln was the 16th president, when he was 6), I knew he was destine to do impressive things with this knowledge he jams his head full of.
I thought that there would be an acedemic bowl team in high school, but what a nice surprise, when I saw that middle school had a team, I hunted him down ASAP, and encouraged him to go find out how to join. He came home the following day, and when I asked, he had forgotten to ask. This went on for a week. Then, I became the overinvolved parent, and went to one of the coaches, and told her, my boy is PERFECT for this, when and where should he show up. She gave me the information, I came home, told Caleb, and he showed up to practice.
When he came home after that first practice, he was smiling from ear to ear. At last, it was useful to know that Hamilton was a member of the wig party.
He's done a lot of activities. It's often been frustrating for him, that he is not as athetic as he wishes. But, this, this he is good at. We need to keep his ego down. That shouldn't be an issue. But, it was so much fun, to go watch him, be so very comfortable, so totally in his element. I enjoyed leaning over to Jared, and whispering, "Our baby ROCKS."
*fun side note. He was captain of the team, for the first match. Our baby rocks.
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Smells like mice
I feel like we're in a good place in life. We both have jobs we enjoy. We both have leads (Jared's is much better than mine) on better paying jobs, in the same schools we're working in. We see the light at the end of the tunnel. Pennies are still being pinched, but not quite as hard. I treated myself to a trip to Arby's with Caleb the other night, for the first time in MONTHS. (I use to eat out a couple times a week). Although, after I paid for the food, I thought to myself, the food cost way to much for what we got, and I could of bought groceries with that money.. but hey, it's a step.
Today, I got feedback on our house in Riley. Apparently when it's shown by other agents, a form is sent out, and they can give feedback on the house. Many forms get sent out, only a couple come back. Today's feedback, was "Last time I was in the house, it smelled like mice/rodents, this time, not so much." I have a couple thoughts on that. ONE. I don't know what a mouse smells like, and think it's facinating this person does. Second, the last time she was in the house was over five years ago. So, is that a compliment? No, it's not. She did not like the house. Other feedback has been much better. But, this one little form has put me in a funk. I don't like that my mood can be altered so quickly, by one strangers comment. I have to remind myself, of what a good place we're in. Everything is ok.
Although, I wonder if this house smells like mice?
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Country life
This lovely creature showed up in our yard yesterday, and graced us with his beauty all day. Our poor dogs had to be walked on a lease, so they left this possibly sick creature alone. Jared *tried* to get it to move, without luck (don't worry, he got nowhere near it). I'm really hoping it goes away, and I don't have to deal with another dead creature in the yard.
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The right decision
While our move to Missouri has not been all peaches and cream (i.e., you might want to sell you house and get a job, before you quit your job, and move to a new state.), this weekend was what it was all about.
Last night, Jared's cousin and her family came over for a wonderful visit. What you can't hear in the above photo, is Hannah, screaming at the top of her lungs for this song. Screaming, loud. See Alex laughing? It was hard not to. We didn't even try to restrain ourselves.
It was a great visit. Nice and relaxing. Laughter, good food, good visiting. We need to make a habit out of it, and do it more often.
This weekend, one of my cousins were in town, to visit my grandparents. My grandpa once said, he couldn't leave us with many material items, but he could leave us with the gift of music. So, we got together at my grandparents' and played some music and listened to stories.
Grandpa gave us the names of some songs we need to learn. We were also told we need to start making arrangements to be playing in shows. Now.
It was a good weekend. Family filled. We're exhausted. Jonas has had multiple meltdowns. That's how we know he's been having fun.
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Sick Day
My littlest boy got sick yesterday, and had to leave school early. My wonderful co-workers helped fill in the gap I left, and made it no problem to leave. It was the first time at this job, that I have asked for help from so many people, and was just so thrilled, that no one hesitated, and help was provided. I do a lot of mental comparing my last job to my current job. I made wonderful friends at the last job and was a tough one to live up to. It just really pleased me, to receive the help, without hesitation, so I could bring Jonas home.
Jonas and I watched some 1970's game shows, always a good way to spend a sick day. He's a kid that is typically FULL of energy. He doesn't stop moving. So, laying on this sofa is hard for him. He tends to get up, and start jumping up and down with excitment during different moments in the tv shows. He's trying hard to lay still. He's home again today, due to school policies, but is doing much better. He should be up and ready to play tomorrow, when his cousin comes over.
I took this photo of him, but realized I had some dirty socks on the floor. Rather than going and picking them up, and taking a new photo, I just photoshopped them out. I've never enjoyed cleaning house more!
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