Birthdays and sick days!

Sick days first - we have had the weirdest wave of stomach virus sweep through here - Callie got sick on Wednesday (we babysat her Weds night); Greg got sick the middle of Thursday night, I got sick Friday evening, Brooke (Lexi's overnight friend, see below :) Saturday morning, Lexi Saturday afternoon, and Mason Saturday night. So far that seems to be the end of the epidemic but I haven't heard from Christa yet today ... it was either a total fluke or the FASTEST incubation period EVER for a virus!!


Anyway, that's not any of the fun stuff, just life stuff. Lexi had her new friend Brooke over here on Thursday for a 5th birthday sleepover! She was so excited for so long, "My very first sleepover ever Nini!" Brooke is 6 1/2 and so sweet with Lexi - they get along great and Brooke is sort of "motherly" with Lexi when there is any disagreement, letting her go first, have her way, etc. - I'm not sure that's great for Lex but it was so sweet of Brooke. It was HILARIOUS listening to their conversations without me participating in them - I can't begin to count how many times the two of them used the word "ridiculous." (Example: "Nini, it is so ridiculous that your trash can is in your cabinets." They teased, played, made ginormous messes, and generally had a busy blast. I did too! Because Greg got sick Friday was a little sketchy, so we packed up and went to Christa's after lunch until it was time for Brooke to go home. Here's a few pictures - I practically have a play-by-play posted on Facebook if you're my friend on there and want to look.

We started the day with a trip to Walmart (whoopee) and lunch at McDonald's ... the lunch of champions, huh?

The girls "get" the whole webkinz thing way better than I do ... I never felt so old.

Yeah all this stuff definitely camp out of the homeschooling closet. Should've known they were too quiet ... but really it didn't matter and they had a LOT of fun with "arts & crafts" the whole time they were together. They were also remarkably compliant with cleaning up their mess ... witha little help from a Nini, of course.

Trying to get the kitty - I had to rescue the poor thing a few times - he was definitely "over-loved." And yes, once again, there's Lexi's butt crack. Her signature, apparently.

Just before bed ... Lexi's new princess socks (lovely) and not too long before Greg got sick. Hmmm. Germs.

Bedtime - it only took them 2 1/2 hours to be quiet and go to sleep! Which might have had something to do with Lexi's 29.2 meltdowns on Friday afternoon ...

Long story short - I highly recommend to all Grama's out there to consider hosting your grandchild's sleepover sometime - I think I had as much fun as they did.

Babies

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Willie! He's officially declawed and de ... well you know. He seems fine, and thankfully he and Millie (formerly known as Billie Bob) picked up where they left off, no hissing or growling necessary. :)

Callie came to visit tonight ... she spent an entire hour crawling up and down the stairs. UP the stairs, sit in my lap, up from my lap, down the stairs, turn in a circle, UP the stairs, sit in my lap, up from my lap, down the stairs, turn in a circle, you get the picture. An HOUR! Oh to be so easily pleased. She is such a doll. Her mommy, on the other hand, is on my list ...

... mom sent no diapers or wipes and an imminent poop ... I had a pull-up ... unfortunately I changed her wet diaper into the pull-up BEFORE the poop ... found another pull-up thankfully since she totally peed down her legs, socks, etc. because the pull-ups are too big for her ... so when she went home she was wearing a huge pull-up and a pair of pajamas that are about Lexi's size. :) Hope they remember to change that pull-up before they put her back to bed! At least I THINK that's what I hope ...

When do you make an "M" a "W"??

You make an M a W when you take your new kitty, Millie, to the vet to get declawed and spayed, and the vet calls to say that they can't spay Millie because "she" is a "HE"!!!!!!!! So Millie is now "Willie," and we've renamed Billie Bob "Millie" (since she really IS a girl). This is all very confusing but eventually should clear up the gender issues we've created for the poor things ... and OH MY GOODNESS how could we not tell the difference?? I promise you we looked ... really looked ... at all the kitties and this was the only one that looked like a girl. I'll leave it at that and not humiliate poor Willie any further.

It was definitely one of the funniest phone calls I've gotten in awhile, especially when I told the vet, "Well we'll have to change her - I mean HIS - name now ..." and she said, "Oh we're calling him Milli Vanilli!"

We have a baby!!

Did I get anybody's blood pressure to jump? Heart skip a beat? No? Well it was fun imagining that it might.


We got this little tabby last night - she's 3 months old and we named her Millie (yes, it rhymes with Billie (bob) our other she-cat's name ... I really like rhyming. Plus she looks like a Millie. Trust me.) It has been hilarious watching the two of them circle each other and posture and growl and hiss and carry on ... wonder how long it will take for the power struggle to resolve?

When the sweet turns sour

Aren't they just precious? Seriously! I love both these pictures. And SoMeTiMeS they represent the reality of these little people. And sometimes they don't.

For example, the other day I was visiting them and they were having a rare mid-winter Kansas chance to play outside. The babies were sleeping, so Christa and I were sitting outside also with the back door wide open (to hear the babies, lest you think we were dangerously incompetent - the front door was locked and the garage door was too, so don't worry).

Lexi made the most perfect mound of dirt, and planted a wonderfully straight and tall stick. Dead as a doornail, but that was irrelevant, as you will see. She moved on to the swingset, and next thing you know Mason is on the porch with us brandishing said stick like a weapon. Lexi catches sight of him, and of course a screaming tug of war ensues. Christa grabs the stick, puts it somewhere too high for either of them to reach, and orders them off the porch. Mason went quietly (shocking, honestly) and Lexi's older sister mouth started running ... "Mason now that tree will NEVER grow and it's all your fault that she took it away from us and it was MINE and you shouldn't have taken it and it's all your fault that Mom took it away ..." and on and on and on. Eventually Mason said, "Do you want me to push you on the swing?" Sweet, yes? "NO! You shouldn't have stoled my stick! It's all your fault ... blah blah blah." After about, oh, 3 or 4 more minutes of her haranguing and his trying to appease her I finally went in, but it was quite a display of their separate personalities, and also just the generalized differences of birth order! More than that, it was really really funny!!

Am I the only one?

I'm SO jonesing to change my background, and the cutestblogontheblock website got shut down because their server is overloaded ... I'm tired of my "happy new year message" and you probably are too but I guess we'll all just have to deal until they get back up and running. Good luck cutest IT folk!

A picture worth a thousand words ...

... so I'll save mine for another post.

What a lovely visit ...

My baby brother Mike and his more-than-just-a-girlfriend Lauren came to visit this week from Colorado. We've had the best fun - Lauren and I set up a blog for her and she is absolutely obsessed now ... so go check it out here! We've had lots of time to just hang out and talk and laugh and catch up and get to know Lauren - although they've been together for quite a while now this is her first trip to Kansas ... we were glad to find out she really did exist and wasn't just a claymation figment of Michael's imagination!

Anyway, busy wonderful week ... really hate to see them go. Please come back soon??

23!!

Right after I finished saying I was slowing down on the posts ... it occurred to me that today is Brandon's 23rd birthday! He is spending it, as far as I can tell, on a bus somewhere in Uganda, ultimate destination Lira. He posted a beautiful (to me) blog this weekend - if you want to hear his heart, and how God is changing him, click here. Most of you know this, but he is on a 11-month, 11-country missions trip, and Uganda is country (and month, not that I'm counting) #4.

Is anybody there?

Sometimes I wonder if anyone is reading this ... judging by the comments (or lack thereof) either no is looking or the posts are incredibly NOT interesting. :) Oh well I know I really only do this for my own pleasure anyway, but I do wonder. So, if you want to make my day now and again, if you've been here, let me know!

I'm actually slowing down a bit for awhile ... I have some busy weeks coming up and probably a lack of good material now that the holidays are over and the kids are just pretty much fighting over stuff every waking hour. I'm back on the treadmill (yay me ... here's hoping I keep it up!), volunteering at the church office one day a week, of course still homeschooling on Monday and Friday mornings, Thursday Bible study is starting again next week, helping a new friend organize some rooms in her house, and other stuff I can't think of right now. So all of that to say, I have a lot of great God stuff going on that may lead to less blogging! Who can argue with that, though, really?