May Happened

Somewhere in Arkansas.

 

My hotel in Cincinnati.

 

Him at Ft. Hood.

Somewhere in there he went to Houston too.

 

Me in DC.

 

He in Grafenwohr, Germany.

 

Sometimes we weren't even coming and going and we were just going. One more trip to Nebraska for me and one more trip to Wisconsin for him, and then we're looking forward to running into each other again.

The Upstairs Hallway

Yes, it is a very interesting place for the dog these days, right outside of Elaine's door, face down staring at the cat through the crack.

 

Interesting to me too.  That table is from the basement.  Not a single person who lives here would claim to know why or how it came to be sitting in the upstairs hallway.

Way Back 2017: Happy Birthday Boys

It was into downtown Chicago on the boys' birthday for some puzzle room fun.

 

In a pretty cool old building, where we had to ring someone to come operate the elevator for us.

So we could go up and be locked in a room in that building.

Then we had1 hour to figure out all of the clues to unlock the door and escape.

All while a zombie was chained in the corner but was released a foot further into the room every ten minutes.

We escaped!

The key here--we listened closely to our briefing, and it turns out the zombie can be distracted by show tunes.  The girls set out to distract that zombie from the beginning while we ran after clues.  And by then end, we were pretty much in a puzzle room having fun chatting with a zombie.

 

We hear there is another version of this based off Devil In The White City around here.  On the list for our cold winter activity.

 

(That's not our fifth child; that's our second Ben.  He hangs around a lot and we like him.)

Boys!

Go outside if you are going to fight.

 

"okay."

 

That is indeed a wooden sword about as long as he is in his hand. 

Where Did You Go?

He went there.

And I went here.

They were the real winners, and wound up there.

Then I picked them up from there, and we went here.

Then he arrived back from there.

Which brings us to here. 

All caught up now...

The Day We Became Cannibals

Dear Everyone I know, who all decided to text me last Thursday around 7 pm, except for the folks I work with, which may have actually been useful this one time,

I'm so sorry I didn't respond.  I had just sliced off the tip of my finger.

Sincerely, Susan

We never found the tip of my finger, which went missing while I was slicing cheese for the children's dinner.  Um, they wound up eating all of the cheese. 

That evening for prayers, Nicholas closed his eyes and prayed the following: "Dear God, please help mommy's finger to heal by next week."  Ben followed quickly, "Dear God, please help mommy's finger to heal by tomorrow."  Not to be outdone, Nicholas responded dutifully, "Dear God, please help mommy's finger to heal right now!"

Everything a competition, even prayer.

When I Grow Up

Conversations with Alida while I scrubbed the little hair of the fourth child that evening, after dinner and wrangling of homework, fighting them to come back inside and stay there, refereeing a game on the Wii, asking why are all of the toy horses stacked in a pile in the hallway, and then follow-on asking when we got so many toy horses?  And why can't you all pile up your shoes so effectively instead of leaving a pair in the backyard (socks thoughtfully tucked inside) and a pair in the park across the street and boys' randomly flung wherever they came off of their feet on multiple levels of the house.  And then asking, "What is this?  This is gross,"  to whatever was stuck to the bottom of my foot.

"Mommy, when I grow up, I'm only going to have one baby."

"Well Alida, we all have our plans for our lives."

Breaking It In

New Couch, ordered last November.  It and its chair companion finally arrived last week to finish off our upstairs living area. 

It took the boys about ten seconds to start a fight on it, launch off of it, and race their cars over it.

Good thing we buy sturdy.

It must only hold until someone, one day, drags it off to college.

Bad Saturday Morning Entertainment Ideas

 Just keep welcoming kids into the house, because why not?

(Nope that's not even all of them.)

 Think it's pretty funny/inventive when they start tearing up birthday gift Styrofoam to make snow...

(You see where this is heading.  But you'll also notice please that they did clean up the toy mess first...kind of.)

And watch them make it snow and then make snow angels...

Yikes.

But, really it's a mess in here anyway.

Whew

Daddy gone for three weeks; daddy back for two weeks; daddy gone again for two weeks.

In those middle two weeks:

Six dentist appointments

Four flu mists.

Five-year appointments for the girls. (yes, we're a touch behind.)

One big grocery haul.

Why is my air conditioner still running?

Four parent/teacher conferences.

The Halloween costume run.

Boy Scout Fun With Son overnight camping.

One ladies night complete with picnic, movie, Target run, and ice cream.

And in there some very nutritious meals were served.

That's where we were.

I Never Know What I'll Find Next

 Nothing could go wrong here.

Nothing at all.

Sunday Morning Breakfast Challenge

 Have the neighbors spend the night.

Get four kids up and ready for church with two friends nearby, like in the same house.

Serve breakfast Pioneer Woman Style.

Neighbor mommy gives my morning picture text of cooking eggs a mediocre score.

Then she admits she was still in bed and the score came up a touch when hers went home fed....

It's All Fun and Games

Until Nicholas figures out how to turn the sleeping bag they  have been using to sled the stairs into a weapon.

Then the game is over.

Scared the phooey out of us when he aimed the cord at Ben and released.

Our Month of Crazy Is Over

 Daddy comes home this weekend.

 The day that I get on a plane early in the am to leave town for the week.

 The day after I take the kids up to meet grandma and grandpa airplane for a couple of weeks of Kansas fun.

Daddy will meet them all there early next week.

And I might just hang back for a day or more, maybe just all by myself...

How odd.



It Was Time

Sunday morning, they were here, waiting, dressed at 7:30 in the morning.

Because we finally got the maniacs bikes on Saturday.

 It started a week earlier, when the neighbor kids had let them borrow their bikes.

Then we became a nuisance.

And every time there was kid with a bike in the neighborhood, they would attack like a pack of bike zombies, asking if they could ride.

Seriously.

We live across the street from a park, it was a problem.

There were the neighbor kids, and then there were the kids that had just come to the park with their families.

We were terrorists.

 And there is no place they would rather be at all.

And with the weather in the lower 80s, I can tolerate it.

 Which is good, because it's hard to say no to these smiles.

 I have yet to get a picture of Nicholas not riding away.

He got on and took off like he'd been riding his entire life.

Two days into it, I think we need to take off the training wheels to give him a challenge.

Happiness.

At one point last weekend there were 12 kids from 4 houses on our street swarming the place.

Thankfully, we weren't just attacking their stuff this time.

What A Long, Strange Trip

We sold one house!
But we packed up and left it before we did that on May 20, 2011.
We closed on the old house June 30.
And in that period of a little over a month, we have been more than busy.


We had a new house to get to.

But first Patric and I lived here for a week while I started my new job.

Funny, it was still nicer than our first place in Missouri all those years ago.

And the kids went to Grandma and Grandpa airplane's for two weeks in there so that Patric and I could buy the house, receive our stuff, and even unpack a few things. And we don't think we could have done it without grandma and grandpa airplane's help, and I think they had a bit of fun with the kids too.

And then we learned how to find the bathrooms and the bedrooms in this new house.

And about two weeks later, Nicholas told me he was getting used to sleeping here.

And they walked into their new preschool with confidence, and we figured out the routine quickly.

And the very first morning the kids were here, they were in their swimsuits at 8:00 in the morning, ready for the pool across the street. They had a long two hour wait until it opened at 10:00.

But they thought it was well worth it.

And Brian and Lori came with Noah for a visit, and we went on a walk near the river in our neighborhood.

And we got a shot of five cousins together.

Then Patric took off for a week to graduate in Vermont from his masters program.

His connecting flight was canceled from Memphis to Houston on the way home.

So he rented a car and got out of there because it was beginning to feel like we would never break free from there. Although we did accept an offer on the Memphis house while he was in Vermont without internet, and I was at home with only an iPhone.

He got back the next day, and while we were returning the rental, I rear-ended him and smashed up both cars. We were mini-vanless for two weeks (which I secretly loved).

And we went without a fridge for a little over three weeks, six delivery attempts, one I didn't like, one the delivery men wrecked, three missed appointments, and half off the price. Maybe it was the malnutrician that gave Patric and I both summer colds to suffer through in turn about this time.

And finally, after three different services and four installation attempts--we got the Internet!

And while we seem to have moved to a place that is experiencing the worst drought it's seen in half a century, and the state is on fire, and the temperatures neared or beat records every day of our first month here, I think we're going to like it.