A week without Daddy means:

Macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, PB&J, and cereal for dinner. I think I'm iron deficient from this meatless menu.

Lots of shopping and running around to get ourselves out of the house.

A broken sugar bowl lid.

A hole in the corner of a feather pillow (cut by one of the children), a few feathers sprinkled from the loft.

Guests for Sunday lunch (thanks for your help Jennifer!), an open back door all Sunday morning while we were at church (thanks for checking the house for us Eric!),

Dirt/worm sundaes. They loved the worms. :)

Homemade orange finger jell-o. Noah was totally grossed out by the wiggliness of jell-o.

1 pair of sunglasses lost forever somewhere in Kohls.

Running out of gas with no Daddy hero to rescue us. We ran out of gas a few miles from home. We were on our way to get gas. Unfortunately, we did not make it, but the boys were fascinated by the policeman and his police cruiser who pulled up behind us and called a garage to bring us some gas. We couldn't call anyone because my phone was dead (I did call Anne, but my phone went dead mid-call and I couldn't charge it because....there was no gas in the car. :)), so instead the nice man in the junky van brought us some gas to the tune of $10 a gallon...ouch! No more complaining about gas prices. :)

Co-sleeping: Sophia begged for many months to sleep with me and I told her when Daddy went on a business trip again we would do it. So, we tried our hand at co-sleeping. We have never been co-sleepers but for a couple times when Sophia was a newborn, but it just did not work for us. Graeme was especially not fond of it. I can't blame him, he didn't get any sleep and he had to get up early for work. But, Daddy was gone, so she and I snuggled up on Tuesday night. Wednesday night we added another bundle to the bed and I am sorry to say that two's company but three is definitely a crowd. I was totally squashed in the middle of the children. Elijah was like velcro and I couldn't shake him off of me no matter how I tried. If I tried to get a little space he would rouse and attache himself to me immediately once again. He is a snuggle bug and I love that, but I also need some air and my arm pits don't like fists in them when I am trying to sleep. It just took snuggling to a whole new level. I tried to make the great exodus and finally succeeded at around 4:30 am. Unfortunately, co-ish-sleeping made for early risers so I would definitely say co-sleeping last night was not a success. :) One at a time, thankyouverymuch.

Old friends and cousins and their Mommies over for lunch today. It was crazy fun with 5 "big kids" read: 2 years and older, and 3 18 month olds in the house!

13 naps given

15 bedtime routines (plue re-tucking wayward children into bed. :))

A cleaner kitchen because Momma didn't have to cook.

A cleaner house because we went out a lot.

A multitude of questions about when is Daddy FINALLY coming home. Today was especially full of these questions as they know he's coming while they are sleeping. "Can't you wake us up when he gets home?", "Can we sleep on the couch so we can see him when he comes in?" No, no. "We can sneak out of our beds when he gets home"....at 3 am? I think not. They better not be awake then! :)

Fun, fun times with the children snuggling, reading, shopping, and snacking. I always dread when he goes away, but this trip was different. We have never had so much FUN while Graeme was gone before. I think it's because every other time he has been gone, I've had a baby or been pregnant. Also, now each of the kids has their own room so it is much easier to put them to bed at night. We really had a blast!

Lots of little people and a Mommy who can't wait until Daddy gets home! We love you Daddy and we MISSED you!