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!

Sophia Art

This is the Sophia way. Something conventional (drawing) done in an unconventional way (on a banana). She worked on these for an hour, perfecting them until they were just right. I think she is going to become a scientist or something. Aren't they cute? Who'd a thunk to do such a thing?




Sophia, Daddy, and Noah...



Our whole family...

Gracie throwing up in a bucket, appetizing isn't it?!

Our family and my sister's family minus the Elijah banana, he had already eaten his at this point. Atta boy. :)

MiMi & PopPop (their caricatures came later)

She insisted on delivering each persons banana to them at Church last Wednesday. It was a health conscious snack. :)

Look Carefully

What's wrong with this picture?

B-I-B-L-E

Noah sings! This is how it goes: I bee I bee I bee, I bee I bee I bee I bee. (add a few more for good measure) I bee I bee I bee I bee I bee I bee I bee, (with much enthusiasm) Bible!!! I didn't even notice what he was saying at first, not until he put Bible! on the end. Now he won't stop. :)

18 month old Noah

Here are a couple of pictures from Noah's 18 month pictures. I have a 16X20 of each of the kids at 18 months so this was Noah's big photo shoot. He did not disappoint with handsome smiles and cute poses. But, for the big picture I couldn't resist him with his index finger in his mouth. That was my favorite because it just looks like him. Maybe I'm crazy for not getting one of him with a handsome smile, but I just love the finger in the mouth, it's so cute.

Here are a few of my favorites from the photo session...





His new favorite things to say are: "I want dat", "Feea" for Sophia, "Lidah" for Elijah", and every night when we ask him what he wants to pray for he says, "doey" and "illy". He sings Happy Birthday and loves us to sing "Bible". He constantly asks me to read one more "gook" and he loves his "ganket". His favorite ganket is his "geen ganket" (green blanket). At bedtime, he must have a ganket or four and he loves to have "goey" (glowy - his glowworm) with him too. He says so many other things that I can't remember right now. He's really talkative. He rivals if not exceeds Sophia at this age. Elijah was a late bloomer in the language department so Noah constantly surprises me with his little sentences and words.

I want to remember all these details. I love you sweet Noaners, even if I never write in your baby book and you have less pictures than the other kids. I understand, I was the third-born too!

My Fave "Boy Mom" blogs

Erin

Dawn

It's fun to see pictures of their too adorable boys and read about all their antics! Boys...what fun!

How did my baby get so big!?

Today was promotion Sunday and my baby girl is in the 1st and 2nd grade class now. Where did the baby go? I hope I taught her enough in kindergarten to be a big first grader. I told her about her new class before bed last night and she was a little "happy and sad" in her own words, about leaving Miss Rachel and moving to her new class. I have the same sentiments exactly. :)




Thank you, Lord for our sweet "baby" girl. Please give me wisdom to point her to you. Help me to keep on trying, even when I fail her, and to trust you for her "expected end".