Check out my bad self!

OK friends and Fam - I'm not sure how I did it, nor if I can do it again - but in the very next blog is a slideshow of all the things I wanted to show you from this week. I can't figure out how to add text to it, so you will just have to settle for mutliple blogs this week - so sad for you...

Last week started off with the birth of Grace! Congratulations to my cousins Monica & Tommy and Welcome Baby Grace!!!

I have been on vacation since May 18. It has been lovely. I mean really lovely. The girls were still in school, so I only had the 3 little ones. The weather was lovely so we went on daily walks to the park or around the neighborhood. And Mom started her new job at Sprint - this time as a Business Analyst. Congratulations Mama!

The weekend started off rocky, but ended up as one of the most lovely weekends I have ever had. The boys had me up every time I turned around Friday night. I was rather cranky by the time I was forced awake by screaming children at 7:00 Saturday morning: a great start to my 36th birthday. After a long failed attempt at getting back to sleep, mom offered to take me shopping. Things started to get better. We spent the morning picking out sun dresses and then we had a lovely lunch at the Red Lobster followed by wandering through the Borders for books. AAAHHH - lovely. After a much needed nap, we rounded up the entire group (except Jess, who had stayed the night with a friend) and headed out to the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens out at 169th & 69? I wasn't so sure how the kids would handle a botanical garden - but they had a great time. John gathered them all around to look at a little lady bug that had landed on his arm. The kids were fascinated and wanted to take it home with us. Then it was off to BDs Mongolian BBQ for dinner. I don't think I want to wrangle all of us out for dinner again, but at least the kids behaved! (We even had Jess and her friend along for the dinner party.)

Sunday was spent at Beth's house for her grandaughter's first BBQ. It was a great way for everyone to meet Grace and celebrate Memorial day. We stopped at the grocery on our way out and the boys insisted on riding in this red car grocery cart. Most of the carts are made so the kids can crawl into them. This is one you have to lift the kids up into. Jack is getting a little big for that...But he had a meltdown until I hauled him up into the car. Then we had to get a jump start in order to get out of the parking lot. Fortunately there were a couple of friendly fellas parked next to us who helped us out. The whole thing didn't take very long - though Wy did fall asleep.

Jess went up to St. Joe Sunday evening to spend the week with her mama. We will pick her up on Saturday when we head up to Omaha to celebrate my Aunt Johanna's retirement. Jess turned 14 on Tuesday and had a party with her St. Joe friends and family. I don't know that we will throw a party for her, but she has been mooning over this frozen chocolate cake at the grocery for I don't know how long. I think we will suprise her with it one evening next week.

Monday was another day for a nap. It was WONDERFUL. After that, Mom, John and I took the kids out to the Deanna Rose Farmstead. The kids had so much fun feeding the goats. I nearly lost it when a little 10 year old boy told us "I have some hand sanitizer if anybody needs it." Jack wanted to make sure every single goat got a piece of food. He walked around handing the food out piece by piece "One for you. One for you - NO! Not you! You had one! One for you. One for you..." Wy thought it was hysterical how the goats pulled the food out of his hand with their lips. Then he was bored and hungry, so he started eating the animal food pellets. I had flashbacks to being a kid and eating the dry dog food out of the bag...The girls had a great time and were so excited they just kept shoving handfulls of food through the fence. The kids played in this jungle gym thing, messed with the "digger" (a sort of excavator seat thing in the sand). Just before the park closed, we reached the tractor track. The kids had a great time trying to race each other around this little paved path.

Tuesday began summer day care for Abby & Connie. And John is off contract for a few weeks - so we will actually enjoy time off together! Wy spent the day running around in any shoes he could get his feet into. The only requirement was that the shoe not belong to him...

Wednesday we had to pop into a store whose name I shall not mention for fear of inciting disgust among some of our readers. Well, every time we go there, Jack has to go say hi to his fish friends. We have to spend a good 10 minutes admiring and talking to all the fish. A few weeks ago Mom ordered this little table/fold away desk for her laptop. It arrived yesterday and she and I spent the evening putting it together. Wy did everything but shove us out of the way so he could "build it". We finally gave him his own screwdriver so he would leave our alone. Then he was so excited that he kept comparing his to mine and shouting "We match, mommy! We match!"

Just before bedtime, John called me downstairs to take a look at Jack. He has recently started to bury himself under the sofa pillows and cushions. He likes to tell us he is a caterpillar and will come out soon as a butterfly.

Today is Wy's 2nd birthday. Can you believe that? John and I had so much fun making Thomas cakes for Jack's birthday that I thought we would do it again for Wy-guy. I asked him what kind of train cake he wanted - his answer was "Thomas, Gordon, Henry, Sir tipematt CAKE!!!" We put together a Gordon and Henry cakes. With all the birthdays in the last week - Wy now runs around singing "Happy to you!" so that is what we put on his cake.

Jack keeps asking me how to count the days until we go see Thomas. I have tried any number of ways to explain - but what seems to work the best is to tell him we go on Friday. He knows his days of the week and seems to get the idea that Friday is the day after Wy's birthday, though he can't start counting days from say Tuesday. He has to count from Sunday - and he chastizes me if I tell him today is something other than Sunday - unless of course it is windy outside - then he tells me it is "Wednesday". This is a result of Winnie-the-pooh. Whenever it is windy, Owl says it is "Windsday".

OK - I know I didn't include any b-day photos - but thought I owuld get to that in the next installment - it has already been a big week & a big day. Love and blessings to you all. We will have a lot to talk about next time!
Owenland Park