Observations of a Mom In Love...: Whoa.

Since my last post, I can report a whole bunch of good things that happened. I don't think we sat down for longer than five minutes all weekend (and our "weekend" started last Thursday afternoon). The kids were off from school on Thursday and Friday because of parent/teacher conferences at school, which they were thrilled about. Jason and I were thrilled that we had an awesome report from Joshua's teacher. We're so proud of him.

After the meeting with Mrs. Nornhold, I packed up the troops and headed for Lewistown. I believe Mara started asking for Nana as soon as she woke up on Thursday morning, and didn't stop until we pulled into the driveway at my parents' house. We spent the evening with Nana and Papa and Brooke and Hayden and had a yummy dinner and some fun tubs until Uncle Zig was done working and could pick up the girls. Too bad Aunt Libby missed out on the fun, but we'll get her double time the next trip. She was holding conferences of her own until late Thursday night.

Friday morning we got up and headed to Stacie's for some pictures of the kids. My plan was completely shot when we woke up to howling winds and temperatures in the low 30's. So much for my plan of outside pictures this year. (When, WHEN, will I learn to do this in October instead of November?) So we took a few outside shots, but spent most of our time indoors with Stacie. I figured we had a better chance of seeing smiles if the kids could feel their cheeks. Here's hoping that's how it works out.

We had a very fancy lunch of McDonalds...because I'll be honest and tell you that I totally bribed the kids with a milkshake if they behaved themselves with Stacie and cooperated without a bad attitude about the pictures. That was mostly directed for Joshua, who has declared that he hates having his picture taken. But it didn't hurt for Lauren to hear it either since she tends to get "hoooooooooot" when she's annoyed with something, and I didn't want to have to beat any children in front of Stacie. Although I'm sure she would have understood. But all was well and everyone got to have a milkshake, except me because there are like 30+ points in even a small milkshake and I get 32 all day long. Sad, isn't it?

After lunch we hooked up with Freda and headed back to Turbotville to get ready for round 2 of the day. Jen was headed to our house for 4:30 so that Freda and I could jump back in the car and head for Williamsport to meet up with Jason to go and see "Hello Dolly" at the Community Arts Center. His business sponsored the show and hosted a group of clients, and with one extra ticket, we asked Freda to be our collective date for the night. We had so much fun. We even got to talk to Sally Struthers (who played Dolly)...albeit from a distance...but at least we got to hear her answer some questions from the group. It wasn't quite the same as the photo op that we had with Martina McBride last year, but it was still fun. By the time we got home it was 11:00 and we were beat. Off to bed it was.

Saturday was our "at home" day....a misnomer because we spent the morning at the grocery store and the afternoon doing laundry and putting things away from the trip on Thursday/Friday and trying to pretend that the Penn State game didn't really happen. I won't dwell on that, but really....a little defense shouldn't be too much to ask. I believe I crashed hard sometime around 11 pm that night too.

And then....on Sunday morning we were up and at 'em again and on our way back to Lewistown around 10 am. There was a special little lady who was celebrating turning ONE and we wouldn't have missed her lady bug bash for the world. The kids had a blast at Hayden's party, playing lady bug ping pong and making crafts and eating yummy cupcakes. I find it impossible to believe that Hayden is really going to turn one on Thursday, but I guess it's true. We returned home, shoveled some pizza into our tummies and then started the "get ready for the week" routine. I fell into bed early due to not being able to keep my eyes open.

It was a very very full weekend, but a good one!

This picture was from last weekend, but I love it. Please don't miss Lauren's ballerina costume that she has been wearing over just about everything all the time, as well as Mara's pink ball cap that is turned backwards. I don't know whether these girls are on the edge of fashion, or whether we're really in for it during their teenage years, but I guess time will tell.

I love these cousins pictures--- all tubbed up and enjoying a snack before bedtime at Nana's the other night. I have a bad feeling that the expression on Mara's face is likely the one we're going to see on every single picture Stacie took of the kids. Oh my word.