Driving and Staying Busy

Jill, my sister in law, blessed her preemie baby, Sydney, this last Sunday in Texas. We decided to come and celebrate such a wonderful day with them as well as the rest of the week. It usually is around a 24 hour drive to get to Texas and we drive because there are now too many of us to afford to fly anymore. Since it is 24 hours we usually break the drive up into two days. However, I couldn't sleep the night before we were leaving so instead of laying in bed awake I decided I might as well drive and accomplish something. We ended up leaving at 1 am, yes that is 1 AM, thinking the kids would sleep in the car. That didn't happen--the little chatter boxes decided to stay awake to keep us company. We drove through and since we were half way to Texas by 1pm and were still going strong we continued the drive. Driving is always an adventure! We stopped for dinner at a greasy fast food joint and Daniel insisted he needed to poop. I just cringe when I hear that and we aren't at home. However, Aaron was gracious enough to take him. He got the toilet covered all over with toilet paper to make it as sanitary as possible. Daniel sat down and knocked off all the toilet paper in the process and sat on the bare toilet--YUCK!! He then peed and said he was done. Aaron said, "WHAT!?! I thought you had to poop." He then told Aaron, "Nope just potty." and hopped off the toilet. Aaron then brought Daniel back rather frustrated and we got back on the road again. About 10 minutes later we heard Daniel exclaim, "I NEED TO POOP!!" Rolling our eyes we stopped again and this time it wasn't a false alarm--if you were wondering. Anyway, we made it all the way to Jill's house by 1 am the next morning and were EXHAUSTED!! The kids still woke up early the next morning--they don't seem to have a snooze in their internal alarm clock. We spent Friday morning swimming in Jill's house pool. We met the rest of Aaron's family for lunch and spent the rest of the day playing games and chit-chatting. One of the games was a huge water balloon fight. I didn't know about this beforehand so I didn't bring a change of clothes for anyone. However, Susan was nice enough to lend me some clothes for Sarah. I got totally soaked as well because Grandpa M and Aaron thought it would be funny to use me as a human shield to keep them dry. I got the brunt of many a water balloon, but we all had fun. Sarah is getting her girly fix in with all her girl cousins. They love to play with her and dress her up. It's the only time Sarah has so many girls around her and she loves it.That evening all the guys went out for a movie sans kids. We tried to wait until the guys returned from their movie to bring out the birthday cake and presents, but my kids were all being "Chuckles" from the lack of sleep and we couldn't wait for the guys to get back from the movie until I finally couldn't take the screaming much more. We brought out the b-day cake and sang to Matthew after the screaming and fighting got to be too much for me to take. That made his night to have everyone sing happy b-day to him. He also got some yellow shirts and a Radio Disney CD which have to listen to every time we get in the car. Jill was super nice and decorated her house just for Matthew so he could be super excited when he woke up on his birthday. Later, we came back to Jill's house shortly after and put everyone to bed. Sarah HATES the pack and play, but on vacation there is no alternative--or so I thought. We put her in the pack in play in Jill's nursery so she could have her own room (Sydney is still sleeping in Jill's room next to her bed). Sarah screamed and screamed, but she finally stopped. The next morning we had found she had crawled out of the pack and play and into Sydney's crib--the little monkey!! I guess she hates the pack-n-play that much to crawl out and then crawl into the crib. The next morning we attempted family pictures with all of Aaron's family. Everyone did great except for Sarah who I think believed that if she smiled her face would break. I will post pictures when we get them. Afterward we all came back and had a pool party and Jill's house with all the cousins. Later that evening everyone left and Jeff's Mom, Jill's mother in law, offered to watch my kids minus Noah and Sydney and let Aaron and me and Jill and Jeff go out on a date. We didn't know what to do with all our free time since we didn't have to keep all 5 kids fed and happy during dinner. It was nice though. Adult conversation is always nice. The next day was Sydney's blessing and it was a nice day--except for needing to take Sarah out to the foyer because she was throwing a huge tantrum right as the blessing was starting. Jill ended up holding my Noah while her Sydney was being blessed so I could take a screaming Sarah--out the little STINKER!! Hopefully Jill didn't mind holding Noah while her daughter was blessed--too much anyway. After church we came back and visited with family. When everyone left we went swimming yet again only at night this time. Sarah is a little fish and not afraid of anything. She loves to be dunked and thrown around in the pool. She's funny. We had lots of fun. Jill even had glow sticks for the kids. Part of Josh's glow stick started to dim. To try and make it glow again he stuck it into the open flame of the tiki lights surrounding the pool. His reasoning was that the open flame should relight the glow stick and make it glow bright again. Luckily, we caught him before he burned the house down. However, with so much swimming Josh can now swim by himself with no help from anyone or anything thing such as floaties. Yay for him! So maybe now he can really jump off the diving board and not need to be rescued from the life guard.

Here are both the trouble makers Sydney and Noah side by side. They are only a month a part age wise, however gestational wise they should be 3 months apart. They are some crazy, trouble making kids!!