Weekend Fun & Teething Disaster!

FRIDAY: On Friday evening Emily and Adam and the boys arrived about 7:30. Brian and Adam immediately left us ladies in charge of the kids so they could go brush up their skills at the driving range. The next morning they were going to be playing together in a golf tournament. Emily and I didn't do a whole lot but get Ethan and Bennett settled in and ready for bed and feed ourselves some dinner! Ethan found some of our homemade play-doh and we rolled that out for him. He liked to have it perfectly flat and then he would use my biscuit cutter to make circles in the doh (circles are one of his favorite things to draw and he is quite good at them)! He also enjoyed digging in the play-doh with an orange peeler and when all the doh wasn't smooth anymore he would hand Emily or I the roller and say 'gin' (again). Sometime after Ethan was to bed, Brian and Adam came back and we sat around and watched TV growing very tired!

And then it happened...Kezzie wouldn't go to bed. I had tried putting her to bed several times that evening but every time she would just scream and cry. She is always really easy to put to bed and never puts up any fuss but I let her try to cry it out every time thinking she just didn't want to go to bed because of the company. The only sleep she had since 3:30 that afternoon was a 40 minute nap at 6:30. So finally at about 11pm I tried nursing her to see if that would help her settle down and she did go to bed then at about 11:15. But not for long...she got up at 2 in the morning and again at 4:45 at which point I decided to nurse her back to sleep. And that brings us into Saturday!

SATURDAY: Another wonderful day. The day I get to pick Austin up from camp!! Not to mention it was great to wake up and see Ethan's bright sunny smile. He sat and watched Blue's Clues with daddy until it was time to pour the batter for blueberry muffins. He enjoyed watching me do that and then watching them rise and bake in the oven. He munched on some strawberries while waiting for the muffins to come out. I made special mini muffins just for him! He did pretty good sleeping Friday but we had a really noisy storm in the night so that woke him a few times. And then he was up about an hour earlier than usual so he was a little more tired than normal but he handled it pretty well! There is definitely no place like home!

Bennett was a good boy too, aside from the drive up on Friday (he cried the whole way) he was a very quiet and content little one. He actually slept quite a bit and only woke to nurse almost the whole time he was here...he must be growing! I did manage, however, to snap a photo of his sweet face during a moment of his awake time!

We thought it would be a good time to get in the hot tub since Bennett was sleeping so nicely. We turned it down so it was just a little warmer than bath water and the four of us (Me, Emily, Ethan & Keziah) got in for a little relax time! Ethan thought it was so cool and Kezzie was equally impressed (this was her first time in).

2:00pm-time to finally leave to get Austin from camp...so excited! It was so great to see Austin and hear how much he loved camp. It's funny how relaxed you are when your kids are with somebody you know. But when they go away to somewhere they've never been, it's so scary. I wondered if he was sleeping well, making any friends, learning a lot about Christ, being safe. It was all in God's hands, I knew that, but it was hard not to constantly worry! And just to see him and know that he had fun, it was so relieving! He got to do so many things. He said they would have worship a couple times a day and they had free time where they could swim or canoe or fish. And he played a lot of carpet ball and team games. But his most favorite thing of all, he said, was the pillow fight they had on Friday night. Lights out is at 10, but his counselor along with a few other counselors let the boys come out of their cabins (against the camp rules-I think that's what he thought was the coolest!) and have a massive pillow fight until like 11:00. He said it was a blast! I asked him if he learned anything while he was there and he said at worship they talked a lot about how the world is becoming all about yourself and about how YOU are #1 and how YOU make everything happen for YOU and how that's not the way God wants us to think, he wants us to think of others first. And he said they watched a video about a kid who gave up his chance at the major leagues by making himself look bad just to give another kid a chance to make a home run. Austin said he really liked that video. Another cool thing Austin told us about was that they talked about miracles and Austin got to share the miracle of Bennett. I was surprised at this because Austin doesn't like to speak in front of people much but he must have really felt compelled to share that miracle in his life. I thought that was really neat! He also talked a lot about the skits he had to put on. Each cabin was responsible for putting on skits for the worship entertainment. They were always stories from the Bible and each kid would have a special part to play. I thought that was a neat way to help teach the kids some Bible stories!

Once Austin was home there was no way of separating Ethan from Austin. He wanted to be where-ever that kid was. They played with cars in the kitchen and drew together (Ethan loves to draw and Austin does too! I wonder where they get that from!). And later in the afternoon we all went outside to the back yard for some fun in the sun on the swing set! Ethan tried out the slide first going down on Austin's lap and then he braved it alone with his mom at the top and me catching him at the bottom. He also really enjoyed swinging in Kezzie's swing! He's getting to be such a big boy!

And then it happened again...Kezzie would not go to bed. She wouldn't lay down well all day but did manage to get some napping in. Finally at about 6:45 I could tell she really needed some sleep so I gave her some Tylenol, gave her a warm bath and put her to bed. She successfully fell asleep. I decided to let her wake up when she wanted to eat because normally she would have another feeding at 8:45. She woke up at 9:45 and I nursed her and she acted like she was tired enough to just go right back to sleep but she just couldn't get comfortable. She would only fall asleep in my arms (I was loving it though since she never wants to lay in my arms). I finally noticed her chewing vigorously on her pacifier and felt around in her mouth and that's when I found another 2 teeth (one on the side top left and the left front one on the bottom) and one more about to pop through on the side top right. Poor thing. I felt so bad for her. And finally at 10:45 after a lot of screaming from me trying several times to lay her down after falling asleep in my arms and her waking right up, I gave her another dose of Tylenol and she fell asleep for the night. Praise God!

With everyone in bed for the night, it was time to turn in for the night myself! What a long but grace-filled day!

SUNDAY: This is the day my entire family came over for dinner. Saturday was my dad's 58th birthday but he and my mom were at the river (along with Jamie and Keith) so we made plans for them to stop at our house for lunch to celebrate on their way home. Unfortunately Casey, Nate and Gavin couldn't be there to celebrate with us, but everybody else was. All of us girls and our husbands put money in on a self inflating life jacket that dad has been dying to have. He loved it so much he insisted last weekend that he couldn't walk out of Cabella's without buying it. Mom somehow got him to leave without it and Jamie and Keith picked it up for us to give to him.

Before my family arrived we had an extra special visitor. Stephanie and Brady (he is 2 months younger than Kezzie) stopped by since she was in town. Mat (Steph's husband) was playing in the same golf tournament with Riley (Brian's dad). They didn't get into town until late on Saturday because Steph had to work so this was the first we were able to see them. Although we didn't get to sit and relax much, it was still great to get the cousins together and Steph got to meet Ethan and Bennett too!

Lunch was great. I absolutely loved cooking for everybody and felt so incredibly blessed to have my family sitting around my dining room table. I am so fortunate to have such an awesome family and never take a minute for granted that God has given me to enjoy with them. It was definitely 'my cup of tea' to plan a meal and serve them all. And it was great to do it for my dad for his birthday since he has done so much for all of us! God is truly so good to us! Brian and Adam did manage to get a break from golf after their first 9 holes to come eat with the family and update us on how they were playing (see later post for results).

My family didn't stay too late. Everyone was tired from being at the river. Emily and the boys didn't leave of course since we were still waiting on Brian and Adam to finish the tournament. We were all growing quite tired, but still having a good time together. We went outside and played on the swing set some more and blew some bubbles. Ethan loves bubbles. Austin is really good at blowing them. Kezzie really didn't know what to think about them! Bennett just slept! Later, we watched some Blue's Clues and ate supper. We also had some fun with the play-doh again. Adam and Brian got done playing golf about 7:30. Adam loaded all their stuff up and they all headed for home. They had a bit of a drive ahead of them so they needed to get going. Ethan was definitely ready to be home. He was saying good-bye to us before Adam even had everything loaded. He knew he was going to get to sleep in his own bed that night!

With everybody gone, it was time to get our family ready for bed. But then Kezzie did it again...her teeth were just not letting up. The poor girl. I hope it's over soon!! She didn't get to bed until 11pm. Maybe tomorrow will be better!