20 week ultrasound

I had my 20 week ultrasound this morning. It was originally scheduled for 8:30 am, and I'm so glad we were able to move it to 11:30 am. Dave and Rachel both wanted to come with me so that meant taking the kids along. Since we were up so late last night coming home from the swimming pool they slept in a little later. The u/s felt like any other u/s I've had before. We told the u/s tech that we wanted to keep the sex of the baby a secret so she didn't even look herself. Baby is developing great! They estimated the weight at 12 oz and predicted a due date of May 19th, which doesn't really change anything since I'm "due" May 16th. Or maybe its the 14th. I can't exactly remember, it has been calculated a couple times. Baby is well developed, all bones and body parts are totally formed. Approx 10 inches in length. We saw the heart beat, complete skull, back bones, ribs, hands, legs, feet, face profile, eyes, stomach, kidneys, the mouth moving around and sucking. The placenta is located on the front of my belly so I suspect that is why I haven't felt the baby moving that much. Violet was curious about the picture on the screen, she asked a lot of questions. We just told her it was a picture of the baby moving around and even though it was hard to see, the baby is really happy and healthy right now. Last night when we went swimming, Violet asked me if the baby inside my tummy was going to go swimming too. She thought that was really fun. :)

Swim night

Dave was looking through the Cedar Falls Rec services online and reminded me of Sunday night swim nights at Holmes Elementary. We decided it would be super fun to go, so we packed up the family, brought Rachel along with us, and had an hour and a half of fun in the water. We were the only 5 people in the whole pool so it was nice to be all alone. The three lifeguards on duty played cards near the pool and watched us. They let Violet wear her life jacket (normally that isn't allowed) so she could swim anywhere in the super big pool. She could touch in the little hot spa everywhere and quickly got bored. She swam all around in the large lap pool (all the lane lines were out), watching Rachel and I do silly things off the diving boards. Dave created a few big splashes. I held Calvin to let him watch Dave and Rachel do flips. His reaction to the first flip he witnessed from Rachel was "Whoaaaa!!!" I did a few flips, I know, I know, I'm 20 weeks pregnant. Didn't really stop me though. I suppose it would have been dangerous but I knew what I was doing. Baby is fine! We had a LOT of fun. We stayed out entirely too late, making a trip to the post office and the grocery store on the way back. We picked up some groceries and stuff to make a cake for Calvin tomorrow. We got home and unloaded the groceries, and both kids ran around the kitchen like CRAZY monkeys eating what we had left for bananas. Got them to bed finally by 10:30. We're all tired and my back is especially sore, maybe I can score a back rub from Dave later.

Calvin turns 2 tomorrow

I can not believe it, time has just flown! I know, that sounds SO cliche, but its true. I remember the day in the church nursery when I told someone that it was his first birthday. And some how it is now his second. He's close to 30 lbs, give or take a pound given how squirmy he was when we tried to weigh him. We don't really have birthday plans. We'll make him a cake and celebrate somehow, with just our family. My sister Rachel is staying with us for awhile, she is back in Iowa for a few weeks until she moves to New York in the middle of January. She can help us celebrate.

Vla-vla

Calvin came up with a word for "Violet" in his own vocabulary. He says either Vla-vla or La-La. I think its so cute! He likes to go around the dinner table and say "Hi Mama, Hi Daddy, Hi La-La." :)

I tried, but Calvin proved it was time.

He climbed out of his crib yesterday after his nap and opened his bedroom door looking very tired and lost. He has never done this before. So, in my attempt to keep him contained, I removed the wire mesh mattress support that was suspending his mattress about 6 inches off the ground in his crib, and lowered the mattress to the floor so he wouldn't be able to climb out. I thought for sure that would buy me a few more months before I had a kid who could escape their bed. Nope. He climbed right out of it after his nap today. I guess its time I just give in and get him his own big bed with guard rails and some how block off his bedroom door so we don't have a wandering kid around the house before we wake up in the morning.

Return of the "Hop Truck"

Have I written about this before? I can not remember. But the "Hop Truck" has returned. A few months ago the kids got attached to this card board box they climbed in and (Violet mainly) pretended it was a car they could drive anywhere. It became so fun that we cut doors out of the side so they could open and shut them. The box was eventually destroyed from so much use and it ended up in the recycling pile. Another FedEx delivery provided the perfect opportunity for another one. I thought they had long forgotten about the beloved "hop truck" (Violet came up with that name and I have absolutely no idea why), but when she caught site of the big empty box in the kitchen, she immediately said "A new hop truck!" and it was almost love at first sight. She climbed right in it, pretended it had a steering wheel and said she was driving over to a friend's house. I cut some doors, drew on a steering wheel with permanent marker, and today we spent an hour taping colored paper on it to decorate it. She helped Calvin put stickers all over it and she took some time to write "Hop Truck" on the door and also write a bunch of other things, drawings, etc...all over it. Calvin is starting to "get" these games she invents. He often tries to play along but ultimately frustrates the living daylights out of Violet because he's not "playing it right" and she freaks out. *sigh* Some times they play so well together, other times they're like two feisty cats in a cage.

Questions

Yesterday while we were eating supper, Violet started asking me questions about the new baby. She notices my tummy sticking out more every day and asks if she can hug and kiss the new baby. Calvin copies her, but he has no clue what is going on! She had some interesting questions, which gives insight to how a 3 yr old's mind thinks about this situation: "Does it hurt when the baby is in your tummy?" I answered no. "Where is the baby's mommy?" I said to her "I am the baby's mommy, silly!" She was like "uhhh...OH!" "Well....how is this going to work? You take care of Calvin, daddy takes care of me, who will take care of the baby? What are you going to do with THREE kids? (while she throws her arms up in frustration)" (She couldn't have gotten that from ME!? ha! I say that all the time to myself!) This made Dave and I laugh. I told her we would make it work. And I reminded her of lots of families with one mommy, one daddy, and lots of kids. Her cousins for example. There are three kids in Austin, Renee, and Wesley's family. There are seven kids in the other LaMarche family. And I reminded her that some of her friends have lots of sisters and brothers. I told her with in a family, one mommy and one daddy work together to take care of all the kids, no matter how many there were, and we love them all the same. She seemed to be happy with that answer. :) And she's been fascinated with the way the baby is going to come out. Daddy told her that God opens a little door when its time to come out, and the doctor can help. She wanted to see the door, I just told her no. I guess we'll see when the time comes how God allows this baby to come out!

Oklahoma/Texas

I wish I had brought along a computer so I could have blogged more accurately. We got home from a week-long trip in Oklahoma and Texas. This will be logged from my brain which has a very poor memory, which is also trying to recover from a week of intense travel and less sleep than desired. The time in Oklahoma was spent celebrating with family to honor Rachel's graduation from her Orthodontic residency at Oklahoma University. She completed the 30 month program with excellent reviews from her professors. She is so passionate about orthodontics, I know this is the right field of medicine for her to practice in. We scheduled our flights to leave on Thursday evening last week the 10th. We flew from Waterloo to Minneapolis, then Minneapolis to Oklahoma City. It was a rush getting to the airport for some reason, even though we had all day to prepare, pack and load the car. Life with kids just seems to do that and operate that way, no matter how much fudge time you allow in. We pulled up the van just in time to check our luggage. Dave got the kids inside the airport, I parked, and ran inside. Just as we got through security and into the line where we boarded the airplane, Dave realized we forgot to unhook the car seats and bring them with us. Oh noooo!! How annoying. We were stuck...the security people wouldn't let us back through with 8 minutes to departure. So that was it, we just had to deal with it the whole way there. And it wasn't fun. We made sure to purchase four airplane seats so the kids would be sure to have their own seats their car seats could be strapped into. If anybody has flown with kids, yes, its a pain to lug along the big car seat (not to mention two of them) but its SUCH a blessing once you get on the airplane. Kids just know (well, mine do) that when they're strapped into their car seats, that is as far as they can move. The air travel to MN and OK was a struggle the whole time, Violet and Calvin were buckled in their seats, but with a pathetic lap strap that they could both wriggle out of. They were difficult to keep in one place and neither slept a wink even though we got in late around 11 pm. Both were whiny, tired, cranky, and miserable. I had counted on them getting sleep on the airplane (the 2nd flight was over 2 hours and it could have worked beautifully but nope). I communicated with Rachel and my dad (who was already there) that I'd need their help. I asked them if they could run by Walmart and buy two car seats for our kids and leave them at the airport for us to use when we got our rental car. Thankfully, they made time in their schedule to run that errand for us. We could have rented two car seats from Hertz but I never like to do that, who knows what their history is, they could be gross and peed on, and could have possibly even been in an accident and nobody would have known. Not safe enough for me...if anybody knows me they'd know I am a little on the particular side when it comes to car seat safety. Anyway....that problem was solved. Besides, renting the car seats was $26 a day ($13/day for one) and we needed them for 6 nights. That would have been more expensive than buying two new ones for $52/piece. And the beauty of buying them was the ability to return them when we got home. So essentially they were free. :) The three nights we spent at the Hilton hotel in Oklahoma City went by slowly. Even though the kids got to sleep by 11 pm or midnight each night, they some how woke up at the crack of dawn by 7 am each morning. Don't they realize there is always the option to sleep in!?! Apparently not. The first morning was a little tense between Dave and I. Neither of us do well on low sleep. I think we got maybe 4 or 5 hours, since neither kid slept soundly through the night. I think Violet had a night mare, Calvin lost his pacifier, etc...I'm sure there was more, it is all a blur. One nice thing about Dave's status with the Hilton chain of hotels is that he got coupons for free breakfast each morning. It was a full buffet with cook-to-order eggs, all free. So we all ate big breakfasts. On Friday we kept ourselves entertained by going to the mall about 10 min north of the hotel. There was no way we were going to spend all day cooped up in a hotel room. Dave shopped for a blazer to wear at Rachel's graduation ceremony, I shopped for maternity jeans and a winter coat to accommodate my large belly the whole winter. We got lunch at McD's on the way back from the mall and the kids took naps from around 3-5 pm. Friday night was Rachel's graduation party. It was so fun. We all dressed up and had a party with her friends and family. My grandparents were there from Arizona, my great aunt Lucy drove up for the party from Little Rock, AR. Jay and Molly drove from Iowa, and my parents came too. Violet was in some crazy social mood, running around and talking to everybody she could get to talk back to her. She even climbed up into the department head's lap (Dr. Currier) and played some little silly games with him. She bounced around from lap to lap. The meal they served was really delicious too. The first course was a salad, and I've never seen Violet dig into a salad before like I saw her eat it that night. It was a regular lettuce salad with ranch dressing and other things, crunchy little chips, some nuts, I don't even remember what was all on it since I was busy feeding Calvin, but she kept taking huge bites, she almost cleared her salad plate. I didn't know she even liked lettuce. She's always turned her nose up at salads like that. I guess I should start making those more often. :) The night was fun. All the graduating residents did goofy things on a slide show, comparing their professors to famous celebrities and saying what great teachers they are and the individual things they did to progress their studies in the program. The 2nd year students put together a slide show for the graduates, funny pics and songs. The night ended with a yummy chocolate fudge torte cake thing, I don't even know what it was. It wasn't a cheesecake, but it looked like one. It was really late by the time it was over. Calvin was glossy-eyed and just wanted to sit in his stroller and be wrapped up by his blankie and hold his kitty. Violet remained social until the moment we left, and then by the time we got to our hotel room, she was a crying mess. Saturday we spent with family again, we met for lunch together at a BBQ place with Rachel's friends and our family. Dinner was a different place. I got a chance to get away with Rachel for a short time and drive around to look at some pretty neat Christmas light displays. The hot thing this year is to use LED Christmas lights and wrap them around every square inch of the tree trunk and all the branches. All the rich neighborhoods had fabulous light displays. Sunday was our day to travel to Texas. Since we were so close to Dallas (where Dave's sister Lisa lives), we thought we'd take a couple extra days and visit them. We scheduled our flights to return home from OK to IA on Wednesday, so we drive in the rental car to Dallas and back. Sunday morning Rachel took us to the church she called her own for the last 2 1/2 years. It was neat to visit them and get to know the people who have been there for her and encouraged her while she was all by herself in OK. We checked out of the hotel when it was over, got lunch at Jimmy John's with Rachel, and said our goodbyes and took off for Dallas. The kids were so tired. The drive was three hours long and both of them slept the entire way. We didn't stop once. We arrived at StenErik and Lisa's apartment around 5:30 pm, and they were all happy to see us. Their apartment is pretty small. Their girls slept on the floor in the living room and they let us sleep in their room for the three days we were there. Violet told her Aunt Lisa "I am so glad I came back, I told you I would come back because I love you!" We didn't really have a schedule for the next three days. I was really hoping to relax and catch up on much needed sleep, but some how that didn't happen. It was too easy to stay up late and talk to Sten and Lisa since we rarely get 1-1 time to talk to them. The kids didn't sleep that well. Calvin learned how to climb out of the pack and play crib he was sleeping in (he could also climb out of the crib he slept in at the hotel, which made for unexpected visits from Calvin in the middle of the night), so he was one of the biggest challenges. We would put him down for a nap or bed, and he'd crawl right out and go play with Violet who was trying to sleep on the couch. Ugh...that kid. I think we had to put him back in his bed multiple times before he actually went to sleep. One night he threw his paci out of the crib and around 2 am he woke up and started screaming for it. The kid can't get to sleep with out that darn paci. Dave and I were searching for his paci at 2 am with the light of our cell phones. Finally I found it tucked underneath a dresser next to his crib. The best part of the trip to Texas was connecting on a more personal level with Lisa. We worked together to de-clutter their apartment and get rid of things they didn't use or didn't need. Her girls, Violet and Calvin also had a blast together. At any given moment, someone was always cuddling with someone on the couch, giving hugs, playing, running around, and just having fun. Violet is almost 4 (Jan 20 is her birthday!), she comprehends everything and can communicate extremely well, so she just seemed like an older kid blending in with what her older cousins were doing, not like a younger toddler who didn't get anything. Calvin played that role instead. He really fell in love with Emma. He was immediately comfortable with Emma holding and comforting him, which was weird. He doesn't warm up to people that quickly. Nice to see, though. Kristina is 11, Emma is 10, and Anja is 8. I found Anja and Violet up in their loft coloring in Violet's coloring book a lot of the time. This week was finals week for Sten (bad timing on our part), so he was often writing papers and studying and at class. We had "Christmas dinner" together with their family the last night we were there, on Tues. Lisa baked a ham, and we made three-cheese garlic scalloped potatoes, and ate green beans. It was so delicious! Our trip home went much better. The drive back to the airport on Wednesday was at a great nap time for the kids. They slept, I took a nap, and Dave (although he was really tired) drove to the airport. We got our rental car checked in, and boarded our flight. The next two flights went much smoother than the first two on our way there. Calvin was comfy in his seat and calm for the entirety of the flights. He slept the last one. Violet sat next to me on the last flight from MN to IA and she was so cheerful, saying silly things, playing impromptu games she could make up in her mind, and we both had fun drawing on our styrofoam cups that the flight attendant gave us when she passed out water. We were greeted in IA with 5 degree weather and a thick layer of ice on our windshield. Not so cool when we forgot to put our ice scrapers in the van. We had to let the defroster fun for about 15 min in the parking lot so we could see well enough to drive. Calvin was mad he had to wake up, so he cried pretty much the whole drive home. We stuck them in bed as soon as we got home. The house was soooo cold too. We turned our heat down to 50 when we were gone, so it took Violet awhile to get warm in her fleece jammies and tucked into bed. I layered on an extra blanket on her bed. Calvin was so happy to be back in bed. Violet took awhile to get to sleep. She must have been overstimulated. I think she fell asleep around midnight. The poor girl, I had to wake her up and take her to preschool the next morning. Any other day I would have just let her sleep in and skip it, but she was assigned to bring snacks for her class that day. And "snack day" is a BIG deal to her. In her class, whoever brings the snack that day also gets to be the leader in the front of the line when the class goes places together, like to the gym to play and run around, or to any other place with in the facility. She also got to select the weather on the board, write what day it was on the calendar, all sorts of very special things. Last time she got to bring the snack, she talked about that day for WEEKS. She loves being the leader, so I knew this day would be one to not miss. I woke her up at 8 am, and she just snuggled with me for a few minutes trying to wake up. I told her what that day was and how special it would be, and she perked up enough for me to get her dressed and get her to eat a bowl of cereal. Since we had just gotten home the night before really late, I had nothing planned for the snacks that she was to share with her class. We made a quick run to the store before I took her, and she wanted to bring yogurt tubes, cookies and grape juice. We got exactly that, and she happily brought along her snacks when I dropped her off a few minutes later. The teacher said she did pretty good that day, and didn't seem that tired. I was happy to hear that. They both slept good three hour naps Thursday afternoon, which was their attempt at catching up on much needed sleep. That night both kids spent about an hour in the bathtub. They were so happy to be home, and both got to bed at 8:30-8:45...a great time. Dave and I actually got a little time to sit and relax that night, even though my list of things to do was enormous. Laundry, catching up on bills, updating the budget software with all our transactions the last week, grocery shopping, filing papers, etc...the list goes on and on. So far I've gotten the laundry all sorted, washed, dried, and put away and updated the budget software but my list is still long. I knew I would forget a lot of the trip the longer I waited, so I blogged today during nap time. Violet just woke up and is snuggling in my lap so I should get off the computer. Thanks for reading my long account!

Took Calvin to the doctor today

Since Saturday morning, he's been breathing really raspy and coughing at night. He had a bout of this same thing about a month ago and it took a week to clear up. This time I decided he should see a doc, his breathing was not improving and seemed really bad when he would cry. Doc determined he had the croup virus and prescribed a liquid steroid to help reduce the swelling in his bronchial cords which just treats his worst symptom, although not helping the virus which just has to run its course. Its gonna be a long winter if he comes down with this all the time. He already has his first dose in his system and already seems to be feeling better. I am praying that he will get over this before our flight which leaves on Thursday evening, and also that Violet would not catch it. We're heading to Oklahoma City to celebrate Rachel's graduation from orthodontic school! Then a few more days we will spend in Texas with Dave's sister Lisa and her family. Violet is very excited about the plane ride. I also got my flu shot this afternoon. Violet came with me to help me be brave :)

Snow blower

Dave has been stressing about getting our old 1983 Ariens snow blower working. The snow blower went through the flood and did get wet and rusty in a few places, we don't remember the extent of the damage so his goal was to work on it knowing it was a trusty machine and would start up if everything was working properly. He's worked on it on and off for a few weeks now with no success. He took apart the fuel lines, cleaned out the carburetor, messed with the spark plugs, oil and gas. He isn't a huge engine guy but has learned a lot since getting the log splitter running. We were wondering how the winter would be last year with no snow blower, and it would rough. We got SO much snow, Dave and I were outside shoveling so much, it was such hard work. We have a big 3 car wide driveway so it was no small task. I wasn't pregnant last year either so helping was no problem, this year I knew I would be much less help not being able to lift and throw snow like I could have if I wasn't pregnant. I was getting worried that we were going to have to pay someone to plow our driveway or see Dave suffer and shovel. Well, last night Dave had some time to work on it. He initially went to the garage to put up some metal hooks for his tools to hang up on the peg board near his work bench. He was hanging up tools for a long time, and told me he kept looking back at that snow blower and thought "Ya know, I haven't prayed about this yet!" So he stopped and asked God to help him fix the snow blower and show him what needed to be fixed. He took off the engine cover, looked under the engine, and noticed a little pin or screw underneath the engine and thought to himself, "huh, what is this thing?" and twisted it. Turns out, this little pin was the thing that changed the flow of gas that entered the engine, and he tried starting the engine, and it fired right up! He was so amazed. He called me out to the garage to "show me something quick" and turned it on. I was so surprised! He was like "This was totally a God thing, I would never have figured this out...I just prayed about it and he showed me the answer, just like that." We're really excited about not having to shovel this winter. :) :) :)

I found Calvin's soft spot

and its for kittens. He bonded so well with Kala's kitty. He couldn't stop thinking about the kitty the whole time we were at the Butler's house. If I even suggested to him "Hey Calvin, want to go see the kitty?" He would burst into a yell of "YEAH!" and beeline upstairs to the bedroom where he knew the kitty was. I mentioned this before in my post about Thanksgiving, but I was really surprised how sweet he was to the kitty. He picked him up gently, held him, cuddled him, gave him kisses, and played well with the kitty. He was never mean, didn't pull his tail, and was patient to let the kitty come out from hiding every once in awhile. He figured out how to use the little cat toy that was suspended on a string attached to a stick. Tonight I was reading him a book before bed, and one page of the book featured pictures of cats. There were four little kittens on the page, and at the first glance of that page, he excitedly said "meow!!!" and promptly started rubbing his hands all over the page. There was a spot on the book where it had a piece of fake cat fur so he could actually "feel" the cat. He rubbed his hand over the cat fur for a long time, and kept saying "meow, meow". The kitty in the picture was even orange just like Kala's kitten. He brought the book to his face the started kissing each kitty picture. He just had this look of endearment on his face, I could so tell he was just enamored by these kitties. He held out both hands to the book near the picture of the orange cat almost like he believed he could reach out and pick him up. It was so sweet. He kept kissing the kitties and saying meow. Makes me want to get a kitten for him to play with. But I know that would never happen ~ Dave is so allergic to cats, he would be miserable in his own house. So he'll just have to dream about cats for now until some day we get a puppy, and I'm sure at that point, he'll forget about the kitty!

Calvin's first little sentence

The morning we woke up at Martha's (Monday) Calvin came up with his first little sentence. The kids were both eating bowls of cheerios, and they love a squirt of honey over their cereal. They each got a drizzle of honey over their O's and after awhile, Calvin said "mama!" so he got my attention, then said in his own little Calvin way: "Honey, please more." How sweet, he thought to ask for more honey and even used the word please! It came out of his mouth sounding like this though: "Honey, bee, mo" I don't think anybody else but his mommy could have interpreted that one! His newest saying is "I do it!" with everything, from buckling his car seat to flipping on the light switch.

Thanksgiving 2009 with the Butler/LaMarche family

I found some time at the moment to sit down, even though 5 load of laundry beg for my attention and the room next to me is scattered with toys. I have already sorted the laundry into piles and made lunch for the kids, I think I can sit down for awhile. They went down for naps a little while ago, and it is a good thing they are napping today. Today was a rough morning, transitioning back from our trip to Ohio and back, I am not sure I was ready for today. Even though Violet was at preschool for 2 1/2 hours, I think Violet and Calvin fought the most they have since leaving on our trip in the 2 hours they were together when she got home from school. She got upset that I made her eat spaghetti sauce with her noodles (she loves them plain), her and Calvin ended up in her play tent together and with the door zipped shut, they flipped it over a few times and Calvin came out with a lot of bruises. Anyway, I'm just glad they're sleeping. They both missed naps on days on Ohio for one reason or another, so they are both lacking sleep and a schedule. Anyway, enough complaining! Last week Wednesday morning we woke up early and got ready before the kids woke up. We packed the van with everything we packed the night before, woke them up, fed them breakfast, and loaded into the car. We backed out of the driveway 30 min later than we had planned, but leaving at 8:30 am was still a good feat for our family. We had in front of us the entire distance to Ohio that day. We ended up stopping two times on our way to Chicago for potty breaks and made it to Dave's mom's house in Chicago around 1 pm. Martha kindly had lunch ready for us. She got the kids hot dogs and the adults italian beef sanwiches from Dave's favorite childhood restaurant, Novi's Beef. That lunch was enough to pack us full and not have to stop for supper. I had lots of snacks for the car trip anyway. The kids got a chance to run around and burn off some energy at Martha's house. Her front porch has two kid slides and lots of toys so they kept themselves occupied for an hour or so, then we got Martha's things packed up and loaded into the van, and took off for Ohio around 2:30. Kids slept for a couple hours, I tried to sleep but I didn't actually snooze off. Dave and Martha chatted away in the front seats, I was trying to rest in the back seat. Violet's car seat got moved to the third row center spot, which she loves to sit in so the third adult riding in our van could have a comfortable spot to sit in the 2nd row captain's chair. Calvin rode in his seat behind the driver. I don't remember much about the trip, it got pretty bad towards the end with lots of whining but it eventually ended. I think we stopped once on the way. We arrived in Ohio around 8:30 that night, a full 12 hours of travel. Ohio is an hour ahead of central time, so I guess that would only be 11 hours. Anyway, long enough. Sean & April and family arrived about 30 min after we got to Tim and Deb's house. Their family of 9 really fill a house! Kala was there already, and Roger and Mary arrived on Thursday morning. So there were 10 adults and 9 children in one house for 4 days! The kids occupied themselves most of the time, they watched a lot of movies and played a lot of games. The toy that got played with the most was this enormous container of legos. I didn't think my kids would enjoy them as much as they did, but they both came up with some fun lego creations! Thanksgiving dinner really delicious. Tim had prepped the bird the night before in a brine and grilled the whole thing in his outdoor grill the morning of Thanksgiving. It was really yummy and juicy. The rest of the food was soo good too. Deb's sweet potato casserole I think was my favorite. It was so sweet, it almost tasted like a dessert! There was also sourdough stuffing, mashed potatoes/gravy, and green beans with onions and panchetta (sp?). Pumpkin and pecan pie for dessert, of course! The rest of the visit was pretty unscheduled. Some of the ladies woke up at 5:45 am to hit the stores and shop on Black Friday. I was NOT in the that crowd, nothing in me wanted to wake up early and be shoulder to shoulder in the middle of a crowd trying to get stuff. I really dislike shopping on BF! Kala, Deb, Aunt Mary and April woke up to go, they came home with a trunk full of stuff. Sleep was more important to me! Kala and I went to see the movie New Moon and some others in the crowd went to a different theater to see the Christmas Story movie in 3D. Saturday we spent most of the afternoon outside at Tim and Deb's friend's house. It was on a farm a few miles from their house. They graciously allowed our clan to come and spend time on their property. We got to feed horses, the kids got to take rides on a horse, go fishing in their pond, and take rides on their 4 wheelers. Dave showed me how to ride one so I got to take off on a 4 wheeler and go out on my own, it was SO fun!! Violet tried her hand at fishing, but no fish bit any worms the whole day. Calvin was tough to watch wander around. He was only interested in chasing the cats around. Kala brought along her little new kitty, Jackson. Jackson is only a few months old, and still a teeny tiny little cat. Calvin and Violet LOVED the kitty. Especially Calvin. He was enamored by the kitty, he would pick up the kitty and say "hi meow!" and play with him, chase him, and hold him gently. It was enough to convince me to get a cat, but Dave could never live with a cat since he's so allergic. At night, Calvin would say "bye bye meow!" and the first thing he would say when he woke up was "meow?" The kitty stayed in Kala's room since the house cat Mimi did NOT like her. We drove to Chicago on Sunday afternoon. I think we left Ohio around 2:30 pm (Ohio time) and got back to Chicago around 6:30. We called a pizza ahead at Dave's favorite pizza place, Salerno's and ate there before going back to Martha's house. We spent the night there, and left in the morning by 10:45 am. Kids woke up TOO early on Monday morning. Calvin popped his head out of his crib at 5:15 am and said "hi!" We told him to go back to sleep, which I think he did for a little while. Violet climbed out of her bed at 6:30 and started playing with Calvin in the pitch dark. That was it for Dave and I, we woke up then. Martha left for work and we got ourselves ready. We made plans with Carrie to stop at her house on our way out of town to see new baby Wesley. I stayed at her house with her for about three hours and Dave met Josh for lunch. We didn't leave til 2:30! The kids all played well together with their cousins Austin and Renee. Carrie said she was glad to not be pregnant anymore. Monday was Josh's first day back to work since Wesley's birth so it was her first day "on her own" with all three kids. I think she was glad we stopped by, she gets exhausted pretty quickly. Wesley is a cute baby. I think he looks a lot like Austin...more like Josh...but I can't really tell. Violet got to hold him, and she loved it. She stared at him, stroked his hair, and acted fully responsible for the baby during the time she held him. She told me she was excited when our new baby came out of mommy's tummy. I also took home my maternity clothes that I lent Carrie. Violet and Calvin were SO exhausted when we packed them in the car to leave. We pulled out of their driveway and with in a few blocks, we pulled up to a gas station to fill up before the drive home. We looked in the back seat and both of them were totally asleep. That has never happened before. I guess the combination of an exhausting weekend with not as much sleep and the fact that they woke up at 6:30 and played hard until 2:30 just wore them out completely. They slept solid for two hours. The drive home was fine...we stopped at McDonald's in Galena for a quick supper (they ate cheeseburgers faster than I have ever seen them eat cheeseburgers) and we made the last leg home. We pulled into the driveway at 8:15, and Calvin said "home!!" They were still really tired...so they went to bed quickly. Dave and I unloaded everything and decided to tackle unpacking later.