Weekend Recap - Thanksgiving Edition

Ah, my first long weekend since I became “self-employed.”  It was so nice.  But, as you probably guessed, we were busy, busy, busy!!  The festivities actually started MUCH earlier than usual.  On Tuesday, I was able to volunteer at Jameson’s school.  They had a Thanksgiving program and I, along with 2 other moms, helped the kids to roll out, cut, and bake cookies for refreshments after the show.  It was so fun to see him in his element.  I swear I could sit all day and just watch him at school!

Jameson was sooooooo excited for his program.  He asked everyone he encountered if they were going to his “show” and if they said no, he would say “that’s okay, we’ll record it for you.”  Well, Papa Terry, Mama O, Cousin Alaina, Nannie Sandy, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Becca were able to attend.  Let me just tell you, it was THE CUTEST thing that I have ever seen!!  And here it is for your viewing pleasure!!  After the program, we ate lunch at Pizza Pie Guys with Papa Terry, Mama O, and Cousin Alaina.  Then Wednesday night, Jameson attended his very first overnighter at the JCC.  Only, we weren't sure how he'd handle staying overnight (or how *I* would, for that matter!), so we opted to have him stay until 10 instead.  Then Russell and I took the chance to sneak away for dinner and a movie before picking Jameson up.  And after that, I had the AMAZING opportunity to drop off some gifts that a wonderful group of ladies and I pooled together to give to a friend whose daughter is going through some things.

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving.  We had a wonderful, family filled day.  Just like we have done for the past few years, we had lunch with my family (Dad’s side) and dinner with Russell’s family.  We were treated to two delicious Thanksgiving meals.  We were able to catch up with some family that we don’t get to see very often.  All with very minimal drama – pretty good for two family get-togethers!  I feel very lucky to have so many wonderful people to call my family!

Friday was a recover day.  We relaxed, watched some football and ate anything other than turkey!  Haha!

Saturday we took family pictures with my friend Amy.  This was a reschedule.  We were supposed to do them earlier, but something else came up…  :-)  Anyway, I am thrilled about them!  We had a lot of fun without any major meltdowns – pretty impressive considering we had 5 people to keep happy!  I’ll post a few pictures once our holiday letters go out!

Sunday was another lazy day – soaking up the very last day of our long weekend.  Then, on Monday stuff got real.  We submitted the last wave of paperwork to daycare licensing.  So, it’s just a matter of time before we get inspected and we’re off and running!!  Eeek!!

Weekend Recap

Whew, what a whirlwind weekend!  (And some unintentional alliteration - Woot!).  :-) Let's start with Thursday.  That was Nannie Sandy's birthday.  So, all 5 Bennetts,  plus Nannie, Papa Bruce, Uncle Ben and Brooke (his fiancée!) met at Famous Dave's for dinner.  We had a really nice dinner and afterwards went back to Nannie & Papa's house so that Bruce could fill out our physical forms for Russell and I - part of next step in our daycare license journey!

Friday was fairly uneventful, other than Russell and I took epic naps! 

Saturday we met Papa Terry and Mama O at Green Belly for lunch.  It was delicious!  Then Jameson and I took a trip to Target to get him some new shoes, plus a few other goodies.  We got home just in time to pick up Delilah and Ephraim to head to a baby shower.  Ephraim slept for most of the shower, but Delilah and Jameson entertained the crowd!  They also suckered a bunch of people into giving them mor After we left the shower.  We went to HyVee to get some groceries.  We got home, ate some dinner, and the kids played a little bit.  After that, I needed to go pick up something from a friend's house.  The kids fell asleep on the way home.  So I got them in house and directed them to go upstairs.  Well, here was the aftermath while I was tending to the baby:

I guess they were tired!

And then there was Sunday.  Sunday deserves its own post, but I just don't have the energy to type it out tonight, so you'll have to wait!  Stay tuned!

Weekend Recap

In typical Bennett fashion this weekend was another busy one!  We had lots of fun Halloween festivities planned!  The kids were chomping at the bit to wear their costumes and fortunately we had plans to attend a few events around town that required such attire!

Saturday afternoon, we hit up trick or treating at our Hy-Vee.  We thought it would be convenient to kill two birds with one stone – we needed some groceries and the kids could get some candy.  It was not the most organized event, but the kids didn't complain.  They got some candy and their picture taken with the Great Pumpkin.  What’s not to love?? 

Later that day, we stopped by the trunk or treat event at a friend’s church.  Each car had a different theme.  The kids had so much fun going from car to car gathering a bucketful of candy!  But toward the end, Ephraim had enough and started to get fussy.  So, we all grabbed a cup of cider and some popcorn on our way out.  Then we had ourselves a little picnic in the van while I fed the baby.

Saturday evening was Nannie Sandy’s annual Halloween party.  As you might imagine, the kids were the hit of the party.  Before going, Delilah informed me that the party couldn't start without them!  They immediately found the candy dish and began gorging themselves in M&M’s.  Then Jameson proceeded to ask everyone in attendance if they knew his name.  He then told me that he introduced himself to everyone at the party.  Such a little schmoozer already!  But, then Delilah fell while trying to get off a chair and Ephraim started to get fussy.  I decided that since 2 of the 3 kiddos were crying that it was probably time to go!

Sunday morning, we got up and headed over to Wenninghoff's Farm to meet Kellie and Maddie at the pumpkin.  It was a nice little place.  We got to see some animals and we went on a hay-rack ride.  But, I think the highlight for the kids was all of the different activities they were able to do.  There were different things to climb on, slide down, or crawl through.  We went through the corn maze.  The boys took off in one direction, while the girls (plus Ephraim) went in another.  I do want to point out that directed by our fearless leader, Delilah- the girls beat the boys out of the maze!!  Haha!

We were all pretty weary after all of our adventures, so it was time to head home for a family nap!!

Happy birthday to me!

Well it has come and gone, my thirtieth birthday and the last of the holiday/birthday landmine that happens at our house between Nov-April! Despite everyone’s ribbing, I’m feeling pretty good about turning 30. Honestly, I think I went through my “crisis” at 25. At that point, I was very unhappy with where I was in life. That was what pushed me to start grad school and find a new job. But, 5 years later, I am thrilled with where I am in life. I have my Masters, 2 kids that I adore, a wonderful job that allows me to work part-time, so I can be home with my kids more, and a new business that is gaining momentum! So, as if I wasn’t spoiled enough, I got a HUGE surprise for my birthday!

First of all, Russell picked me up from work Wednesday night and took me to Target under the guise that we needed to pick up diapers for Delilah. I was, however, a little suspicious because once we got the diapers, he asked me if I wanted to look at clothes…very out of character. :-) We get to the house and the first thing I notice is my friend, Kellie’s, car parked on the street. I think what I said was “What the heck?” and all I got in response from Russell was a smirk. I walk in the door and was greeted by my friends and family. I was surprised by the number of people that came out in the middle of the week!! Amazing! Jameson immediately grabbed my hand and pulled me over to see my cake, a beautiful, VEGAN (more on this in another blog), red velvet cake done by the very talented Ashley of Sweet Bites (seriously, check her out, she is amazing!!).

As if the party wasn’t enough of a surprise, Russell tells me to look at the calendar. He had crossed off all of the activities for the next few days and wrote “Washington DC, WOOT!” across Thursday-Monday. And then informed me that we would be leaving at 6 am, the next morning. Oh, you know, like 10 hours from the time he told me… But, amazingly, he talked to my boss and got me out of work, reschedule doctor and chiropractor appointments, got my Kid-Ability class covered, and arranged childcare! Amazing! Oh, oh AND he built my garden boxes (which is all I REALLY wanted for my birthday)!!

So, off we go to DC, on about 2 hours of sleep. I got to sleep on the first leg of the flight and Russell got to sleep on both. Once we arrived at DC, we hit the ground running. We stopped and grabbed lunch at this crazy deli, that also was like a convenience store – with a wine section- and you could rent things like laptops from them…maybe? It was weird, but the food was good! Then we walked over to the Metro station and figured that out. The plan was to go to the Air and Space museum, but *someone* (hint, not me) had to use the bathroom and couldn’t wait, so we made an impromptu stop at the Pentagon. Which, in case you were wondering, is the ONLY Metro stop without a bathroom. So, we stopped at the 9/11 memorial because it was near the bathrooms. After that adventure, we did make it through the Air & Space museum. The weather was perfect and the museum was not very crowded, so we were able to look at everything at our leisure. It was just about perfect! Then we went over to this cool part of town off the East Market stop for dinner. We were looking for this Asian Fusion restaurant, but passed this Thai place on the way and decided to stop there instead. It was NOT a mistake! Dinner was delicious!!!! Then we went back to the hotel to recharge for the next day.

Russell had contacted the office of our local Senator, Ben Nelson, for a personal tour of the Capitol on Friday. We show up and his staff started chatting with us. One guy asked what we were planning on seeing and mentioned the National Archives (pronouncing the “ch”), so that was our running joke for a while. We met the girl who was going to give us our tour (and I can’t, for the life of me, remember her name!). She took us down on the elevator and then we walked through some hallway, which was underground to a small tram (that I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of, but I thought for sure we would take it back). Anyway, that was pretty cool because most people don’t get to see the secret underground tram thingy! :-) She pretty much took us on the standard capitol tour, but she was very patient when we wanted to take our crazy pictures. We did get to see the Brumidi Corridors, is on the first floor of the Senate side of the Capitol building, which are murals painted to reflect great moments and people in United States history. The painting started in 1856 and includes depictions of Benjamin Franklin, John Fitch, Robert Fulton, and events such as the Cession of Louisiana. And apparently he’s psychic because also included is the Spirit of St. Louis, the Moon landing, and the Challenger shuttle crew. :-) After our personal tour, we headed back to the hotel…for surprise #2. Much to my surprise, Russell walked past our hotel room and knocked on the room next door, which was answered by my dear friend Danielle!! Danielle and her family (David, Briauna, and Ella) live in Maryland and came up to DC to see me for my birthday!! On Ella’s 2^nd birthday, might I add. The last time we saw them was our crazy trip to Maryland 4 years ago!!

Once we got assembled, we decided to head over to the Natural History museum. The running joke was that we were looking for the Unnatural History museum or the Super Natural History museum. We continued our series of crazy pictures (I’m going to make a separate blog post with just pictures because that will be easier). Afterwards, we were going to figure out dinner, but first we had to wait for Russell’s pre-dinner snack of a hotdog and chips. Good grief! We decided to go to the Asian Fusion restaurant, for real this time. It was delicious!! It was happy hour, so the adult all had a drink – hey, none of use had to drive!! Danielle had them bring dessert and serenade Ella ("Ellen") and I for our birthdays! David went down the street, to the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine and some Captain Morgan. Which lead to some crazy shenanigans back at the hotel involving a birthday grope, Danielle jumping from bed to bed and ringing in my birthday in Eastern AND central time zones! It was a good night! :-)

Saturday was my actual birthday. It started off slow. We had breakfast and then headed over to the Metro station and waited as Danielle and Russell coordinated my 3^rd (and 4^th) birthday surprise(s). Once everything was synchronized, my fabulous, beautiful friend, Harper, and her son Liam came all the way from New Jersey to DC to see me!! So, we braved the rain to go to the American History museum. And there we met my wonderful, adorable friend Sarah. Thanks to the internet, I’ve been friends with Sarah for years, but I’ve never had the opportunity to meet her until now!! Sarah’s brother lives in DC and she was visiting him, but she made time for me on my birthday!

We were pretty much limited to the museum due to the rain…and so was everyone else. It was packed! I did a chance to chat with my friends while browsing what I coined “the junk drawer of the Smithsonian museums” (you know, all of the stuff that they don’t know what to do with :-) ). Anyway, we took some more funny pictures. Harper and Liam had to leave around 3 because she had a drive ahead of her with a little one (which ended up being waaaaaaaaaay longer than the drive up). Thanks again Harper for making the drive, it was a WONDERFUL surprise!! Then we decided that it was time for dinner. Russell and David suggested Chipolte (which breaks my traveling rule, but that’s okay for one meal out of 10+!!). After dinner, it was Sarah’s turn to leave. Sarah, Thank you for taking time from your visit with your brother to hang out with us. I’m so glad I got to finally meet you in person!! Then we headed back to the hotel and it was time for Danielle and family to leave. :-( *S* family, thank you sooooooooooooooo much for coming out to visit me. And Bri, thanks for taking a day off of school to make the trip. We made lots of memories, to last us until we are able arrange another meeting! ;-)

Then after my whirlwind of surprises, it was just Russell and I again. It was kind of weird for it to be just the two of us after being surrounded by so many!! It was still kind of drizzling, but the rain had let up quite a bit. We agreed that we still wanted to see the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, etc. and there was really no better time to do it than this night. So, we made the trek, in the intermittent rain, under the big umbrella that we had purchased earlier that day. This was one of my favorite moments of the entire trip. From what I remember, we saw the White House, the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the FDR Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. Believe me, that was quite the walk!! But, it was nice to be snuggled up under the umbrella with Russell. The only disappointing thing was that the reflecting pool was drained for repairs. But, other than it was a pretty perfect evening!

Our last touristy day, we visited the Holocaust museum and Arlington. You know, the really uplifting stuff. :-) I had been to the Holocaust museum before, but Russell never had been. They had a crazy long wait, but fortunately they offer an open-ended ticket for military, State, and Government workers (something like that, anyway). And we were VERY lucky that Russell had his military ID on him!! Score! :-) It was strange because the only thing I remembered from my trip in 8^th grade was the room with the shoes and the reflecting room at the end. It’s amazing to me how differently you experience things with a little more maturity and then add parenthood to the mix. It was very moving (and disturbing). After lunch, we set out to find a vegan bakery for a DELICIOUS birthday cupcake. On our way, we discovered the Museum of Unnatural history. It was a funny little gift shop that sold things such as “unicorn tears” in order to fund a completely free, drop-in tutoring program called 826DC. Check it out, it’s pretty cool. Of course, we took a picture to send to the *S* family as this was our running joke at the Museum of Natural history. After that, we were on our way to Arlington. Amazingly enough, we made it to the Tomb of the Unknown Solider just in time for the changing of the guard. It was incredible to watch! Then we made our way over to JFK’s gravesite. After that, we walked over to the Marine Corps Memorial. And then our trip for all intents and purposes was over. I was sad to see it come to an end, but I COULD NOT wait to see my kids!!

Aside from nearly dying in the shuttle on the way to the airport the next morning, our trip was pretty uneventful. It seemed to take forever, but eventually we were back in Omaha, getting picked up by Kellie. I was sooooooooooo anxious to see the kids. We got home, ditched our stuff and quickly went over to Nana Sandy’s house to pick them up. They both had just woken up from their naps. We walked in and Russell quickly grabbed Delilah from Nana. At first she didn’t know how to react. I think she even reached back out for her Nana, but once she realized who we were she broke out in a huge smile and hugged us. Jameson came down the stairs and started yelling to us once he saw us. It felt so good to be a whole family again.

I couldn’t have picked a better birthday present. I had such a wonderful time!! A GIGANTIC thank you to everyone who helped Russell pull this off and those who made it extra special. Thanks to Papa Terry, Mama O, Nana Sandy, and Papa Bruce for watching the kids. Thanks to Staci for feeding the cats. Thanks to Ashley for my awesome cake. Thanks to Danielle, David, Briauna, Ella, Harper, Liam and Sarah for visiting me. Thanks to my Mom, Ione, and Sandy for helping out with the party. Thanks to Kellie for picking us up from the airport. Thanks to Ms. Minnie and Ms. Crystal for working with Russell and letting me out of work. And thanks to everyone who attended my party and sent me messages for my birthday! I appreciate each and every one of you. (I apologize if I forgot anyone, remember I wasn’t around for the behind the scenes stuff).

Oh wait, last but certainly not least, thanks to my AMAZING husband for out doing yourself and making this birthday extra special for me. Love you!

Delilah 1 year

Well, here we are. It has been an entire year since my sweet little princess was born. It doesn't even seem possible! I know, I know...I say this every month, but I'm serious this time!! I went through the entire year pointing out all of baby D's firsts. And I guess it didn't REALLY hit me until Valentine's Day. February 14th, 2011, Delilah's very first Valentine's day. You know, the day before her very first birthday! Now, I do realize that there will be more firsts in her lifetime, but during the first year, EVERYTHING is a first. ::Sniff:: At this point with Jameson, we had already started talking about trying for another baby, but we're just not to that point yet. Not much longer though - what am I going to do when I'm done having babies?? :-) Anyway, I seem to have gotten off track of the purpose of this post...

My sweet little one year old is less and less like a baby and more like a toddler every day. She is walking!! Consistently. She is an expert stair climber. She thinks everything is funny and lets all of us know by her hilarious "ha ha" (pronounced just like that!). She likes playing with her big brother...when he's being nice to her, that is. :-) She is still a mama's girl, but it's getting better. She is an excellent eater, in fact, on most days she out-eats Jameson!! She is a sweet little cuddly girl who will snuggle up for a hug or lean in for a kiss (even if it's open-mouthed!).

This morning Russell, Jameson and I (We let the princess sleep in on her birthday) got up at 6:30am to see little Miss Delilah in her TV debut:

Then we visited Girls Inc (you know, since I took the day off! Haha!) to show the kids off. Then it was lunch at Gandolfo's and dinner with Nana Sandy and Papa Bruce at Fuddruckers. Delilah was treated to a HUGE brownie sundae...which she kindly shared with the rest of us! All-in-all it was a very good day!

Happy Birthday, Delilah!

I have enjoyed learning all about you this past year and I look forward to many, MANY more!!

Weekend Update

Per our usual, another fun-filled weekend!! :-) The first big news is that I have been published! :-) I was approached by a writer for Shout! Weekly (thanks again, Cindy!!) who want to write an article about my new life coaching business. The papers come out on Wednesdays, but I didn't get to see it until Thursday.

Friday, we went to the car show. We are starting to research our next car with the idea that we will have 1 or 2 more kids. And, yes, even though I'm ashamed to admit it, I was looking at minivans. Jameson had a blast driving all of the cars and going down this giant inflatable slide they had there. Anyway, when I got home, I excitedly ran copies of the paper over to my neighbors' houses that helped me out with it. I ended up hanging out with one of my neighbors, Staci, Friday night. We drank a bottle of wine (okay, I drank most of my bottle while she finished off her...oops!) and talked all night. It was a nice time!

Saturday was our third annual Turkey Day. It all started when a group of our friends ended up with too many turkeys one year and didn't know what to do with them. So we had, basically, a pot-luck Thanksgiving. It has been a lot of fun every year and this year was no exception! We did a secret santa for the first time this year and I think that was a success! And everyone braved all the snow to get there! :-)

Sunday we went to dinner with Nana Sandy and Papa Bruce. It had been a while since we last saw them, so it was nice to catch up. They were also pretty anxious to see the kids.

Thanksgiving Day

We had a good Thanksgiving. Last year, Russell was still in Texas for Thanksgiving, so this year it was nice to be celebrate as an entire family this year. And this was Delilah's first Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving round 1 was at Papa Terry and Grandma Onie's. They had quite the turnout! It was nice to see some of my cousins that I don't normally get to see! The food was delicious, although I'm not sure that Jameson ate more than a roll. We kept having to tell him to sit down. It's much harder to enforce the sit down until you're done eating rule when he's at another table! :-) Jameson was pretty happy to be playing with all of the kids, although Russell had to go in the toy room at one point to make sure he wasn't picking on the girls. However, Russell ended up falling asleep. Poor guy got woken up even earlier than usual so we could make it to my Dad's house in time.

Round 2 was at Nana Sandy and Papa Bruce's house. Another delicious dinner! It was nice to see the twins, but Rachel wasn't there because she was on a trip to Cancun! (Lucky girl!!) Anyway, at this dinner Delilah tried some actual turkey (I tore it up really small for her) and she ate a sweet potato (the WHOLE thing!!). So, she got to eat a little bit of what we ate! :-)

Overall, we had a good holiday! Now it's time to watch some football!!

Delilah 9 months!

Delilah is 9 months old. It seems pretty unbelievable! I remember thinking when she turned 3 months that she was 1/4 of a year old and now she has 1/4 of a year left to go!! She is acting less and less like a baby and more like a person every day! She is such a funny little girl. She can play peek-a-boo all by herself. She is crawling and cruising all over the place! She is even able to maneuver under things, for example the coffee table, and she is getting into everything!! She is very curious.

I still think her favorite person is Jameson. She just laughs at everything he does...until he makes her cry, that is. :-) She squeals and screams all the time. She makes these little, almost growling noises when she's playing with Daddy, I call them gremlin noises. She is talking more. I hear Da da da and yeah yeah yeah all the time. And I swear she is saying "Hi Dada." But, when I say "Mama?" she responds by laughing! It's not a joke, little girl!! :-)

She has a big appetite! She eats a whole container of baby food and is still hungry! So, we started giving her table food in addition to the baby food. She is loving it! I think her favorite is Cheerios, but she's had peas, cut up green beans, banana pieces, sweet potato pieces, squash pieces, and cut up peaches. And she didn't seem to complain one bit!

To celebrate Delilah's 9 month birthday, she got to watch the family eat at Cheesecake factory. Oh, they did bring a few bananas on a plate for her. And Nana Sandy joined us for dinner, because it's her birthday too! (Happy birthday, Nana Sandy!) :-)

Weekend Recap

Yet another busy weekend in the *B* household! Friday was basically prepping for our busy weekend. And that left me very tired, so I went to bed early. Saturday, Russell watched the Husker game and I went to the grocery store. I would have rather watched the game, but I needed to go and that was the best time. Then we went to Nana Sandy's annual Halloween party. We could only stay for a little while because Russell had to work. The kids' costumes weren't 100% ready, so I had them wear the Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfits that Nana Sandy bought them at Walt Disney World last year. They were a hit! Jameson ended up steal someone's walkers and running around with it for a good portion of the evening.

Sunday, Russell came home from work, slept about 3 hours and then we met Nana Sandy, Papa Bruce, and Aunt Rachel for brunch. Rachel came home for the weekend and we met up for brunch before she went back to school. Then we went to the Spooktacular at the Zoo. It was a ZOO! It was crazy!! We met Russell's old partner, Marc, and his family there. Marc's wife, Katty, and I went last year and it was nothing like this! We think it was colder though. The guys ended up talking so much that the boys really didn't get that much candy. Oh well, I'm sure they'll make up for it next week! Then we went to NFM to see Graham Cracker. She got to show the kids off AND we got some free popcorn and plastic storage containers. They were having some sort of VIP event! After that, I went to my freezer dinner exchange. It was held at my friend Kellie's house. I just took Delilah with me because Nana Sandy took Jameson to watch the Millard North dance team. So, after the exchange, D and I chatted for a while with Kellie and Maddie. It was a lot of fun. But, by the time I got home, I was pretty tired, so it was an early night!

Oh and of course, I did not take any pictures! Sorry!!

More changes around the *B* household!

This weekend Russell switched to the overnight shift. It should be feasible since I work part-time. He can sleep until lunch time, when I need to get ready for work. This way, we are not dependent on everyone to watch our kids and we're not driving them all over Omaha. Also, Jameson will have consistency so that we can work on potty-training soon. Russell is excited because he can watch football. So, overall we felt that it was in the best interest of everyone. Plus, we may actually get someone to watch the kids so we could have a date night once in a while!! :-)

So far, he's worked 3 nights. The first night went smoothly and the morning was pretty easy. But, Monday night was a little more difficult. Jameson was dead set on not sleeping in his bed. He laid in bed crying "Mom's bed" forever and he came downstairs a couple of times. I was so worried that he was going to wake Delilah up! I think he finally fell asleep around 10 or 11. Then he woke up around 2 am crying!! This really won't be that big of an issue, but I had to teach a class in the morning.

Last night was somewhere in the middle. He didn't want to go to bed (last night, he thought he was going to sleep on the couch!). But once I got him upstairs, he stayed in bed all night and didn't wake up until 7:30. For the record, on all three nights, D was the perfect sleeper that she usually is. :-)

This weekend we finally took the leap and got rid of cable. We've been talking about it forever, but postponed it for one reason or another. We decided to do it because the only thing we really watch that can't be watched online were the shows on HBO. And currently the shows we watch on HBO are on hiatus until summer 2011. It really doesn't make sense to pay $70-80 a month for "free" HBO. So, cable got the boot and we signed up for Netflix instead. We will evaluate getting cable back when our shows start up again. Or, maybe we'll just crash a friend's house that has cable (Hi Kellie!!).

This weekend the kids had the opportunity to see two sets of grandparents. Papa Terry and Grandma Onie ("Mama O") stopped over for a visit. Jameson had to show them just about every single toy of his. He also would run over to the door and point out Mama O's car. Delilah showed off her crawling skills. She also showed us that she could duck her head so she could crawl under the coffee table!

On Sunday, we all went over to Papa Bruce and Nana Sandy's ("Nanny") house. We visited for a while and then we ate dinner. The kids are growing up. Jameson sat in a booster seat so that Delilah can now sit in the highchair - which is the highchair Russell used when he was a baby. Jameson had to show Daddy where he now naps when he's over there (in Uncle Ben's room - which was Russell's bed before that). Delilah was again showing off her crawling skills. In fact, she tried to crawl OVER Nana Sandy!!

To round out visits with the local grandparents, Graham Cracker came over Wednesday night to watch the kids. But, she didn't actually SEE the kids. Russell's crew went out after work on Wednesday because that was the last day they were all working. I wanted to go as well, so my Mom came over and "watched the kids" so that I could go. The kids were already in bed and, thankfully, stayed there for her until we got home!

Oops, this got long! I'll try to be better about updating more frequently!

Busy Day!

I mentioned previously that Russell's siblings are all headed to college this year. We already had our "last meal" with Aunt Becca. This morning we had breakfast with Nana Sandy, Aunt Rachel, and Uncle Ben because Rachel is leaving today and Ben is leaving tomorrow. We ate some bagels at Bruegger's. Yum!

Then we went back to their house to say our goodbyes.






Then we went to Delilah's 6 month well-baby check up. Dr. Zimmerman, our regular pediatrician, is still on maternity leave, so we had to see another doctor. She will, however, be back next month, in time for Jameson's 2.5 year appt. It should come as no surprise that she's perfect! :-) She is able to do all of the skills that the doctor asked about. The doctor checked her ears and said they looked better, but not back to normal yet - which makes sense since she has only been on medication for a few days.

Her Stats were:
Height: 25 1/4 in (30th percentile) Weight: 15lbs 14oz (50th percentile) Head Circumference: 17 1/2 in (80th percentile)
So, she's following right in her brother's footsteps for being short and having a large head! :-) It's to hold all of her brains, as my mom would say!

Then, Russell and I were back to work after a long weekend off. It was kind of a hectic because OPS is back in session today. At work we follow the OPS calendar, so it's back to my school year hours (2pm-6pm). So, it was pretty crazy at work too. Tyler has agreed to help us watch the kids on Mondays (plus a few extras this week). Jameson was so excited to play with "Han" and "Teh-Teh." He was also talking about seeing "Ty" and " 'Cole." But he fell asleep in the car on the way there and thus did not nap while he did not nap after we got there. So, of course, he fell asleep on the way home. Poor buddy slept right up until bedtime, dozed through his diaper change, and then was right back out when I put him in bed. His cousins must have worn him out!!

With being so busy this morning, afternoon, and then at work, I feel like I really only got to sit down after I got D to bed. Whew, it was a hectic day! :-)

Fun day with Nana Sandy and Papa Bruce!

Jameson and Delilah spent the afternoon with Nana Sandy and Papa Bruce. They got to go swimming at the pool. They said Jameson had a blast, but Delilah didn't quite have as much fun. Jameson also got to spend the night with Nana and Papa! The next morning I asked him where he spent the night and he said "Nana home" and then I asked him what else he did with Nana and Papa, he said "wa-wa-wa." I think he's getting this talking thing down! :-)