One of Heavens Newest Residents...

GGpa is soaking it up all the knowledge he can get right about now! Reading and discussing with Jesus. We will miss you, but as Ella said tonight without hesitating, "we'll see him in heaven." As I said before I am not as good with words as I am with pictures, so here are some pictures and see Andy's blogs for the words (he's the writer of the family you know... and I'm sure that was one of the discussions Grandpa had with him at their last meeting). Grandpa would get on me the same way about my artwork, always making sure that I signed and dated my work. So anyway, thanks to Jesus we'll see you later... we'll be expecting to hear all about what you've learned when we get there.

The Winter Wind is Blowing in Something New

Thursday was a windy day literally and figuratively.

I got a call from Mom around noon saying that she wasn't going on her trip and GGpa was going downhill fast (see her blog for an extremely well written commentary...I'm most definitely not as eloquent) and the family was coming here to rally round. Grandpa is an inspiration on dying with dignity...it's amazing.



Ten minutes or so after I got off the phone with Mom, Scott called and said that he had just been walked out the door by human resources. Here we go again. This makes the 5th time in 6-1/2 years (I think) that a plant has closed, company went out of business, downsized or changed executive hands... it seems that it is time to work for yourself don't you think? Too bad that won't pay as well. He is handling it pretty well at this point, he did get a small severance package, and it is not like we aren't practiced at this. Unfortunately. The bright point has been to this point that each time he has lost a job something better has come in its place. We are praying for that this time as well.



As I was driving home Thursday from picking Avery up from school the wind was blowing and moving the fluffy clouds across the sky, so much that you could really get the feeling that the world was spinning... blowing in something new, then it was sunny and beautiful...God is in control.

Who needs toys when there are diaper boxes and spaghetti?

I seriously wonder why we have toys in this house most days. The kids are more than happy to play with everything that is not a toy at their first chance. Quinn this morning found Dads firewood stacked in the laundry room and promptly started hauling it into the family room to stack on the coffee table while I was making breakfast (it doesn't take long). He couldn't understand why he was not allowed to play with them like blocks... back to the laundry room they went, after some protest. This afternoon it was an empty diaper box. Quinn made it into a car, and even talked Kaleigh into pushing him around the living room, a robot and a ship. Then there was the fun they all had with the spaghetti dinner. I had to take a picture of Kaleigh, she (as did all of them) must have had at least 4 helpings, and she totally reminded me of the Prego commercial with the kid at the dining table. I think she had more fun slinging spaghetti into her mouth than with any of the toys she played with today.

Goggles and Glasses

Yesterdays trip to the Alpha Coney Island, included a trip to Target to look for a sled for the kids. Of course they had no winter stuff to be found and they already had the Easter and summer stuff out in full force. Doesn't anyone believe in selling stuff for the season it actually is and not 6 months in advance? Apparently not. I will have to try Aco or something a little less marketed. Anyway, the point was to get a sled, but we ended up with goggles. Why? Quinn absolutely hates to have his hair washed because he gets water and soap in his eyes. Every single night he screams and crys about it, and I saw the idea about using goggles on Super Nanny the other day and thought we'd give it a try, and seeing as Target had all the summer stuff out, we picked these fancy shark ones out. Avery has no problem with the soap in the eyes bit, so I let her try out my glasses for the picture. She thought that was too funny. Then of course Kaleigh wanted in on the action so I found her a pair of my "seen better days" sunglasses to add another seen better day to. They had fun, and when it came to bath time Quinn jumped right in and stuck his whole head under the water to see if they really worked... and they did! Thanks Super Nanny!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

This is my second Valentines day as a blogger! That went by fast!!

We have had a fun day, Scott worked from home today which was great, because he put Grandpas snowblower to work first thing, clearing out ours and the neighbors driveways, he was really glad he didn't have to shovel all that. As it was he was out there for the better part of an hour.

School was called off technically, but Quinns class decided to try and have the Valentines party anyway, as school doesn't start until 12:30 and the roads were pretty clear by that time. That, and if there was no school today they would not be in class until next Friday because of the presidents day holidays and a field trip on Wednesday. Quinn had a great time at his party, he was very excited to give out his valentines and get candy. Apparently they played musical chairs and the teacher told them that when they got out they could go and get their goodie bags, so Quinn quickly caught on to this and was eager to give up his seat to his friends so he could go and claim his goods.

After school we decided to take a trip to see Duncan as it is his 10 year anniversary from being picked up from the pound. We made a trip to Opas and when we got there Dad was there feeding the sheep, so Quinn (because he had his snow clothes with him from school) got to get out and make shapes in the snow (you can see him in the background of the picture of Duncan making the shape of an ear). He was excited, Avery on the other hand didn't think it was too fun that she had to stay in the car with Kaleigh and I. She didn't seem to understand that the outfit she had picked out for the day (tights and a dress) would do so well in the snow. If we didn't have plans to go to dinner after the visit, I would have been tempted to let her figure it out.

After Scott throwing the ball for the dog a few times we headed out for our oh so romantic dinner (with 3 kids 4 and under) at the Alpha Coney Island. Breakfast for dinner, pancakes and eggs all around, how much more romantic can you get? We had a good time though, despite bacon and butter etc. hitting the floor more than a few times. And it beats having breakfast for dinner with just me and the kids. I am definitely glad that Scott is home this week.

I hope you all had a wonderful day... no mattter how you spent it!

Diversions and Reprieves

As you probably know if you read Moms blog, I got a nice reprieve this week. Scotts flight left Detroit for France at 4pm on Sunday and I went about my business as usual, grocery shopping, dinner at Mom and Dads with Em, Bob, Andy and Christie. When I left Mom and Dads around 7:30 I called Northwests flightline to check to see if the flight was still running on time (something I do, I should be a travel agent) and I heard on the automated message, "the flight is due to arrive in Amsterdam 8 hours and 10 minutes late, due to a diversion because of mechanical problems". Nice. After calling and speaking to more than a couple agents, with more than a couple different reasons why the flight was diverted and to where (I got everything from "the flight is waiting to leave in Detroit" to "they probably had a small problem like the bathroom is not working and they don't want to inconvience the passengers while going over the water" to "it is returning to Detroit because the brakes are not working") Finally I found out that the flight was returning to Detroit around 11:30 and would be leaving again at 12:25am. Once I got this info I realized that he would probably be cancelling his trip as he would miss out on 1 of the 3 days of his audits. And once he landed that was the case he called and said he was coming home! Yeah!!!

The funny thing was he told me that he had watched a movie, and was getting ready to take a nap, had put his earplugs in and his eye mask on when he was thinking about what he was going to do for me on Valentines day... should he send flowers?, have Tom deliver something? etc. etc.... when he thought he heard a voice in his head say, "this is your captain we will be returning to Detroit because the engine oil light is on (something like that)" He took his earplugs out and sure enough they were turning the plane around! Definitely a great Valentines present for me!!!

So he's home for 2 weeks as next week is his meeting week! I could get used to that, especially with snow on its way... no shoveling for me! Nice diversion!

Family Fun?

Family fun day today consisted of sitting on the couch and a visit to the Urgent Care. The kids have been under the weather, with colds and flu. Quinn has the stomach bug... oh so fun... and Kaleigh was running a temp this afternoon and miserable, so I called the nurse and she thought that Kaleigh should be seen. I figured if we have to take Kaleigh we were going to take them all, as most likely they all have some form of the same thing. We did, and of course when we got there, they were all feeling the best they had the whole day... figures, but even so the diagnosis was Respiratory Viruses, with Kaleigh having the secondary problem of ear infections and possible pneumonia. Kaleigh got some antibiotics for the ear infection and if she did have pneumonia that would take care of both, but since the other two weren't running temps, its "let it run its course" for them. Hopefully they will be well on their way to on the mend by tomorrow, as Scott is off to France for the week. I am praying that the stomach bug is something I've already had this season and won't be getting again, and the respiratory stuff stays away from me, as it is it is going to be a long week. We've been doing a lot of disinfecting and hand washing to say the least.

I am hoping that we will be able to visit with Uncle Andy, Christie and Aunt Jeanne tomorrow at Mom and Dads, but we'll have to see how tonight and tomorrow play out. It would be great to see them and help to break up the week a little. Too bad illness doesn't slow Kaleigh down, she is still constant motion, even with a fever of 103, and just as obstinate about staying in her bed as ever...time to go put her back in bed... again...:)

Disney, Birthdays, Sour Milk and Clean Feet

It was back to school today for Quinn, and not a moment too soon, we were running out of things to keep everyone happy in the afternoons. While he was at school I sat down with my Disney Vacation planning CD... really I am just dreaming because (1.) who knows when we'll have time in the schedule and (2.) who knows when we'll have the money but I figure I'll plan ahead and maybe one of these days we'll take the kids. I was never too interested in going there, but I have heard nothing but good things about it, and since the kids are little I thought we should try and plan it in the next year or so. We'll see if we get there. In the meantime, we have our plans for Mackinac booked and we have tenative plans to visit D.C. and Virginia after Easter.

O.K. so that is what I did with my afternoon. This evening the kids and I went to Campbells birthday party... I forgot my camera, this is a picture of her when she was probably 3mos. or so, I can't believe she is 5 already! That is just too scary!!! But anyway, the party was fun and stock in the Littlest Petshop should go up after all of the stuff she got. The kids had fun as always, and filled up on cake and pizza.

We got home and we were working on getting jammies on, when Kaleigh decided to get sick all over. Yeah. I am hoping it was because she got ahold of a sippy cup that was left out and drank about 1/4 of a cup of milk that had been left out for 5 hours. This is my theory as she was totally fine when we came in the house, in the time it took me to get jammies out she had drank the milk, gotten sick and was totally fine again. I am hoping that this theory holds true, and it doesn't happen again. We'll see.

After getting everyone clean, we sat down to call Daddy for the night. The kids wanted to take a picture of their feet for him, so here it is. Goodnight Feet.

A Cold Day

No school today...too cold to see the dinosaurs. Quinn was to be off today anyway for a scheduled field trip, but because we would have had to walk 2 blocks to the museum from where there was available parking, it too was called off. It was kind of nice not to have anywhere to be today. We kept busy making "hats", playing playdough, doing puzzles, watching movies and for the girls a couple naps. Not exactly preschool, but we had fun anyway, and it included avoiding setting foot outside in the sub zero temps.

Kristen is coming this evening so I can run a couple errands and go to volleyball, Quinn has been counting down the hours since about 3 (she's not coming until 7...we're getting there..) he just loves having people over. Avery is not as enthused, she never is, but she is fighting off a cold today and is not feeling the greatest, hopefully she won't freak out too much.

Stay warm everyone!!!