3 Birds - 1 Stone

Grammy knows how to kill several birds with one stone!  She managed to come out and see Abby play softball, Ben march at a football game and celebrate Ben's 16th birthday all in one short visit!  It was busy, but we all had a fun time.

Look at that beautiful sky!  Who would have thought it would turn out to be such a gorgeous night when prior to leaving Bartlesville it was raining cats and dogs and we fully expected the game to be cancelled.  Fortunately, it didn't rain nearly as much in Tulsa and the game was delayed, but wasn't cancelled.

It was a tough game, but the girls did a great job!

I am so glad Grammy got to watch Abby play softball!

The weather was fantastic for the Bartlesville homecoming football game!

Just look at that sky!

This year's marching band show is so cool!!  I'm so glad Grammy got to see it!  Well, part of it anyway.  The rest of the show will be finished by the time the band performs at Super-Regionals in St. Louis next month.  Thankfully, Grammy will get to be there for that too!

Ben's friends are the best!  They loved getting to meet Grammy!

My poor little Lukey managed to get sick while Grammy was visiting.  :(  We went to have lunch with him at school on Friday and he just didn't seem normal.  He was crying when we met him and when I hugged him to try to settle him down, he was warm.  It struck me that he was warm, but I just figured he was worn out from how busy we had been lately, his classroom was hot, he was worked up from crying... I just kind of let it go.  Well, he ended up coming home from school and going straight to bed.  Just for a nap so that he could make it through the football game that night.  In preparation for the game, I had to wake Luke from his nap.  That didn't go so well.  He didn't want to wake up.  Again, I assumed he was extremely worn out.  Jon offered to stay home with Luke until he snapped out of his funk and woke up.  Unfortunately, Luke had a fever.  Not good.

Saturday morning, Luke still had a fever.  It worked out well for snuggling with Grammy!  Later in the day, while he still had a fever, I discovered that Luke had a rash.  I knew immediately that he had strep.  A trip to the doctor the next day confirmed what my intuition told me.  Poor baby!  We did a lot of lounging and dozing that day!  We all needed that!

Ben had a few gifts that needed to be returned/exchanged in Tulsa, so Jon offered (again!) to stay home with Luke so that me, Mom. Ben and Abby could go do what we needed (or wanted (:) to do.  I felt bad, but it was so nice to get out with just the big kids!  We had a great time!  We found some great bargains, laughed a lot and had yummy food!

Abby chose The Cheesecake Factory.  While we were ordering, it struck Grammy that it was Ben's birthday.  Close enough, anyway. (:  Ben wasn't thrilled that he would be sung to, but he got over it real quick!  That boy was treated like royalty when the waitress found out that it was his 16th birthday!  She went well out of her way to make sure Ben had a great birthday dinner!

He still didn't love the singing, but he definitely enjoyed the dessert!

Ben chose the Chocolate Tuxedo Cream Cheesecake.  Mom, Abby and I shared Chris's Outrageous Cheesecake (quite possibly my new favorite!) and the White Chocolate Caramel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake.  WOW!

I am so thankful that my mom is retired and is able to come out periodically to see that kids participate in their activities!  We had a great time despite me (I just had a cold) and Luke not feeling 100%.

Thank you, Mom, for coming out and spending time with us and making the kids feel special in coming to watch them! 

Family Road Trip ~ Indiana Bound!

I, seriously, couldn't wait for this trip.  It had been almost two years since we had been to Indiana, Kris just moved into a new house and Alex graduated from high school.  Despite the 10 hour drive, I couldn't wait to go!

Of course, nothing we do can go smoothly.  We had the van in the shop to get something fixed before hitting the road.  Wouldn't you know...it wasn't ready in time.  Ugh!  We decided that we would just get a late start.  Who says we had to be on the road at 6:00am?  Ok.  I was ok with that.  Well, after talking to the guy at the car place, Jon found out that our van wouldn't be ready to be picked up until 1:30ish.  Seriously?!  Ok, that meant a serious change of plans.  I really didn't want to wait another whole day to leave.  I was dying to go!  The packing was all done and we were, literally, just sitting around waiting to leave. We talked about leaving after picking up the van and just driving halfway.  But then that would require paying for a hotel.  Bummer!  Oh yeah!  "Jon, do you have any hotel points we could use?"  "YES!"  Phew!  Jon's travels to the rescue!  He had just enough points for a hotel stay!  Sweet!!  Thank you, Lord!  On the road we go!

Stopping halfway was a great idea.  Breaking up the trip made 10 hours in the van not seem so bad. 

We finally made it to Indianapolis and were ready for the task of getting ready for Alex's graduation party.

 Everyone helped!  It is so true that "many hands make light work"!  Kris couldn't believe how fast everything was getting done.  I was just happy to finally be able to help.  The one thing I hate about living far away is that I am never around to help.  I was so happy!

 Ok, so maybe not everyone helped.  (:  The girls had to paint their nails for the party!  To be honest, I was couldn't be happier to see these three painting their nails together.  They don't get to see each other often enough. This is, totally, what they should be doing together!

 These kids had so much fun playing together!

It made my heart so happy to see them all playing together so nicely!

Aunt Kris was more than willing to take a break to snuggle with Luke as he woke up from his nap!

Grammy took the boys to her house for a sleepover.  Fun times!

One of the things that Ben was most excited about on this trip was to get Aunt Becca's old saxophone.  He couldn't wait to try it out.  It needs some serious work since it hasn't been played in 16 years, but he was excited, just the same!

PARTY TIME!!

It was so nice to see so many people that I hadn't seen in so long!  There were some people I hadn't seen in so long that they had never met Luke!  Crazy!  I hate that it takes a big event to see some people, but it makes the time together that much more meaningful.

I love this girl!  I can't believe she is done with high school!

After the "formal" graduation open house, family and close friends headed over to Kris and Scott's house for more visiting time.  Thank goodness for their amazing back yard!  So much fun for everyone!

Uncle Brian bought all of the boys Detroit Tigers shirts and had to have a picture of all of them.  Could these boys be any cuter???

Since we don't all get to be together very often, we (well, it might just be me...) hate to miss an opportunity to take lots of pictures.  The last time we did this was at Nolan's first birthday, so it was definitely time for some updated pictures!

It took a lot of tries to get some pictures that actually turned out good.  

Here are my favorites:

Beth, Kris's best friend since elementary school, and her son, Collin,  were so much fun to hang out with.  Some of the nicest people I have known!

I forced the cousins to get their pictures taken together too.  Seriously SO cute!  I love these kids!!  (We are missing Haley, or this would be all of the cousins.)

Silly pic (:

Grammy and my boys.

We went over to Grammy's house and played for a little bit. (:

The girlies :)

Taking advantage of snuggles!

Oh. My. Goodness!  I just love looking at all of these pictures!  I love my family SO much!  I hate living so far away!!

Abby liked to make sure we knew that it was her birthday week.  We decided to have a little surprise party for her since we were with family.

She was pretty surprised!

I can't believe that this girl is going to be a teenager in a few short days!

This is where we spent a lot of time for the week.  The perfect place to hang out!

I really wasn't ready to come back home!  I had so much fun all week long!  I was so happy to hang out with family.  I was thrilled with the way that all of the kids got along.  Even Luke was a pure gem!  He always had someone to play with.  Nobody ever complained that they were bored or that anybody was being mean.  It was just awesome!

I couldn't be more thankful for the time that I had to spend with family!  I hope it won't be too long until we can all be together again!

Missouri: Christmas/New Years

I've said it a million times.  I hate living so far away from my family.  I still believe that living far away makes our times together that much more special.

Since we live so far apart, and we were all able to, we met halfway to celebrate Christmas together.  There isn't much to do in Sullivan, Missouri, so we were able to spend our time together just being together.  (:

Of course our time together started out (rather quickly) with lots of pictures being taken.

Of course, who doesn't love opening presents?!  That's always fun!  We all exchanged names, so it was fun to see what everyone came up with for the person that they chose.   The gifts were great!  We are so blessed!!

I'm telling you, it was SO nice to get to just hang out and visit!  I was so happy to just get to be there with my mom, sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephew!  (And my husband and kids, of course!)  I didn't need to do anything.  I just wanted to be with them!

We saw our first snowflakes of the season (Yes, at the end of December!)while we were in Missouri and Luke couldn't have been happier!  That little guy couldn't get outside fast enough!  He wanted to "make footprints" in the snow.  Grammy was happy to take him out and Luke was able to convince Daddy to take him out again later.  Luke loves everything about being outside, no matter how hot or cold it may be!

We didn't do nothing the whole time.  We played a lot of games!  I laughed SO much and so hard!  Gosh, I love being with my family!!  We have so much fun together!

We had dinner at a local eatery.  YUM!!

See, more playing.  This is actually how we spent New Year's Eve.  What could be better?!  The people working the front desk at the hotel probably weren't thrilled that we made ourselves at home in the breakfast area, but it was so nice that we were able to spread out and hang out without being all crammed in hotel room.

And, of course, there were more pictures!

 

It is always hard to leave and drive in opposite directions, but I am so thankful that we were able to get together and have so much fun together! It was the perfect way to end 2012 and start 2013!