Playdates

How long do you keep and eat on leftovers? Until it’s gone or do you throw it out after a day or two? A week?

One other thought I wanted to express from Wyatt’s party was that I love get togethers like that because Greg casually poses a question, “how would you go about fixing a leaky faucet?” and he, Granpa and Josh head upstairs to assess the situation, go to Lowe’s and get the parts and then fix the leaky faucet! It’s been leaking for years, but had definitely gotten worse. And leaking isn’t the best term to use, because it wasn’t just a constant leak, it was when you turned the shower on, half of the water still came out of the spout, rather than the showerhead. And it was hot water! So, you know it’s expending more energy and costing more. And now we have great water pressure, too, because all of the water is coming out where it should! awesome! Now, they didn’t fix the full problem, because the cold water handle still leaks when turned on, but apparently that would have required turning off the water and was more involved. I’m not complaining, because I was so happy to have the bigger “leak” fixed.

Here’s a picture of the animal scramble game. I’ll still try to get one of the kids in action playing it.

 

And I forgot to mention that Dellaina finally let me do her hair half up with a braid. It came to me a few weeks ago and I’ve been mentioning it, trying to get her to let me try it. It took the distraction of watching the tree men to make it happen. 

We’ve had a fun week with Emily and Samuel! After Play on Monday and our morning outing with them on Wednesday, we met up with them again after naps at the mall. Mammie was in town for meetings and staying with them for the night, so we came to meet up for dinner. Emily was looking for more hospital shoes, but wasn’t successful. There was a nice foam playground like at the other mall we’ve been to, but this one seemed newer and cleaner (probably less traffic) and had a diaper changing station to boot! We went to Bahama Breeze and Daniel came from work to eat with us as well. It was a fun evening. Then, Thursday we go down and eat lunch and take naps at Emily’s house to avoid the tree removal danger. Samuel was kind enough to sleep in the Pack n’ Play and let Wyatt have his crib! He jabbered for a little bit, but the new surroundings did entice him enough not to cry and he went to sleep, thankfully. I love Emily’s guest bed and had a nice rest myself with Dellaina. Then, we all went outside to play afterwards and meandered over to the playground. It’s been replaced since the last time we were there and is quite nice.

 

Wyatt and Marble

 

 

 

Both Dellaina and Wyatt try to teach Samuel how to hold hands. he’ll just grab whatever part of you is nearby and it’s not “right” for them.

 

Awwww.

 

 

 

 

Guess who’s used to hearing, “look at me! smile!”?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cute!

 

 

 

 

We’ll have to come have a picnic here one day.

 

The boys pounce on Marble when we get back.

 

 

Today, I was stuck waiting around on Comcast to come repair the broken cable and thought they were coming by 11:00AM, but apparently, it had been scheduled from 2-5. grrr. So, we didn’t make it to the grocery store like I had hoped and it was nearly 5:00 before they showed, but I’m happy, because it was actually repaired. Still needs to be buried, but it’s working for now.

Cassi, Eric, M&M and Clare came over around the same time because they were having someone clean their house in preparation for M&M’s birthday party on Sunday. Eric ran out and picked up Mexican for us and I managed to feed all 4 kids with mixed results while he and Cassi took turns trying to convince Clare she needed sleep. She hadn’t slept since 11:00AM and was just miserable, but still fighting it! We had a blast playing and the tornado force is just impressive when you multiply it.

Wyatt had been crying and asking for “Maggie” and “Where’s Micah?” and “I want Miss Cassi” all day long – in fact, he refused to take a nap and was wanting to play then, because he knew they were coming after naps so he would say, “I wake up!” like, ok, where are my friends now? I made mention of playing with M&M with his train set, so he talked about that all morning, and I was no longer good enough “not mama! I want Micah play with my train” So, I was surprised when they got together and all kind of retreated to their own corner/activity. . Dellaina even wrote Granny an email. She has me write out what she wants to say on a piece of paper and then she types it. Until Wyatt comes along and bangs on the keyboard and frustrates her. 

Micah really liked the train set.

 

 

and the refrigerator magnets.

 

Again, can you tell who is used to hearing, “Look at me!”?

Maggie is definitely her mama’s daughter with that cell phone. ;)

Farewell

We had the large, beautiful, scary tree removed yesterday. It had a mouse hole at the bottom just like the one that fell in April and had started to get a little fungus and it was just weighing on our minds. I wasn’t sure about staying in the house while it was going on, but it did provide some entertainment.

watching the men work on the tree. I pointed out the belt/harness and we watched the man climb the tree. The rest of the day Wyatt kept playing with necklaces and things saying they were his “belt to climb the tree” and he was cutting down the BIG tree.

 

From the back deck: Can you find the man up in the tree? Some branches have actually already come down at this point, too.

What about now? The chain saw is dangling, he’s wearing a red shirt and is on the left-hand side.

some of the large limbs coming down

and being fed into the chipper and spit into the dump truck.

It was a wild process and they had to tie off everything they cut, but there was still a lot of swinging in my opinion and we’re fortunate it went well. They had one that got hung up on the roof that they scrambled to get off and the yard is pretty beat up, but all in all, it went smoothly. It was definitely a lot of manual labor – they didn’t have a bobcat until today and just manually drug and hauled all of the pieces! They had hand trucks! I didn’t see the end where they had the largest sections of trunk, though because we were still at Emily’s. They came back this morning and ground the stump and finished hauling the big limbs – they had to take the dump truck and unload it because it was full. They also managed to cut the Internet cable, so I was forced into detox for a whole day! Thankfully, it was repaired around 5:00 today. He didn’t bury it again, but hopefully, someone is coming back to do that part without me having to make a call. Anyway, here’s a little clip from the back deck of one of the branches being cut and swinging down. . .

We also made our Halloween bag puppets from G&G to pass the time. Fun!

 

 

“I said, ‘cheese’ mama”

Then, today, Dellaina decided she wanted to name her spider, George and wanted to put his name on him. He was black, so I had to come up with something that would show up, so used white paint. Then, we decided on a name for Wyatt’s puppet and I was going to just use markers, but saw the foam letter stickers, so decided to mix it up. Then, she wanted me to name my witch; I decided on ‘Matilda’ and she suggested putting it on her hat, which I liked, except it wouldn’t all fit, and I remembered some glitter we had stowed away, too. But, then, Dellaina wanted to use some glitter, too, so we made a glitter ghost for her and then, of course, Wyatt wanted one, too and he mentioned tongue, so I did it with his tongue sticking out.

 

 

I did decide that for naps, we’d head down to Emily’s house rather than risk sleeping upstairs or deal with all of the noise and commotion. I snapped a few final shots of the progress – they’d had stopped for lunch as well.Looking straight up from the sidewalk in front. Basically, imagine a head of broccoli and they took things off from the left and right and just had some left right at the top of the stem/trunk.

 

at least we still have some trees left, but you can already see the amount of sun hitting the house where it’s been trimmed and I dread next summer’s air bill!