Happy 90th Great Gram

Just about 12 hours after Philip arrived home from Jamaica, we headed in down to Charlotte. Philip's grandmother was turning 90 and her family was throwing her a surprise party.It was really fun to see the surprise on her face. Philip's mom is Betty's oldest daughter. She has 4 sons who live with their families in either Minnesota or Denver. Although, Betty had her 4 grandchildren and 6 great children with her this night, she has many many more up north. Many of the others, sent cards and pictures to help her celebrate. I hope when I turn 90, I'm able to have as much fun and love as Betty. It was a blessing to be able to celebrate with all the family.

Organization

I've been thinking for sometime that Nathan's room needed a little organization. The little guy had basically a basket overflowing with books and a train table in his room. I was hoping to bring some toys out of the living room and kids room to his so there was more reason to play in his room. So last night when I passed by this cool looking bookshelf at Costco, I went for it. This morning while only Nathan and I were awake and the coffee was still brewing, I assembled the shelf and brought a little order to his room. Although the shelves did bring order and toys and even the interest of playing, it also brought chaos! I never really had to pay much attention to straightening up Nathan's room but I see that now he'll have ample opportunities to learn the clean up song!

Day 9 of 9

We are hours away from the return of the mission team from Jamaica. The kids and I decided that we would make the trip to Raleigh so we can be there when Philip and the others get off the airplane or should I say get to the baggage claim. My kids don't ever go to the airport so I figured this would be a fun outing although definitely not as fun as it used to be.
Ryan is resting up for the big adventure!Nathan having already had his nap is ready to play with our new family friends. He is in love with horses so when we saw these at the dollar store this morning I couldn't resist. I think we might actual go back to buy a couple more horses so everyone has one. Nathan has just started referring to himself in the third person. He calls himself, "NayNay". It's just about as cute as he is.

West Virginia

With Philip being in Jamaica and my sister having had a new baby, I couldn't think of a better place to spend a few days. The 5 1/2 hr drive with 4 kids on my own was not something I was looking forward to but I knew once we got there it would have been worth it. And it definitely was- baby Cal is precious and the cousins played together from sun up to sun down.It was hard for Nathan to decide which cousin pairs to follow around and try to convince that they should play with him.
It's definitely getting harder to get everybody to look the same way and actually smile- not to mention get the lighting right so nobody has to squint.
I tried my hand at taking some photos of Cal while we were at the park one morning. He was a trooper and a cutie.
It's getting increasingly hard to figure out what to feed all these guys and the grown-ups. I can't imagine what it will be like in 5 years. Hopefully some of them will be doing the cooking and cleaning up by then.
I baby sat all the kids one morning while my sister had a doctor's appointment. I ( or I should say Charlotte, Peter, Nathan, Emma and then finally myself) got to feed Cal his first bottle. He took it like a champ no matter who was holding it or if they were paying attention to him.
This time away reminded my that relationships matter. It's not always easy to travel, to sleep in somebody else's bed, to manage a house with 11 people in it but it's worth it. I'm so thankful that my kids are growing up to know their cousins deeply and that we are taking time to invest in each others' lives.