A Comedy of Errors

Last Monday I flew to Atlanta for a camp conference, leaving my husband alone with the cutie pies for 3 nights. Friends wished him good luck and he seemed perplexed as he told me "I'll be fine!" Here's how the week went down:

Sunday night: snow is expected for Sunday night/Monday morning. Reports range from "not much" to "8-15 inches." I start to worry as I'm flying out of a smallish airport an hour away, over winding mountain roads.

Late Sunday night: I finally get around to packing and peek outside to some tiny snow flakes- nothing really.

Monday early morning: we wake up to ZERO snow. I check my phone and have received an alert that school is canceled due to snow. My children are very confused. Apparently there was some accumulation on the other side of the county. Brayden was able to go to daycare for the day, which was perfect since Kenny had to drive to Norfolk for work that day- causing all kinds of other potential headaches.

Monday mid-morning: Kenny drops me at the airport on his way to Norfolk. I arrive a little early, thinking I'll enjoy lunch before my flight and discover there are no restaurants at this small airport. Chips and a Twix it is.

Monday 1:00 pm: Kenny's parents arrive at our house to get our mini van so that they can take Bristol to the doctor for what I think is probably another ear infection. She's had fever off and on and was super clingy and cranky all weekend. We neglected to unlock the glass screen door and they cannot get into the house. They don't have a car seat for Bristol in their car. After calling Kenny in a panic, they go to the daycare and they have an extra car seat they can borrow and the director even straps it in the car for them.

Monday 2:00 pm. They make it to the appointment on time. Of course, Bristol does not have an ear infection. She's fine. Thank you for your $30 copay.

The rest of the week involved Bristol and Brinley throwing up in their beds (on different nights), Kenny missing a day of work being sick, and the general chaos that is our house. His parents helped out a lot.

Meanwhile, I was looking forward to my 3 nights of mini-vacation in a hotel room alone and didn't sleep well at all. It was too quiet, the noise in the hall/next door was too loud, my throat hurt, the sheets wouldn't stay put, and on and on.

It was fun, but I'm glad to be home. I think Kenny's glad, too!

Happy Birthday, Bristol!

ONE.

We are celebrating one year with our sweet girl, Bristol today!

We are celebrating one year of nursing, a record for the babies in our house.

We are celebrating one year and six weeks in our new house!

We are celebrating being one year and one week removed from Daddy's kidney stones!

We are celebrating the much more relaxed life of a third baby.

We are celebrating one year of being a family of five. Our family seems perfect and complete. We are so blessed.

We are celebrating this sweet, snuggly little sister, who puts up with a lot of "love" from her big brother and sister.

We love you so much, Bristol!

My Loves

 

Who Let the Dawgs Out?

Brinley, age 4

Fun Weekend

Other than church, we had zero plans this weekend and it was lovely!

 I love these sweet moments when everyone wants to sit on my lap and we all pile on together!

 Glow bath was awesome! Toss in glow sticks from Dollar Tree and turn off the lights.

Love this kid!

We had a great time flying kites this weekend in our cul-de-sac!

Creative Mind

Brayden is so creative! He loves art projects, paper and scissors, and finding ways to do things. We have been reinforcing the concept that tape belongs only on paper lately, after finding it all over the house. He wanted to build a paper trailer to attach to the Littlest Pet Shop car and I reminded him that tape only goes on paper. Ten minutes later, he had built this paper contraption that wrapped all the away around the car and worked perfectly, and followed all of the rules of only putting the tape on paper!

Here he is busy making a fort with chairs and blankets

 He is writing all of his friends names on their valentines this year. I think I blinked and he grew up!

 Painting his car for the AWANA Grand Prix

Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Brayden's 6th Birthday this week! Apple cupcakes for snack at school and a party that night with Nana and Grandpa. Brayden requested hamburgers cooked on the grill and corn. I think every picture will look like this for a while, especially since he said "No, take it again! I need to show where I lost my tooth!"

 Opening presents in the morning

We are all a little cupcaked out, so Mommy made whoopie pies. There was one cupcake leftover from school and Brayden enjoyed it.

 Everyone else enjoyed the party, too!

 Thanks, Mimi and Pop!

 Thanks, Nana and Grandpa!

 Squinkies are fun!

AWANA Grand Prix

We enjoy decorating and racing cars in the AWANA Grand Prix at church each year. 

 Brayden did most of the decorating himself. We outlined the things and he filled them in. He chose #1 because "I was the first kid out of your tummy!"

 Brinley chose #04 because "I was zero when I was in your tummy and now I am 4 years old!"

 Weighing in

They race two at a time and run twice. If there is a tie (one wins each), then they race a third time- backwards.

 This is the real deal, complete with video projection of the finish line!

 Creative spelling, but she won the Cubbies division!

 Brinley won 1st!

 Getting her medal

 Brayden's car was so fast that most of the pictures were blurry! Here he is getting his participation medal 

Apple Cupcakes

 For his birthday snack at school, Brayden requested Star Wars cupcakes. After a quick search on Pinterest didn't turn up many ideas, I tried to talk him out of that. His next choices was Spiderman. Then we found these apple cupcakes in my What's New, Cupcake? book and he thought they were great.

They were pretty simple to make. After frosting the cupcakes (in red cupcake liners) with red frosting, you put a mini donut on the top (with about 1/3 shaved off the bottom) and then freeze for 10 minutes. Then cover the whole thing with frosting and roll in red sprinkles. The stem is half of a tootsie roll, cut long-wise. I bought green gummies for the stems and then couldn't find them and had to go with plan b, which was piping some leaves on wax paper with frosting and freezing them. They ended up pretty messy and then I found the gummies in the other shopping bag after I was done- of course! I think I am officially done making cupcakes for a long while now!