The Puddles

We can’t wait for Daddy to come home!  Ben spent part of the beautiful afternoon (after homework, of course!) playing basketball.

I got to talk to Chris today before the kids got home.  He wasn’t able to call later.  I miss him terribly.  I hate not having my best friend around.  I mean we talk over FaceTime on occasion, but it is not the same.  I am looking forward to him being home again. I know the kids really miss Dad too.  Plus my patience is wearing thin. Madie was sweet tonight and offered to rub my feet if I let her stay up and watch her tv show.  Of course I said yes!    I feel a lot better, but now it is time to clean up, fold several loads of laundry and head to bed myself!

Sleep and laundry.  These were the themes of the days for Sunday.  We got most of it done, and then we had some delightful visitors that afternoon.  Friends came over and brought dinner and another friend came over and mowed the yard for Chris.  It was awesome and nice.  We are still exhausted and struggling to start the week with energy.  But Sunday was a nice way to end the weekend.

It was a looooong day.  It started by dragging our tired bodies out of bed to go pick Madie up at 8:00am.  Then home to start cleaning the house and getting lots of chores done.  I made a chore chart for the kids in order for me to get help with chores and for the puddles to earn some money.

I took Ben to art class and then home.  By this point I was exhausted.  The week had officially caught up to me, so I took a nap.  The Lord knew that I needed a nap to face my next challenge . . . lice.   Yes, I discovered lice on M. Poor girl.  I immediately went to the store to buy shampoo for six people (our girls -Ben wouldn’t have gotten shaved if he had it and the girls who came over the previously evening to get ready).  I dropped off the shampoo at the friends’ house with my sincere apologies and then headed home to start on Madie.  8 hours later, I was finished.  When I finished at 4:00am on Madie’s head, I drove to church to spray all of the places that Madie put her head down and bagged up all of the pillows that she used at the lockin.  The only good part about that evening was that I was able to real time text with Chris at 5:00am because he was up and touring parts of Turkey at the time.  That was fun.  But then I crashed and went to bed to sleep for a few hours, before I started the next day.

Friday was VERY busy.  We started off with Madie’s school and going to Pastries with Parents before school started.  Madie’s school always has GOOD coffee.  There was a book fair at Madie’s school, so she and I stopped there for some shopping before heading home.  A couple hours of work and then headed to the Third Grade Picnic with Ainsley.  I had fun eating hot dogs with Ainsley and her friends.  She decided to stay at school instead of coming home with me.  So I headed home to do some more work before heading back to school to bring snacks to Ben’s AR party.  He loves it when I bring ice cream cups for everyone.  This is my third AR party and apparently the kids look forward to the ice cream, so there is no chance that I will get to change it to something else!

I picked up both kids and then decided to surprise Madie by picking her up from school instead of making her ride the bus home.  She was thrilled!  To top it off we headed over and picked up two of her friends so that they could all get ready for the Murder Mystery Dinner/Lockin at church.  It was fun hearing the girls giggling upstairs while they got ready for the party.  They were all dressing up like different characters and pretending to go to an awards show.  We bought Madie that dress the week prior and I told her that it was perfect for this character because I would NEVER let her wear it again!!!!  Then we headed to church.  A & B went to the back room to spend endless hours playing with their electronics while I worked in the kitchen for the Murder Mystery Party.  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.  My back was pretty sore by the end of the night due to bending over the sink to wash dishes.  I washed A LOT of dishes.  Whose idea was it to serve the kids three courses?  The kids loved it.  I hope the church does it again.  I think it should be an annual event!  It was worth washing all of those dishes just to see their smiles and hear their laughter.  Then the youngest two and I headed home to bed!

Yesterday was a day of work followed by our scout evening.  Each child has scouts that night.  Madie’s troop went on a field trip to a recording studio.  The girls even got to record three camp songs.  They had so much fun and really enjoyed learning about all of the science of recording.    Then it was off to home and bed.  Mom went home to laundry, chores, and then bed.  But all went to bed after a long evening of Girl/Boy Scouts.

Day 8 started out well.  We managed to wake up early and then I got them to school early.  It was a miracle.  It may not ever happen again!  We had Wednesday at the Tree tonight.  It was a beautiful evening!  The weather was gorgeous.  We all took the kids outside and played.  The kids had a good time together.

After the entire group tried to get on one piece of equipment together, we went inside to do a Bible study.  The topic was on martyrs so it was a little hard for the kids to grasp what a martyr was, but we still tried. Ainsley and Ben made crosses to give to all of their friends today. It was sweet.  They are making something huge for Dad, but I’m not entirely sure what it is. A surprise!

Ainsley told Ryan that she wanted to be a pastor when she grew up.  He asked if she would be a good pastor and she replied, “No. I’m going to be a great one.”  I love stories like that!

When we got home we got to talk to Dad for a while.  The communication was difficult because it kept cutting out, but they still got to talk for awhile.   We all miss Daddy, but he is having a great time.

It was just another day.  The kids really miss Daddy. They are starting to count down to when he will return.  After school, Madie had her swim youth workout tonight, Ainsley had gymnastics, and Ben was just along for the ride.  The two of them are sitting outside the city pool playing Pokemon while Madie swims.

Ben’s toes are poking out of his shoes, and we have NOT had time to buy new shoes yet.  After I took this picture, I asked A & B if they thought we could find new shoes in the next half hour.  They said, “Yes!”  So we headed to the nearest shoe store.  We managed to find a new pair for A & B.  Both of them are so hard to shop for shoes (A is picky and B needs a wide shoe).  It was fabulous that we managed two new pairs in 30 minutes!

Then Ainsley was dropped off at her activity.  We drove quickly to pick up Madie.  Headed home to drop off Ben and Madie to get ready for bed and then back to the gym to get Ainsley.  Then back home again. Mom’s taxi service closed down for the night after that.  Then we got everyone to bed and I did chores and finally crashed myself.

This is very boring news, but it is our way to share with Chris our daily adventures.  So hello, Dad/Chris!  We love and miss you!

My neighbor stopped me when we got home this evening and asked how Chris was doing.  I told him that he was in Greece today.  Then he says to me, “I know that you have a huge support group helping you, but if you need anything please know you can come across the street and ask.”

It was sweet of him to tell me this, and it made me realize that I do have an awesome and huge group of friends and family here.  I know that nothing will happen that I can’t handle while Chris is gone, but it is a nice feeling knowing that I have a huge group of people that I can call upon if I need anything.   I truly am a blessed woman.

Monday was . . . well . . . Monday.  Nothing too remarkable.  The day started with school.  Getting back into our weekday routine is always a little rough.  But we got everyone off to school.  Then on the way home, the government had decided to close the back entrance to the neighborhood for road repairs which caused me to have to go completely around to the front of the neighborhood in order to get home.  That took an additional 20 minutes. Then I sat down at my desk and didn’t get up until the elementary bus arrived to drop the youngest two kids off.  Daddy called from Greece right at that time so he greeted the kids off of the bus via FaceTime.   That was fun.  The kids loved talking with Daddy!

We loved talking to Daddy, but we still had to drive Ben’s heart monitor up to the hospital and drop it off.  Of course, we are running late because we have to pick up Madie from school at 5:00.  So I call Aunt Debra to see if she can help because she has an appointment for Gordon at the same place we had to drop off the equipment.  She says she will take up the monitor to the third floor and we agree to give Gordon a snack of goldfish to help out.  Then we arrive well before Aunt Debra (she is caught in traffic) and are able to get the monitor dropped off and are still waiting in the lobby for five minutes before Aunt Debra even arrives.  But we promised goldfish to Gordon so we stuck around.

We made good time getting to Madie’s school and we were only five minutes late picking her up.  After one stop at the drugstore, we make it home.  I am determined to have an earlier bedtime for everyone, so we get dinner made and everyone bathed and in bed by 7:30.  I am tired right now thinking about it.  Ainsley and I had our bedtime devotions over a cup of tea again, and I even was able to read with Ben and check his bp all before bedtime. It was a busy evening.  Hopefully having the kids get plenty of sleep will help Tuesday go more smoothly.  The best part of my day was going to bed that night to find two friends already asleep in my bed.  They had decided to yet again move to mom’s bed after they were tucked into their own beds.  At the rate we are going, Chris had better hurry home or there won’t be any room left for him! 

This picture pretty much epitomizes our Sunday.  Laid back. Ready to relax. We haven’t had a Sunday to ourselves in awhile.  So after attending a great day at church, we headed home.  On the way home, we realized that we really needed to stop at the grocery store.  So we all headed to Kroger to grab groceries.  Dragging my beloved children to the store when they had no desire to be there was like pulling teeth.  Ben just begged to go home.  We finally made it home, ate lunch, and then snuggled up on the couch to relax for a little bit.  Well . . . one episode of “Green Acres” and one episode of” Flipper” later and we realized that we probably relaxed enough.  There was house begging to be cleaned.

Our cleaning schedule was fabulously interrupted by a FaceTime chat with Dad (no sarcasm intended).  It was awesome!  It was perfect.  All of the kids got to talk with Dad (even the pets).   By the time, we finally got around to cleaning Ben had started to feel ill.  Not a virus kind of ill, but a my-blood-pressure-is-too-low kind of illness.  Turns out his 118/46 was enough to send him to my room to relax.  I am hoping that the low of 46 was causing his dizziness and nausea.  I pray we are not getting sick in this house!  Madie even started to feel bad last night.  No one has a fever, so I hope that all of these symptoms are due to exhaustion.

Madie worked hard yesterday afternoon to send the Minecraft world that she has created (with the help of friends) of our church Tree of Life to a person in the church who is going to upload it to a server so that other people can share in the game as well.  It was fun watching her.  She knows that I am pretty useless when it comes to computers, so she worked hard to figure it out herself.  She watched several Youtube videos and read online on the best way to do it.  Then she had to upgrade iTunes and download some new apps in order to make it all work.  It was like a female version of Chris sitting at the computer.  It was a proud moment!

We ended the day with an earlier bedtime.  Ainsley invited me to a bedtime tea party while we read our devotion books together.  Last night our devotion was about earthly treasures.  She said, “God is saying that I should love him more than I love gymnastics.”  That’s right, Ainsley!

Everyone was tucked into bed early and I can only pray that  our Monday will be great!