Boogers and Bubbles

Quick break from the Family Planning series to provide an update and a few photos...

We had a whirlwind of a weekend! Chet's mom got married in his hometown on Saturday. He had to work Friday night and got off at 3:15 on Saturday morning. I slept for a little under two hours. He came back from work, loaded up the van, and we took off. It took us a little over 9 hours to get to NE Missouri, which was the best time we've made with kids in the car since we moved here (and we weren't speeding). The boys took a quick nap when we arrived, and we got ready for the wedding.

All the townspeople came out for the event, so that was really neat. Okay, I can't seriously pull off that word without laughing. Chet's mom actually used the word "townspeople" in reference to the folks from Novinger, and I cracked up! That's totally what they are, but we had the best time laughing at her word choice. I didn't realize that there were "townspeople" in existence past sometime in the mid-1940's, but I guess I was mistaken. Ha!

Anyway, the wedding and reception were Saturday night. This is the best picture we got of me(standing with our brother-in-law, Mike) the whole night...

On Sunday morning, we woke up and went to church at Pure Air Baptist Church. It's a really great old country church that is made up of about three extended families and a few extras. They sing "Happy Birthday" to you right in the service if it's your birthday. And if you decide to give a birthday offering or anniversary offering, then you get a pencil. The children there were SO KIND to my kids! They were very welcoming and shared a good chunk of the Easter treats that they had just received. A couple of the older ladies came up to me after the service and said, "It was so nice to have you here today! I just loved hearing the sound of little children in the service. We haven't had little ones here for quite some time." And they totally meant it, even though Gabe had to be removed because he was teething and exhausted and was having a really rough time. I've been to church there three or four times now, and there's definitely something really fun about it. I'm not saying I'd trade Clifton for it, but it's a really fun change of pace sometimes.

After church, we went on to Grandpa Kermit's for the annual Easter gathering (which we haven't been to in about 5 years). We had the Easter egg hunt outside, and the guys roasted hotdogs, grilled hamburgers, and toasted/burned marshmallows according to their preference. Gabe pretty much slept through the entire thing, he was so tired.

Then we went on to Chet's dad's house for the evening. He cooked us a big meal and wrestled with the boys most of the night. They had a great time playing with him! He had Easter treats for them, including a Mater and Ramone (from Cars) that talk and drive when they're shaken. The boys think they're pretty awesome!

After that was all over, we went back to Chet's mom's house, and the boys were able to open more fun gifts and candy. Ladan's favorite is "candy beans" (aka jelly beans... the Starburst variety are the best). They got a bathketball game (for the bathtub), a velcro bunny toss, and some fun little popper toys from Aunt Megan and Uncle Mike. Ladan was playing with the bunny toss game and wanted to throw it fast. He said, "I like fast cars, and fast bunnies!" Chet's mom and Danny gave them a basket full of goodies and a bubble machine. They played for a few minutes and went to bed late. We woke up on Monday morning, ate breakfast in town, and then hit the road again, arriving in Louisville in enough time to unload most of the van and sit down for just a few minutes before Chet had to go to work. It was a wild 40 hours, that's for sure!

The boys were finally able to play with the bubble machine outside today, but the wind was so strong, they didn't actually get to catch the bubbles. It was more like being pelted with them. Either way, they had a blast, and a couple of the neighbor girls we hadn't met yet came over to play too. Here are some photos...

If the bubble had been about one inch lower, this would have been the BEST picture!

Ladan does not go easy on the drama factor these days. There were about five bubbles coming his way, and he thought it was hilarious to act like they were brutally attacking him! He's great!

Finally, we got some really exciting news this weekend! Our good friend, Kyle Parrish, got engaged this weekend! We haven't lived in the same city as Kyle for nearly three years, but I feel like he's my little brother. We spent a lot of time with him throughout his college years, and we were so thankful to have a transparent relationship with him that went way beyond just the surface stuff. We heard his heart, and he heard ours. It was like he was part of our family. He's the source of Gabe's middle name, so it's clear that we think he's pretty awesome. Anyway, he's apparently found an amazing girl, and we're really excited for him! They're getting married in August, and we're going to make the trip. He told us that they might come to visit us here in Louisville sometime during the summer, and it was almost more than I could take. To see him more than once in the same year is going to be AMAZING! For those of you who don't know Kyle, sorry for the long discourse on a guy you don't know. For those of you who know Kyle, then you know what I'm talking about and might be a little bit jealous!

Well, I'm working on my next Family Planning post, and Amber's working on her "What If" post, so look forward to those in the near future!

(Note: There are some weird line breaks in this post! I kept fixing them, but they kept "fixing" themselves back. Whatever. I'm not going to waste any more time on it right now as long as you don't think that I don't know how to hit the "Enter" button the appropriate number of times to designate a paragraph break.)

Ladan is 3

This post is going to be more of a journal entry recording things that I'll want to remember and tell my kiddos about in the future. So if you don't make it through the whole thing, don't worry. Here goes...

What a fun weekend! I worked on Wednesday and got off at 8:30pm. Then I went home and packed while Chet went to work. Neither one of us went to sleep at all, and we set out driving toward Missouri at about 6am. We made it to St. Louis for breakfast with my mom, which was lots of fun! She even brought Happy Birthday napkins along. One of the things she gave Ladan was a little ribbon that said "My 3rd Birthday" on it. She asked him if he wanted it pinned on his shirt. He had it on the front of his shirt for about two minutes before he asked her to put it on his back. He kept calling it his nametag, and at church they put their nametags on their backs, so he only thought it was appropriate for it to be where it belonged. People all over the restaurant thought this was pretty funny.

We arrived in Novinger at about 3pm on Thursday, which happened to be Glenna's (Chet's mom's) 50th birthday. She wasn't expecting us until MUCH later in the evening, but we were able to go to dinner with her and then go out on the boat dock at the lake afterwards, so that was a special treat. Megan (Chet's sister) brought her new man, Mike, home as well, so we were able to hang out that evening.

On Friday, Ladan's 3rd birthday, we went to Grandpa Kermit's house for lunch and some tractor riding. Ladan and Gabe were both able to go for rides with Grandpa Kermit, so that was really fun. I was kind of bummed because we had taken a picture of Ladan at 9 months right inside the door of the first farm house, and I wanted to do the same with Gabe. However, there were carpenter bees nesting in mass numbers right under the house, so we weren't able to get close enough. It's likely going to be torn down soon, so we might miss our chance.

Ladan was much more comfortable and much more social this time, which was so exciting to see. When we visited before, he was always very shy and took a very long time to open up to the people and new homes. It was so exciting to see him recognize places and even know where to find toys in each person's home. Gabe, of course, was satisfied no matter where we were and particularly enjoyed all the open space that all of these houses had to crawl around in.

That evening, we went to Danny's (Chet's dad's) house. Ladan received his very first bicycle for his birthday. He was so excited! Of course, he's not too sure about how to work it yet, but he'll get there eventually.

Saturday, Chet, Meg, and Mike went fishing at Grandpa Kermit's. I slept, but I was planning to wake up when the boys woke up. Apparently, Glenna was able to get the boys before I even heard each of them or was conscious of her talking to me (I don't remember), because she came up at noon and told me it was time for lunch. Can I just tell you what a huge blessing this was for a totally exhausted mom?! I felt so refreshed and ready for the day... something about eating lunch in my p.j.'s was just what I needed.

On Saturday evening, Glenna's side of the family came over to celebrate a few June birthdays, and we had a BLAST! Aunt Twila and Megan apparently wrestled and threw water on one another. We played some back yard volleyball. Ladan and Mazynne made a waterfall in the dirt. Gabe met Julianna (Chet's cousin's baby) for the first time, and they had fun crawling around together. Mike busted out his guitar and played as he was sitting on a hay bail... a very cool country thing to do. We didn't see the entire family, but we saw so many people that we hadn't seen in a long time. It was GREAT!

Sunday was Father's Day (as you probably know by now). We went to church with Danny. Ladan had a good time in his Sunday School class. When I went to pick him up, he asked, "Are you ready to go see my daddy and my Mike?" Then he led the way until we found them. We went to lunch with Danny and then went back to his house so the boys could nap before the rest of Danny's family came over. Grandma Rosemary showed up in a very cute and flashy outfit full of color to accent her white hair. And then she proceeded to tell us plenty of great stories throughout the evening. The boys played baseball and eventually got Megan to play catch as well. Paisley (Chet's cousin) turned 14 on the 15th. She brought some of her new fashion design drawings with her, and they were really great! And when they all drove away, Ladan cried and said he wanted to get in that car with "Tooper" (Cooper is Chet's youngest cousin). Definitely good to be with family.

Funny Ladan Story: We were sitting in Danny's living room when suddenly Ladan said, "Mommy, I fell in love." What?! Did I hear that correctly? I had no idea where this came from, but when he said it again a couple days later, I decided to think long and hard about this. As it turns out, it's a line from the movie, Cars, and he was repeating it. Random but very funny.

Funny Ladan Story #2: Ladan was sitting on the couch with Megan, and he noticed her nose ring for what seems to have been the first time. He looked at her face and then looked back again. And suddenly he got a very concerned look on his face. He pointed at her nose ring and asked, "Are you okay, Megan? Does that hurt your nose?" She assured him that she was indeed okay and that her nose did not hurt. He touched the tiny little dot and asked, "Megan, does it hurt my finger?" He was comforted to know that it did not hurt his finger, and he didn't say another word about it. As you can tell from funny story #1 and funny story #2, Ladan is clearly seeing the world with new eyes and a new level of awareness. This makes for all kinds of fun conversations in our house. I love it!

Monday morning, Chet and I left the boys with Glenna and took off down the highway. It was so great to drive away knowing that if she had a question, she'd call, but otherwise I'd just see her and the boys in two days. What a blessing! We stopped in Columbia to have lunch at the Artisan. If you live in Columbia, MO and you haven't eaten hummus at the Artisan, you have to go RIGHT NOW!!!!!! I can't believe that Chet worked there and we didn't get the recipe at the time. We were obviously not thinking at all. I think I'm going to have to contact Susan (the owner) and ask her if she'll tell me how to make it as long as I promise never to sell it.

Then we walked down the street to the University of Missouri bookstore to get a little treat for the boys. We ended up with a set of three little balls with the MU logo all over them (a basketball, soccer ball, and football). On our way back to the car, we stopped at Shake's (which, by the way, should really be spelled Shakey's but some random people from Minnesota or something said they stole the name--crazy) for some frozen custard treats. I think I had taken for granted the superior taste and quality of Shakey's because I wasn't even expecting it to be as good as it was. Oh my goodness! We have frozen custard here in Louisville, but it doesn't stand a chance against Shakey's. I just added one more thing to my list of reasons to go back to Columbia as often as possible... in addition to:

• hummus at the Artisan
• Smart chicken
• thousands and thousands of college students
• trails and parks all over town
• a lovely downtown area
• and friends too numerous to count or visit in any period of time

We didn't see any of those friends while we went through town, but it was really great just to spend some time together in the place we met and started our marriage. What a fun impromptu date in the middle of the day!

When we arrived in St. Louis, we went to see my mom in the hospital. She had her knee replaced on Friday the 15th and was recovering well in her room. I took Chet to the airport so he could fly back to Louisville to work that evening. Then I went back to Mom's room for a while. I have to say that I experienced some pretty severe alarm as I went back into her room. I was supposed to be preparing to help take care of her for two days, and I kept feeling really sick to my stomach. I thought that it might have been because I was having a hard time dealing with envisioning the stitches under her bandage or the fact that they had just ripped out her real knee and put in a manufactured one. I wasn't sure how I was going to be of much help if I wanted to puke every time I went into the room.

Then relief came with a few squirts of body spray. You see, the entire hallway smelled like hotdogs, which was totally disgusting to me at the time. I kept thinking that there was no reason for a hospital to smell like hotdogs. I think it was just the chicken sandwiches they had fixed for the patients, but it smelled like ballpark franks in there. I was having the hardest time handling it, but I went ahead and tried to help as much as I could. I thought maybe Mom would enjoy getting cleaned up a bit. So I helped her brush her teeth, take a "bird bath", and fashion her hair a bit. She decided to go ahead and put on some deodorant and a splash of body spray. I wasn't expecting it, but relief came immediately! I could breathe easier, and most importantly, I knew without a doubt that the Lord had answered my prayer to give me what it took to help my mom for the next two days. It wasn't her knee that was making me sick at all! That evening I went on a hunt for a few things that she needed at home, and the next day I packed her in the car and helped her settle in. What a treat to be able to serve her in this way after she's done it for me so many times in my life!

Backtrack to Monday, June 18... this is the night that Mike proposed to Megan on the porch swing at the house Megan and Chet grew up in. She said yes in case you were wondering or hadn't heard yet. She called the next day and said they carved their initials in the swing. Fun, huh? They haven't set a date yet, but they're going to be working on that soon. More details to come....

I haven't written much about Gabe in this post. He did a great job on our trip, and he ended up getting one of his top front teeth while he was with Glenna. He struggled hardcore with this particular tooth... major diaper rash, some high fevers, lots of runny noses and slobber, and fewer smiles than normal. I'm just grateful that it's through. (The other top tooth came through exactly one week later... on June 26th. Maybe my happy baby will be totally back to himself!)

Well, I'm going to end this post. If you read the whole thing, you're a champ!