Tuesday Ten: Busy Busy Busy

Ten Things I've Been Doing Instead of Posting on My Blog

1. Visiting. We piled everyone in the van and headed to beautiful Eastern Oregon to visit family. The kids look forward to visiting with Grandma and Grandpa. Nearly every day from the first time I mentioned that we were planning a visit, the gents asked, "Are we going to Grandpa's today? Tomorrow? Can we wake up at Grandpa's?" The day finally arrived and off we went on a trek across the state.

2. Packing. "We piled everyone in the van and headed to beautiful Eastern Oregon" makes it sound like we just tossed the kids in the back of the car with a few pillows and roared away. I packed clothes, toothbrushes, medication, winter things, sleeping bags, breakfast and lunch, and bags with small toys and books for the car ride.

3. School planning. My poor children. They couldn't escape my evil clutches entirely. I planned to make them learn and stuff, even at Grandpa's. Which meant I had to figure out exactly which books and such we'd need to bring along. My diabolical plans knew no bounds. The lovely ladies even had to do school in the car. I made them read. Read books that they had not planned to read. The horror. (Actually they were pretty good sports about the whole thing.)

4. School. Here's what I want to know: How is it that the kids can get the same amount of work done in half the time at Grandpa's? One of the lovely ladies even remarked to me how nice it was to have a light load for our visit. Ha! It was exactly the same work she'd have done at home.


5. Birthday. Sweet January gent turned four. When I told him he'd get to have his birthday at Grandpa's house, you'd have thought I'd told him we were going to Disneyland. I can't believe my middle guy is four. It seems like it was just a few months ago he was snugged up in the sling everywhere I went.


6. Playing in the snow. The gents had planned on a fishing trip with Grandpa. But we got to do something just as cool.....







7. Riding in a hay wagon to see the elk (pictured above). This was a pretty neat expedition. Of course it would have been even neater had the woman standing in the very front of the wagon not acted insulted that I wouldn't let my two year-old ride standing on the front rails of the wagon with her. Or had said two-year-old not grabbed my handwarmers out of my gloves and jettisoned them over the side of the hay wagon in an attempt to help feed the elk. The handwarmers were joined shortly by a lovely lady's hat, the precious one lovingly hand-knit by her grandma. The woman telling us all about the elk had to get down from the wagon to retrieve our things. I would have pretended I had no idea who those unruly children were, but I couldn't get them to stop calling me Mom.

8. Playing tooth fairy. Six-year-old gent finally lost the tooth he'd been wiggling for what seemed like forever. It seemed like forever mostly because he kept on talking about his wiggly tooth and insisting on eating only soft foods. I kept trying to convince him that crunchy things would make his tooth fall out, but noooooo. He'd have none of it. I've never been so happy to see a damn tooth fall out in my life. Too bad the one right next to it is starting to wiggle. Seriously, he was so happy that it was a delight to play tooth fairy. I did convince him that since we were at Grandpa's house, the tooth fairy might not know where he's sleeping, so we should leave it in a glass of water on the table. Good thing I caught a glimpse of the glass right before I went to bed and whipped a dollar bill underneath with a note from the tooth fairy. Usually I stink at playing tooth fairy. My kids think the tooth fairy is either really busy or really flaky-- little do they know it's a bit of both-- because she never makes it on the first night. Oh wait, I did slip a dollar bill under the eleven-year-old's pillow a couple weeks ago while I was waking her up. Veeerry crafty, eh? She still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa even though I've told her the truth point-blank twice.

9. Driving.....












....and driving.....









....and driving some more.










10. Laundry. There's no escaping it. As a matter of fact, that's what I should be doing right now, laundry. Folding the mountain of laundry waiting for me. I really need to get folding before it's large enough to swallow a small child, seeing as there are a few small children around here and I'd sure hate to lose one of them. Yup, I should really get on that right now. Too bad I'm really really busy finishing my blog post. Sheesh, if I type any longer then it'll be far too late to fold the laundry. So if I don't post for a few more days, it's because I'm digging through socks and jeans and mittens and sweaters trying to find one of the gents.

While I was having fun, Cristy drudged through her week. I know, playing with a new camera and fooling around with Photoshop is so hard. Boo hoo.