it's raining grandparents!

My grandparent-starved children got not only one set of grandparents for a week but BOTH sets!!!  It was pretty wonderful. 

The first night Joey's parents arrived - he introduced them to Rock Band.  With his mom rocking the guitar, his dad on drums and Joey on vocals - they pretty much brought down the house.  Here they are humoring me for a picture.

Joey likes to share all of his favorite things with his parents - so they had to visit his favorite grocery store - Aldi.  They told Luke, Lucy and Maryanne they could all pick out a treat.  Luke picked grape juice, Lucy picked a watch and Maryanne picked fresh roses.  :)

 And never was there a girl who enjoyed her "treat" more thoroughly.  She spent all day with these roses - touching and smelling them, singing to them, carrying them around and showing them to everyone.   Grandpa Hale said we'd better watch out for the florist's son.

We kept the kids home from school this day to really monopolize this time they got to spend with G&G Hale.  They played "Sleeping Queens"

Grandpa stealing Grandma's queen - she's not too happy about that.

 Next was Grandpa's education in all things Shopkins.  He was genuinely interested in this strange phenomenon.  My kids were more than happy to explain it all to him.

And to pay them back for his thorough education - they had him read them stories.

When the Songer grandparents arrived - the Hale grandparents went to stay with a family we know in the neighborhood.   They were nice enough to take them in.  Something about her being their youngest daughter - so it worked out.

 This is why you have 12 kids - so you can get to the best ones! :)

last the best of all the gang, right?

Songer grandparents!   Grandpa doing his ab workout.

 and his 3,2,1 blastoffs

And more stories

And as customary - my dad asked for a project and next thing you know.... there's a hole in our wall.

 He found some dead space and some inaccessible space and made us an awesome cupboard right by our kitchen table.  It's cavernous and I put big kitchen appliances and paper and crafts the kids need when they are working at the table.  I love it so much!!

Those actually go really really deep and we keep our pans and griddle in the smaller slots.  And food storage behind the crafts.  I would take a picture of what it looks like now - but I'm way too tired to get out of this bed so this is the pic you get.  :) 

More Beatles Rock Band

Doing our fitness FHE to the "chicken fat" song...

right before consuming Grandpa Songer's famous chocolate malts.  So, it all evens out right?

We put the kids to bed and then the adults all went to Memphis Escape rooms!   This time we did "What's in the Box?"  And it was awesome.

Another fun no-kid night that was not pictured - was a temple and Fat Larrys night.   We did sealings and it was so neat to have the two sets of parents there - very reminiscent of our actual wedding ceremony.  And Fat Larry's was a hoot - the food was delicious and Larry treated us right.  And Momma Hale taught us that sometimes it's ok to have dessert first - especially when it's fried pie.

 Ya know, grandparents really are grand parents.  Just the grandest of all. 

I'm so glad that it worked out to have them all come.  We soaked up every second of having them here.

 Thank you to all four of you for your sacrifice to come and participate in Luke's baptism and do all you do for us and our kids. 
We love you!!!

Lucy's 6th birthday

Lucy turned 6 and, as usual, perpetuated her birthday as long as possible.  She is a girl who knows what she wants.  She has a little purple notebook and she wrote down a whole plan for her birthday months ago.  She really wanted to invite the grandparents but they wouldn't be here so we did a mini-party with JUST grandparents.  This might have been my favorite thing ever.    How rare to have both sets of grandparents - and how even more rare to have all 4 of them play all the party games you planned for your 6 year old friends.  They were really good sports.   (sorry for all the terrible and blurry pictures but at least we can remember how much fun it was)

duck, duck, goose

red rover red rover

Hey diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed, To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon

Lucy's puppet show  -
She ran around the house before they got there saying "where's a cat?",  "I need a cow!" .... (???)

(the dish running away with the spoon)

She had purple crayons and she had the grandparents draw their favorite thing about the party.  (See what I mean about good sports?)

THE DAY

Breakfast in bed

Treasure hunt for her homemade gift from her dad.  Joey made this really cool treasure box and my dad designed her name on the front.

She got some new clothes, and an art kit and organizer tote to organize all her shopkins and other trinkets.   And then back in bed to finish breakfast.

 I got to stop by school and bring her Sonic.  Her best friend Catie Joy just happened to have her aunt eating with her so they both got to sit at the visitor table.

That night - we took her on a birthday date to Pitter Potter Paint.  She painted a unicorn, I did a mouse and Joey did a cute little fox.  It was a magical night.  (after a terrible afternoon btw...of standing at the bus stop for an hour in the sleeting, freezing weather with poor little Freddy and wondering where the heck my kids were - and missing Luke's music lessons and finding out my flight to Utah the next day was canceled.... but anyway...)  I just love spending time with Lucy.  She is such a little doer.  We got to hear all the ins and outs of every moment of her school days. 

We got home and a few minutes later I found her on the couch wrapped up in my coat asleep.

Let me say a few words about this girl.  She is a strong, incredibly independent girl.  It comes naturally to her to not depend on anyone to get her anything or do anything for her.  She will build a giant tower to climb to get something in a high, high cupboard rather than ask for help from a parent.  She also loves to pack a bag or a box of her little treasures or snacks when we go anywhere.  It's hard sometimes because things get lost.  But sometimes it really comes in handy - I will forget something or we'll have a random need and Lucy will say "I have that!"   And speaking of random - the other day we went to the bumpy slide park and Lucy said "I'll pack snacks mom".   When we had been at the park for a little bit she went over to the picnic table and opened her little backpack and started eating her snacks.  I looked over and thought "what is that she's eating?"  On closer look - it was ice cream!  She had packed vanilla ice cream with extra ice in a sandwich bag and was dipping her wheat thins in it!  Haha.  She is very creative and nothing is impossible with her.  If she wants to pack ice cream, by jove - she packs it!  One of my favorite things about her right now is her ability and willingness to entertain Freddy for hours.   She is so spunky and funny with him and can get him laughing really hard.  He is doing all sorts of hilarious things lately and I think it's because he's learning from the best.   But you'd never know she was spunky and funny at school.  She is so well-behaved and shy.   I think she thrives on the structure though and loves all the cutting, gluing and coloring they do and is just concentrating too hard on it all to be too crazy.  Luke was the opposite!  Not shy at all (remember he licked a girl on the cheek his second week of school!), not super well-behaved (3 trips to the principal's office) and detested all the writing, cutting and coloring.  So interesting to watch these kids do their life so differently.  But in Luke's defense - he always, and I mean always, eats his fruit before his dessert at lunch.  I set that rule the first day of kindergarten and he is honest abe and even though I'm not there to watch - he does it faithfully.  Lucy, like I said, likes to do her own thing. :) 
And her friend purple party happened the Friday I got home from Utah and it was such a blast putting it together.  I think I like kid birthday parties - especially when I have such a decisive and creative little party planner.  It makes things easy.  I already posted the pictures of that here  http://katieandjoey.blogspot.com/2016/01/lucys-purple-party.html

Oh we love this little 6 year old of ours.  I'm trying not to be sad as my kids get older - but it's hard.  I always hear people say to treasure these years and I really think I am.  But then I feel like it's a trick because if you treasure these years of tinyness - it just makes you more sad to see it go.  Darn people in grocery stores...telling me how to live my life!  jk.    Ok - peace out.  

Saying goodbye to my BNF

My Best Neighbor Forever just drove away to Pittsburgh and I will miss her so much - I already do.  My kids miss Josh and it just feels weird to know they aren't two doors down anymore.   Kate threw a going-away party for her and I made this video.

Amanda from katiehale on Vimeo.