Santa Picture

Michigan Adventure – The Last Day

It was not until on the way back to Farmington Hills on Friday that we actually decided the schedule for our return home. We decided that we would stay on Saturday, basically to give the kids a break from the car. So Saturday, we had a great breakfast downstairs came back to the room and decided to enjoy the pool. We actually ended up in the hot tub the entire time because it was much warmer and with the jets the kids enjoyed playing around in it. We were the only people in the pool area until the last five minutes. We spent over an hour in the water. I thought I saw a microwave in the room so I plan to feed the kids mac and cheese for lunch. Matt and I were going to eat the leftovers. But after getting back to the room we realized that the microwave did not exist. The kids laid down for a 2 plus hour nap. It was awesome. After the nap we had planned to head to both Costco and Trader Joes. We made it to Costco and it was as Matt described it, "The reason I moved out of Michigan." Traffic was awful and people in Costco were rude. We ended up at Keith and Belinda's were the kids watched Toy Story 3 and we enjoy conversation and laughed.

This is the part were the adventure begins. We ended up staying at Keith's until around 8pm. When we opened our hotel room door, we realized that our room was located directly above the ballroom. A bar mitzh was taking place in the ballroom and we were able to identify the songs as they changed. I did call the front desk and was told there was nothing they could do about the noise. It was strongly suggested that I call the corporate office to. I did there was no resolution but I did receive our breakfast for free both morning and got a discount of half on the price of the room. Luckily, the kids were so tired they went right to sleep. Matt and I played name that tune until it stopped at 11pm.

I don't regret waiting to start our trip home until Sunday at all. We had the car loaded up on Saturday night. Sunday morning we enjoyed a great breakfast and the ladies were nice enough to send us a to go box loaded with pastries and fruit. Travel was fairly smooth until around 4 pm getting on the West Virginia turnpike. Things went downhill from there. First the brakes on the car started to vibrate. We are coming up and down mountains and each time you try to slow down the whole car shakes. At one point we were literally sitting in traffic, moving at approximately 5 miles an hour. The reason…..traffic. As we were sitting in traffic, Lily suggested we pray so that we could start moving and get home. We did. From the point that we prayed we maintained a steady movement forward with only 1 other time when we came to a complete stop. It was amazing. We decided to pray again to thank God for letting us start moving. Around 15 minutes after our thanksgiving prayer, we came to another stop. Matt mentioned we might need to pray again and Kendall agreed. Lily was very clear with her statement "I already prayed and God gave us a miracle so I don't have to pray again." The faith of a child…boy do I have a lot to learn from that girl! Lily was right we did keep moving slowly but steady. Zach ended up car sick as we entered North Carolina so we had to stop and clean both him and the car seat up. Total travel time on Sunday was 14 hours. We ended up not even stopping for dinner because we just wanted to get home. We made it, the adventure is now complete!

 

Kendall Update

Kendall has reached one of my favorite ages, 2.5 years old. Over the last several weeks, she has really developed a personality and is a sponge learning everything. Potty training is still that training. She currently has one accident a day but does not poop in the potty at all.

In the area of communication she is so much fun. She is speaking in sentences. She gets frustrated when someone does not understand what she is saying and tonight I heard her repeating things off the news just to see if I noticed. She definitely has her own opinions and like to be heard. In the car, she and Lily often fight over whose turn it is to talk. Kendall loves to sing. Currently she sings ABCs, Wheels on the bus ( her favorite is the mommies), 5 little monkeys, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Ba Ba Black Sheep and Jesus Loves Me. Kendall is usually the one that reminds us to pray at dinner.

Kendall is definitely 2 but she is the only one of my kids that you can reason out of a tantrum. If I can get her to listen to what I am saying she will usually stop kicking or crying when explained that is not how we do things. She also can turn on and off the tears in a minute.

And yesterday she achieved a major milestone. Yesterday, morning the first thing she told me was "My pappy broke, I throw it away." I had her repeat it twice and then told her to go ahead and throw it away. I didn't have any more because she has bitten all that we were able to find in half. I discovered several months ago that they had changed the design of her Binky so I stocked up then. Kendall was able to take a nap yesterday and last night she verified that she had thrown her pappy away before going to bed. Again this morning she said "I throw pappy away it broke?" But she has been sleeping without it! WOW this was easy! I am so excited. The cutest thing was as I was telling my mom about it, Kendall heard and repeated "I not need pappy anymore cause I a big girl."

Wordless Wednesday Birthday Edition Lily

Random Birthday Thoughts

These are all related to Lily's Birthday but this way I don't have to connect them in a logical manner, just as I think about them.

Lily birthday party on Sunday was a Hannah Montana Tea Party. Mrs. Nellie Tesh agreed to host the party.

The party started with coloring and making a placemat.

Mrs. Nellie spent about an 30 minutes teaching the girls (Lily, Kendall, Laural, Isabella and Katelyn) how a proper tea is served. The girls were all dressed as princess and Mrs. Nellie brought hats for the girls to wear.

Halfway through the party Haley and Andrea disappeared to Haley's room to play on Facebook.

The party games were Pin the spoon on the teapot and Musical chairs.    

Everyone had a great time.

Lily's favorite gift was a real camera from Pawpaw and Granny.

Matt made Lily a Teapot cake from his head. (Pictures will come on Wednesday)

Lily's actual party was on Monday. We bought her a ZU ZU pet hamster.

I only worked in the morning so that we could go to Pizza Hut for lunch.

The end of the day was the annual Lexington Parade. It was COLD. Temperature was around 28 with a gusty wind.

Amanda joined us at the parade and for about half of Lily's party.

Nancy and Tim came by straight from church to help us decorate and make the party favors and games.

I have yet to look at the pictures taken at the party but plan to post at least 5 on Wednesday.

November in Review

I know it is already the 6th of December but I needed to post this so that I stay accountable. This is not an easy blog to post but I am hoping that by posting honestly it will encourage me to continue to improve. I also have already been thinking toward January and how I want to set my goals for the coming year. They will be different from this year but I have learned that I need to be specific. Just a overall view I did awful this month in all areas.

Blogging- Goal is 5 times a week or 20 a month. This is my lowest month ever 10 post for month. No excuse, no reason.

Reading my Bible- The goal is for me to have a devotional time 5-6 times a week. One of the things that we are trying to add is a couple devotional time. I think I was able to maintain the 3 devotions a week. Not near the goal but at least something.

Preschool with Lily and Kendall- We decided to take a break from school the week we were away but still manage a good month of school. Lily is on lesson 50 with learning to read half way finished and Kendall is picking up more and more each day.

Budget-Not even going to attempt to post. We enjoyed our trip and my shopping. Budget will be one of the biggest areas for us next year! December hopefully will be much better and on to a good start of the new year.

The List

I suck at blog right now. I have 3 post in my head that I really want to get into my blog but for some reason I never have the time to get them out. We did arrive home safely from Michigan last Sunday night at around 10pm. I ended up working every day this week and even picking up extra hours at both the hospital and nursing home. It does appear that things are going to slow down on that front either this next week so I need to crave out some time for myself.

I am making the list and hopefully this week, I will be able to at least get caught up with them! Here is the list:
Saturday of quiz and Angel Food
Final Day in Michigan and the trip home..... got to love an adventure
November in Review

The other thing that I am planning is a post about Lily's birthday party that we had today as well as I need to write her birth story down. I will be posting pictures for Wordless Wednesday at least.

So now that I have the this posted maybe I will be more inclined to write a real post instead of just this list!