Best Sleepover

 So......Melissa and Adam had a much needed "Getaway" weekend.....while Owa and Bapo (Adam's parents) and I played tag team watching their kids....I got first shift, Friday night to Saturday afternoon.   Now, it was a beautiful day, and while I made dinner for the brood, they played in my back yard.  Now, my back yard is no paradise, but I didn't think it was all dirt.  However, Annalie came in OBVIOUSLY having made a few mud pies and EATEN them, and the rest of the kids came in looking like "Pigpen" from Charlie Brown.  So after dinner, bath time was desperately needed.  This is what the tub looked like after 4 pitifully dirty children got clean.

 This is what the pitifully dirty children looked like after their bath.  Here they are all squeaky clean and getting ready to unwind.  Now our tradition at my house, is to watch the classic bedtime show....ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE!  No kidding.   Abigail started this tradition, don't know why, but they seem to find the classic comedy stylings of 1960's cold war comedy soothing, and they find it cute and funny.  Abigail says Rocky is sweet and Bullwinkle is naive!  Pretty astute!  During this time, painfully honest Abigail also told me that they probably should not play in our back yard any more because they broke one of the bushes......hummmm.....will have to remember to go back there tomorrow to see what she meant.

 Annalie actually slept in the "sewing room"....I was afraid to go in and take her photo for fear of waking her.  She actually surprisingly went down really easy and was the first to fall asleep.  This was her first time to stay over, so we weren't really sure how it would go over.  But it went really well.  Jude was the next one to fall asleep.  He decided it was best for him to sleep on my couch.

 Micah and Abigail had a little harder time falling asleep.  I finally put on some classical music and that did the trick.  Micah apparently decided the floor was the best place for him, while Abigail had the blow up mattress all to herself.  She was sleeping with "Teddy", which was her mother's comfort sleeping companion while she was growing up.  So "Teddy" is a second generation comforter.

 Annalie was the first to wake up.  She is having the well rounded breakfast of donuts and banana and milk.  Breakfast of champions.  She is getting over a bad staph infection, was terribly sick last weekend, but could not be happier on this morning.

 Here are Abigail and Micah enjoying their breakfast of champions.  I had bought the kids new pajamas and outfits for their time with me.  I was excited about Abigail's jammies....if you can't tell it is a picture of a Pommeranian, which is their dog Annie, on the shirt.  We had to move out, because Abigail's dance team had their dress rehearsal at 10 am.

 After, dress rehearsal, we had lunch at Firehouse Subs.  The kids devoured their lunch there.  Guess the donut and banana did not stick to their ribs....Now a little background on the names Owa and Bapo.  While Adam was stationed in Germany, they thought it would be cute for Adam's parents to be called Oma and Opa, the german equivalent of Grandma and Grandpa...well 1 year old Abigail could not say that, so Owa and Bapo is what they became, which is classic.  I was always Grandma, but she could not say that, so I was christened GaGa.  I should have copywriter the name....who knew Lady GaGa would be such a sensation!  She could be paying me for the right to use that name!

This is Annalie about 1 minute after the above photo was taken.  She could not hold out any longer and just had to take a nap!  She did not even wake up when I transferred her to the car.  While we had lunch, Owa had called and she was ready to take the kids, so we drove to the Page House, I handed off the kids and came home and took a 3 hour nap.....because while everyone else slept, Allie and I did not sleep all that well....but I was so happy to have had this time.  These kids are so precious, and I thank God everyday that we live close and I get to be a part of their lives!  But that being said, four kids is a real handful, and I am relieved to know that 9 months from this weekend we will not be welcoming a fifth Best Child into the family....I would have to get a bigger house!

SNOW!

It does not snow very often in Austin, and so it is amazing that we got snow last year AND this year...and even though by posting this I may be discouraging my California brother and his Florida/California wife from moving here....it is still very exciting for us.  I am fortunate that I can work from home, so I didn't have to get out in it, but it still looks beautiful!

Annalie

Little Annalie....what a cutie!  She was having Jessie from Toy Story 2/3 riding Bullseye from Toy Story 2/3, and making clucking noises for the horse!  It was so cute....I tried to catch it on video for posterity sake, but did not get a good video of it.  I did get a cute photo though!  I have to say, all my grandchildren are remarkable, I am one lucky GaGa!

Movie Review - Mongol

Based on a recommendation from my brother Frank and his wife Cheryl, I watched a Chinese movie about Genghis Khan.  Now, I only recommend this movie to you if you like movies with subtitles.....but even if you don't like movies with subtitles, you might like this movie, as this is a BEAUTIFUL movie!  Reminded me of the sweeping beauty that was also Dances with Wolves.....but was not like Dances with Wolves at all.....now I have to say, I know very little about Genghis Khan, only that he was very violent.  However this movie does not show him in that light.  This is a movie that begins with him as a boy, and takes him to the beginning of his reign (which possibly was a reign of terror, but you would not know that from THIS movie).  His father died, possibly of natural causes, but could have been poisoned by an enemy.  After his father died, the men in his tribe tried to kill him (he was 10 years old), and he found a way to escape.  Throughout this movie, he was captured, enslaved (several times) and he found a way to escape....he picked his bride at 10, and according to this movie, all of the choices he made was to help him unite with her and to protect his family.  They portray him to be very devoted to his wife, and that she gave him very good counsel, and that he was a devoted protector of his family and his people.  In this movie he seemed to have a very gentle spirit.  Now this does not mesh with what we know from our history books, and who is to say who is the REAL Genghis Khan?  The one thing he had in common with most people who go down in history as "great", is that he had a lot of suffering in his life, had to endure a lot of hardship, which actually strengthened him.  This is what I have to learn....to not complain about my minor "miseries", and not to run and hide from the trials life brings, but to use these things to make me a better and stronger person.  I am coming to learn that most of the historical figures I have admired (no Genghis Khan is not one of them), were very flawed human beings, with lots of "baggage", who had many trials they had to overcome.  That weakness, failure and setbacks are not necessarily the things that define your life, but can be the things that strengthen you to become more than you would have been without them!  Every single person God has used to do great things falls in this category, (no one was more flawed than King David, and yet God said he had a heart after His own heart).  I am learning God does not expect perfection out of me, and that my expectation of perfection of myself is probably holding me back from obtaining the best God has to offer me....wow.....pretty profound for a review of a Chinese movie!

Rebecca Claire

 Rebecca was born Sept 14 and died on Jan 28 of SIDS.  I thought this morning it had been 30 years, but realized it was 29 actually.....not that that really matters.  Melissa was born almost 10 months to the day from the day she passed away.  All the girls looked exactly alike as infants, and sometimes I have to look at my hairstyle in the picture to realize which baby it is.  But Rebecca had the strongest personality of all my babies.  She really let you know when she was happy or unhappy.  She was not very patient, but as soon as she got what she wanted she was totally satisfied.

 She was a squirmer when she slept (back at that time tummy sleeping was supposed to "prevent" SIDS).....I had to put her at the end of the crib and she would scoot all the way to the top and then wake herself up when she couldn't scoot any more.  She would begin to squirm and fuss, and all I had to do was put her back at the bottom of the crib so she could begin scooting again, and she would be happy and satisfied and go right back to sleep.

 Rebecca was the only one of my children where I had to go back to work when she was 6 weeks old.  So I didn't get to breast feed her as long as I did Sarah and Melissa. When I would feed her with the bottle, she would hold my pinkie finger while she ate.  It was so sweet.

This is the last picture we took of her, this was Sunday on our way to church.  The next Sunday we had her funeral.  She stopped breathing while taking a nap at daycare, I was at work.  The babysitter was able to do CPR and got her heart started, which is unusual for a SIDS death.  Her heart was strong and kept beating until the next day.  She died on a Friday (just like today is a Friday).  The hardest thing was telling Sarah, she was soooo proud to be a big sister.  I still can cry thinking about sweet Sarah asking if she was still a big sister when we told her Rebecca had died.  The hardest thing I still have to face is answering the question how many kids I have.  It always makes me pause (I'm sure the questioner must think I'm an idiot not knowing how many kids I have if the notice the pause), but if I say 3, and they ask more details about the girls, it makes them feel bad when I talk about Rebecca.  But if I say 2 I always feel guilty for leaving her out.  You would think by this time I would have figured out how to answer such a basic question, but I have not.

Where has the time gone?

 Angel got married!  Unbelievable!  I mean really, she was just in High School!  She was the most exuberant bride I have ever seen!  And she got married in the same chapel Melissa and Adam got married in, so it was very nostalgic!

 So here are the girls, minus Stevie, including Chris....what a beautiful bunch of women.  Gotta love them.

 Now I'm adding my 2 other girls, and my favorite photos EVER of them.  Addison is watching the wedding, and you can see her planning/dreaming of her own wedding.

Here is Abigail during one of the prayers.  Is there anything more precious?

Visitors

 My brother John and his significant other Oro just completed their week and a half visit to Austin.  Unfortunately, the weather while they were here was less than cooperative, it was cold and overcast the whole time, which limited my California family from enjoying the sights and sounds of Austin.  Fortunately this was not the first time they had visited, so they were ok with sitting in our living room playing Wii and watching movies.  We did go to dinner the last night they were here to Fonda San Miguel.  This was a restaurant that John found on the internet and wanted to try.  Sarah and Mike had been there the year before and RAVED about it.

 We went with only the 3 oldest of the 6 grandchildren in tow.  I have to say, it made a BIG difference.  The adults, especially the parents, really could relax and enjoy the food.  We had wonderful appetizers, dinner and dessert with some adult beverages sprinkled in....it was good food, better company.  It was a nice way to end the visit.  The restaurant was BEAUTIFUL too. Very relaxing, and the service was WONDERFUL!  Another thing we did while they were here was have a barbecue taste off.  John found 2 places he wanted to compare (based on Food Network programs he had seen), so we compared Green Mesquite to Salt Lick.  Salt Lick won....hands down.

We did not get many photos with John and Oro, unfortunately.  Here is one quickly taken with the best kids.  You can see how happy Jude was to have this photo taken!  The kids enjoyed playing Wii with Uncle John, AKA Uncle Fuzzy.  Oro was not feeling well the whole time she was here but was a trooper and hung in there!  I think they did get to watch some DVD's they were interested in.  They watched the latest Star Trek movie, Oro is a big Star Trek geek, just like me.  John tolerated the movie.  They watched how William Shatner changed the world, which is a cute Star Trek geek documentary.  They watched Zodiac, which I think is a great movie, but they ended watching the Beatles Anthology, almost got through all of the material, and liked it so much they were going to buy it!  Now this is a miracle, because I don't think I know anyone tighter with their money than these two!  Not that that is a bad thing, but I'm thrilled that they liked something enough here that they wanted to go home and buy it!