Santa Clause.....uhm....I mean OPA JED is coming to town!!!

We were so excited to have Opa Jed and aunt Connie fly in from Ohio to spend a few days with us last week. For the visit we put Elizabeth in our bedroom and let the three older girls sleep together, so that Opa Jed could sleep in Victoria's bed. The girls were very anxious and pretty upset when I told them they couldn't come to the airport with me, because the plane would be coming in way after bedtime. Victoria was very concerned and questioned me about who would "tell Opa Jed everything he needed to know" about her room (I guess there was some important information she didn't trust I could properly relay to him about appropriate use of her bed, stuffed animals and dresser). And yes, of course he had to sleep with Victoria's very own special princess pillow :-) Hey, he is the Opa of four granddaughters, so he might as well get used to it now, right?

We had a great time visiting and running around doing fun stuff. The first day we went to the carousel in Missoula and of course convinced Opa Jed and aunt Connie that they couldn't just watch, but actually had to get on the horse to have the full experience. I don't think they believed me when I said they were gonna hold on for dear life (it IS one of the fastest carousels in the United States, you know....), after all how fast could a little kids' carousel really go, right? Well, Opa Jed was dizzy after just one round and got off with Elizabeth, who seemed a little freaked out as well. After a few more rounds we went home to play with the toys Opa Jed had let the girls pick out. Josie and Katie both picked the same barbie "dog wash" (you know, like the "Poochie boutique" in Missoula), Elizabeth went with a green singing leap frog bear (not "frog"), but Victoria picked a remote control motorcycle! It took her about five minutes to figure out that even more fun than chasing her little sisters with the motorcycle was to let it jump off the stairs from our second level hallway. She would let the poor guy on the motorcycle crash and burn and then run down there to hug him and whisper:"Oh oh, I'm so sorry, honey, I just don't know how to stop the motorcycle yet."

We also went to the farmer's market where Connie bought 5 different kinds of garlic that she send home to herself in a package, while Opa Jed fell in love with all the specialty cheeses. We had fun playing at Dragon Hollow playground and cooked up some delicious bison burgers that night when Torrey's parents Dave and Sharon came over to hang out. Before they left they even got to take the girls to school with me and see their new building and meet teacher Linda and teacher Gena.

Turns out Opa Jed has some mad skills when it comes to reading books to the girls. He was very good at pretending that he was just as excited as they were to read "Dora the Explorer at the dentist" for the 17th time. Even though we did a lot of fun stuff, my favorite moment was seeing all the girls piled up on their Opa in Victoria's bed, getting a kick out of him making funny voices while reading to them.

Have fun checking out some of the pictures I took during the visit and leave a comment if you feel so inclined (also if you don't feel so inclined, because really that's why I'm blogging, you know!!).

Back to school!

Josephine, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Victoria the night before school started with their German Schultueten. It's a German tradition to give our school kids these decorated paper cones filled with candy and school supplies.

I feel a little amputated this morning. It is the third day of pre-school for our three older girls, Victoria, Josephine and Katherine. This morning I dropped them off at the bus at 7:45am and was already exhausted. Stuffing "limp noodle" kids into their clothes in the wee hours of the morning is about as easy as nailing jello to a tree. Before school started I had these visions of a clean house, sweaty work outs, made from scratch dinners, me time and more. It hasn't happened yet. Instead I watch the clock for when it's time to go pick them up again, or waste time on the internet. I am still adjusting and trying to fight the urge to just get pregnant with another baby to fill the silence ;-)

Our littlest one, Elizabeth, loves to have me to herself. She doesn't seem to mind one bit that all her sisters are gone half the day. As soon as we get home from dropping off the older ones, she starts singing and dancing and putting on variety shows for me.....She's loving the one on one attention for sure.

While I love the headstart program our girls are attending, and am grateful for some time to catch up on chores, I do miss spending all day with my girls. They are hilariously funny and more spiritually in tune than I am most days.

Of course, they're also just crazy 3 and 4 year olds, whose logic often eludes me......like many of you I have wondered why it seems reasonable to a toddler to, say, flush a toothbrush down the toilet or lick the dust of the TV.

The other day, Torrey and I bought a memory foam mattress. Because it was used, whe took the cover off of it to wash it first, so when we put it on our boxspring to try it out, it was just the plain foam with no cover and no sheets. The girls of course were crawling and climbing and jumping all over the bed as well. Finally we asked them to get off, so we could test the mattress by ourselves. They were all standing around the bed, while we were relaxing for, oh it must have been at least 37 seconds, when I sat up to find Josie and Katie biting big chunks out of the foam.

In 37 seconds they had almost worked their way through the top foam pad, spitting out the chunks before taking another mouthful. I stared at them in disbelief, way beyond words, when Torrey jumped out of bed and dragged them into their room for time out. When I heard him yelling: "We just got this new bed, and you're eating it???!!!! Arrrggghhh!" Aaaahh, words I never thought I'd hear in my life time. Kids will change that.

By now I had lost all control over trying to be the serious, firm mommy and was shaking with hysterical laughter. In an attempt to not confuse our oldest daughter Victoria further, I buried my face in my hands, just as my husband came back into the bedroom. He sat down and patted with on the back to comfort me, when he realized I wasn't crying.

Later when we sat the girls down for the obligatory "We just can't have nice things"-talk, Josie explained to us in best 3 year old logic the reason for the apparent "misunderstanding". She informed us plainly that after their nap they had been hungry for a snack and thought it was safe to take a bite, after hearing us talk about our new "bread". Well, I guess it rhymes with new bed, but come on! We still have yet to decide whether we think they just made up some elaborate excuse to not get into as much trouble. We might never know. What we do know is that this is one of those priceless stories that will keep getting funnier every Thanksgiving :)