I Got Left Alone!!

Everybody done got up and left me!  And look, Brooke's even happy about it!  They just went away for the extended weekend for fall break. We had a pretty travel heavy summer, so I had to sit either this one out, or Christmas, and Monica wouldn't let me stay home for Christmas!  Monica and the kids flew out to Utah Friday morning to spend time with her family, and we'll come back to their fun once we get through the week.

How do you know if a kid was raised in Texas?  Well, one way might be that they put things in the freezer they want to snuggle with.  It's not too uncommon to see Rainbow, Grayson's snake, chilling in the freezer these days.  We're not even in the hottest part of summer anymore.  Rainbow goes in there basically daily, and his blanket finds it's way in anytime he has a reason he can bring it out of his room.

Grayson had firefighters come to preschool this week and learned all about fire safety.  I'm really glad they do this at schools because Grayson has been telling us all about it, and it makes me realize that he's definitely old enough to know and understand things like this, but I've never thought to talk to him about it.  He had fun getting a look at the firetruck, and I think he said they got to go up on the ladder even, but maybe it was really just that a firefighter was on it and they extended him out high.

Brooke has been enjoying homeschool still.  I'll be honest, I don't know a lot of what's going on.  I know we got some curriculum books, and she's been enjoying it greatly.  Hopefully Monica has as well...

I thought this was a really cute picture of Grayson so I decided to throw this one in too.  I feel like he's much happier with holding pens/pencils/makers correctly and drawing and coloring this year.  That's great, because last year he really resisted drawing because he didn't want to draw if he couldn't draw it well.

Volleyball is still going well for Grayson and Winry, though Grayson isn't enjoying it as much as before.  He likes bumping, but he doesn't really want to try new things. So as they're trying to move on to serving, etc. he doesn't want to participate.  I think if we play more at home it'll help, so long as he wants to.

On Friday morning, Monica and the kids headed off bright and early for the airport, and then on to Utah.  They went out for fall break and to spend some time with Melanie and family, who has moved back from India.  Here they all are making haunted houses.

They went for a hike in the mountains, and oh my goodness!  There is nothing like this in Texas!  So pretty.  It's not even fair.  It looks like Grayson had a great time climbing over these trees!

And here's Brooke and Winry with Anaya, just enjoying nature.

And the sisters reunited once more!

Friday night I had a LAN party at our house since everyone was gone.  It was a ton of fun.  Six people ended up being able to make it, and we played a slew of games including Smash Bros. and Halo.

On Saturday, everyone went to a BYU Volleyball game.  The kids absolutely loved it.  They were dancing their hearts out to try to get on the jumbotron, and were so excited when they did!!  Also, Cosmo came right up to see them.

After the game, the kids got to walk around campus a little, and they got snacks from a vending machine, which included BYU's own chocolate milk!  Yum.  I'm only super jealous!

But guess what they missed out on?  Jelly sniffing something on the bottom of a chair...  Not sure what was there, but she was standing like this for quite a while.

On Sunday, the kids missed the (second) primary program AND the linger longer, but I planned ahead.  Homemade bread seemed like a good call, because I still wanted to make some, but I wasn't going to eat a whole loaf all on my own!

I've been really tired this weekend.  It could be staying up late Friday for the LAN party and Saturday for the BYU game. So I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but I am drained.  In fact, when I got home from church, I sat down for a second and immediately fell asleep, and woke up around 6 to find out that I missed my family call AND missed getting invited to dinner!...  I'm not sure my nap was quite that good...  The rest of the family gets home on Tuesday, so I just need leftovers to make it a little longer!  Unintentionally, I haven't actually had to cook at all, other than Saturday morning breakfast for those who spent the night, and it doesn't look like I'm going to have to either.  Pretty easy going.