Disney on Ice

I walk in the house, and it is silent. The empty chairs with the tv trays sit silent. Two babies are headed to Marshall on a new adventure. One baby should be back to Bay City about now, one baby is sitting with Mom and Dad enjoying Disney on Ice, and an exhausted Grammy is sitting enjoying a cold beer reflecting on the fun weekend that has ended.

I picked up my Carissabella Friday night at http://beefobradys.com/ in Pearland. I really enjoyed dinner with Jonda, Travis, and Carissa. Carissa and I headed back to the house with her telling all about stuff. I didn't necessarily understand everything she was telling me, but must have uhhummed and nodded at the correct times. She had a Mickey Mouse hat in her bag and was very upset that the one they had bought Hunter was not in the bag. I tried to explain that Alex was staying the weekend, but wasn't going to Disney with us; so Hunter would get his hat at a later time. She was very adamant that I get Alex a hat too, now. We had a very interesting conversation that I kept trying to change the subject, and she kept bringing it back around. Alex is just coming around to staying with me without Mom and Dad, but there is no way he would do a 10 day trip with me away from Mom and Dad. He will get to go the next time around. When I hit the lottery, we will have a huge family celebration at Disney!! I finally got the Disney trip paid, and my patient Jonda called Disney and linked me in with her group. We are now a "Grand" group. She has been looking at special discounts for the "Grand" group. I have left Disney entirely in her hands. She is our Disney expert with Carissa following closely in her footsteps. Hunter is now getting excited about Disney...it is contagious.

Yesterday morning dawned gray and dreary as Carissa and I got ready to go get "the guys" as Carissa refers to her cousins Hunter and Alex. She was putting some stuff back in her suitcase and said in a matter of fact voice, "I just love that Hunter boy!". We got "the guys" picked up and stopped at Walmart to get a snow cone machine and a new lamp for their play room. Upon entering the Walmart McDonald's there was an icee machine. Immediately all three wanted blue icee's. When I placed our order, they were talking (at one time I might add). The manager taking my order told me that icee machine was broken. I made all three kids be silent and made the manager explain very slowly that his machine was broken. I guess his way of getting even with me by having to explain to them there would be no icee's was to give each one a different toy. We shopped without incident getting the lamp, snow cone machine with two blue bottles of syrup, two different green flavors and a bug juice flavor. (whatever that flavor is). We had to have carrots, dip, strawberries, grapes, cereal, peanut butter and bread. We got home and fixed peanut butter sandwiches shaped like a heart thanks to a large heart cookie cutter. They play store, cooked imaginary food, the duck game, colored, and played cars. I was amazed that there was no arguing, very little tattling, and they picked up as they moved on. I put in a cd with Bible music and could hear them singing.

They were watching Snow White when Becca called checking in. She always calls once or twice a day to see how things are going. Carissa came running into the kitchen crying. She had fallen off of the couch and had a big goose egg on the back of her head. Bumps to the head scare me. When do you take them seriously? She wanted to go to sleep. She would cry and then calm down, then start crying again. After an hour or so, I called in the troops. I wasn't sure if she needed to go to the emergency room. I didn't think I keep her awake if I did try and take her. Mommy and Daddy jumped in the car and headed to the house. It was raining cats and dogs and they were in the small car, so Travis was worried about the street being flooded. Not long before they got there she threw up. Once she threw up, she seemed better; but I was relieved when Mommy and Daddy got there. She ate part of another peanut butter sandwich and blue snow cone/icee. Daddy went into town and got her some Tylenol and he made a "magic pillow" for her to put her head on. It didn't work. Magic pillow or not, she wasn't going to put her head on it. They took it with them in the hopes that when she fell asleep on the way home, Mommy could put it on the goose egg. I talked to her this morning, and she sounded like herself.

I hear of accidents, on the news, that happen to children in the care of their grandparents. I love my babies so much that it is unimaginable the pain that these people have suffered.

I carried the boys to Disney on Ice today. They were both mesmerized by the show. We had awesome floor tickets close to the entrance of where the characters came out. I'm sure that Crystal listened to Alex all the way from West Columbia to Bay City. It is amazing the rip off of these shows, though. $10 for cotton candy, snow cone, OR lemonade. Someone would come by selling something, and Hunter would wave his hand and say,"Here, here."

All my toddlers are potted trained, but need some help in getting cleaned up sometimes. Alex is my bilingual baby, He was in the bathroom and started hollering, "Grammy, Grammy." I guess I wasn't quick enough, because he started hollering, "Ola, Ola." I had to ask my daughter today what that meant. She said that was Spanish for hello.

Every time I am with one of my babies, I get the opportunity to see something anew through their innocent eyes. No matter how bad my day might be, when I am with one of them, something comes out of the mouth of babes that totally cracks me up.

As my weekend comes to a close, it has been another wonderful weekend; because it was spent with my babies!!

LATER

Fifty Years

Easter weekend we celebrated 50 years of marriage with Odie's parent's and Hunter and Colton were dedicated in church Sunday. It was a busy, but fun weekend. When I was in my twenties, fifty seemed old. Now 90 doesn't even seem old. I think it is amazing to listen to our parents as they talk about growing up, dating, school as it was and the antics of their youth.

We started the weekend with a fish fry at Aunt Judy's lake house. There is no restaurant that can serve up fried catfish that tastes as good as what those English women can cook up.

Saturday we decorated the room down at the Marina. The food was awesome, steak, potato's, carrots, and desert. Crit and Bobbie are regulars with this restaurant. They made them a garden of chocolate cupcakes that was one of the neatest deserts I had ever seen. It was four rows of chocolate cupcakes with the seed pack standing up at the end. I had the cake made by http://local.yahoo.com/info-19119971-lindy-s-country-cupboard-cake-spring. This is the second cake I have had made at this place and everyone loves them. This time I tried their Italian cream cake. We had debated on how large of a cake we needed and finally decided to go with the larger. It's a good thing. People were coming back for seconds, and I even saw a couple hitting it for thirds.

After the party, we headed back to the lake house for some egg dying. There was a lot more than just eggs dyed by the time we were finished, but I think everyone had a good time. We had about 8 dozen plastic eggs to hide filled with money and candy. We had 2 gold and 2 silver, one for the little kids to find and one for the older kids. The kids didn't feel that they were hyped up enough on the sugar from the candy, so we needed to make snow cones! As I was churning that beautiful shaved ice out for the snow cones, two things came to mind. First, boy was I glad that I had gotten a motel room to go to once all that sugar kicked in. Second, that shaved ice would taste really good with a margarita poured over it!!

Easter morning dawned wet and dreary. One of Bobbie's requests was that all of her family go to church with them. We filled up half of the small church with Campbells. Hunter and Colton were dedicated. For Easter I got all of my babies Bibles with their names on them that should carry them into their preteen years. It was thundering and lightening as we sat through the service (probably due to the fact that all three Campbell boys were back under God's roof at one time). Hunter had black slacks with a spring light lime green shirt, plaid vest that was black with a touch of green, a tie and dress shoes. He referred to it as his costume. When we were changing his clothes, he wanted to know when he got to go to church again. He wanted to wear his "costume".

Odie and I had our fill of brisket and ham sandwiches for lunch and argued about who was going to have to drive home while the other one slept. We ended up splitting the drive and both of us getting a little Sunday afternoon nap.

LATER