Memorial Day weekend

We had a very nice, and busy Memorial Day weekend this year. We kicked off the weekend by going to the library in the morning, then out to lunch with Curt at McDonald's. They enjoyed playing in the Playplace for a while! Friday night, I got the evening off to go scrapbooking at a scrapbook store with a friend. Saturday, the kids had a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa Niebuhr. We heard that they played in the sprinkler and did lots of outside things. Brian and I had a great day Saturday, too. We went to Omaha to see Wicked at the Orpheum theater, then out for dinner at one of our faves, PF Chang's. It was all good! The kids did spend the night at the Niebuhrs on Saturday, but came home early in the morning, because we packed up the car and went to Superior for the day. We hadn't been to Superior since Christmastime. So, it was a nice trip. We ate lunch with my grandparents, then played at the park. It was the first time I had been at the park in a LONG time and let me tell you, not much had changed! There was still almost all the same equipment there that I logged a lot of hours on as a kid. Crazy to see my kids playing on it now. They did have fun, though. After a quick nap, we got swimming suits on and went to my parents' cabin on Lovewell Lake in Kansas. The kids got to swim and play on the "beach" (a little rocky cove a couple of cabins down) and the best part was the motorboat ride. Grandpa let them each drive for a while, and Xander was VERY angry he didn't get to drive more than once. He pouted for several hours, then said all the way home "I only got to drive once, but I needed to drive twice." Crazy kid. We got home late Sunday night, around 11. Luckily, the kids did sleep in the car a little. Monday morning was spent at aunt Lisa and uncle Chad's house helping finish their new swingset. The kids (and I) took LONG naps on Monday, then we had pizza and movie night Monday evening. Everyone slept really well that night.

Part of the reason I was so tired on Monday is that I went to a healthclub down the street, Madonna ProActive, at 5 am (that's right folks, 5 AM!) to sign up the kids for swimming lessons. I have a couple of friends that work there and apparently there is always a mad rush to sign up kids for lessons early on the first day. And, since there are only a couple of classes at our level and there are only 4 kids to a class, I decided I needed to go sign up right away. And luckily, I was one of the first ones to sign up. So, the kids are good for swimming lessons starting on June 9th. Jessi went with me and we actually ended up working out right then, so I was home, showered and had breakfast all before 7 a.m. Wouldn't you know that it would be the day the kids would sleep until 8 am!?!

We haven't really slowed down the pace once the workweek started. Tuesday we went to the Children's museum in the morning. It was a cool rainy day, with no chance for outside play. Then we headed to the mall for more playing and lunch with Emalea, Hannah and Haylea. Wednesday, they went to Grandma's a little earlier than usual in the morning, because I took my car in to get serviced. So, maybe we'll take it easy Thursday and Friday. It is supposed to get warm this weekend, so I think we may be heading to Madonna for some swimming in their awesome outdoor pool. Fun!

A funny thing about Grace. We have to be really careful about the conversations we have with her around now. As we were driving to Superior, we were listening to a Veggie Tales CD. I commented to Brian that one person did two very distinctive voices, an angel and Junior Asparagus, on the CD and how interesting I thought it was that she could make her voice sound so different. Well, the next day, the same song came back around on the CD and Grace announced to me that the angel's voice was Junior Asparagus' voice. She listened to our entire conversation and repeated it back to me. She is definitely paying attention to everything around her. I did hear her call someone a "poopy head" the other day. (They heard a big boy at McDonald's on Friday say it.) Xander announced to me that she called him a poopy head and that the boy from McDonald's taught it to her. Luckily, I only heard her do it once. Brian dropped the f-bomb with Grace sitting right beside him last week, so let's hope she doesn't repeat that! Naughty daddy!

Will is still logging many hours a day as a cat, and Xander is still being very stubborn and slow moving lately. That pretty much sums up the boys this last week. We were doing better with Will about waking up dry or nearly dry, so I thought we were moving in the right direction. But he's had a bit of a intestinal virus this week, and we've had some trouble with diarrhea and now we're going a little backwards in that department. So, I'm going to really work on him in the month of June. My goal is to have both boys dry all night by the time school starts in August!

I guess that's all for now. Sorry this got so long! We have big plans next week. It's our first family vacation! We're either very brave or very crazy for taking 3 3-year-olds on a vacation, but we are. I'll give you pics and details when we get back next weekend. Take care!