Spring Break Guest Post (Grandma Peterson)

 

 

Well, this is the visual history of our week at Gessels.  Greg ended up taking 3 days off, i believe due to the fact that Christian got him hooked on the "Kill the Beasties" game online.  if i put everyother picture the one on the end of Christian and Greg, that sums up their week.  We did make it out to the Hyatt to see Don on Tuesday evening and brought pizza, which apparently is NOT on Don's heart diet.  We ate without him.  I herded kids while the rest played a board game...someone else can identify it and rank it's enjoyability.

Wednesday we mainly hung out at home, and Sarah and I went to the Relief Society birthday dinner, very yummy pulled pork and veggies.  Sarah did a batch of pulled pork and got to take home the leftovers, which we also enjoyed later.

 Thursday was supposed to be the Kid's museum, but both Caroline and Luke crashed because of all the late nights we have let them stay up.  Of course they've been up bright and early by 7:30 most days.  More games while the kids slept...I continued to quilt and watch Psych and Poirot, as well as some episodes of "Biggest Loser"  watched while Sarah was on the eliptical bike, and "Clean House"  which consisted of digging out people's houses that didn't know how to throw anything away and wouldn't put anything away what they used.  No comments from the Peanut Gallery"...my house does NOT look like anything on that show!!!  Sarah and I also washed and bleached the little girl clothes I brought (2 boxes worth)  which Sarah later picked through and kept about 1/2. The rest came home again to be further re-cycled in the future....doll clothes if nothing else. 

 

BYW, I found all of the cabbage patch dolls that I made, including Oatie just before I left for Texas.  Everyone can put their dibs.  I guess I better send pictures...to follow.

Sarah told us their favorite take out places...so we had Mexican beef fajitas on Thursday and Houston BBQ on Friday....YUUUUMMMMMY!! Thanks, Dad

Friday, Sarah and the kids went with Dad and me to the Children's museum.  It's kind of pricey ($9) but sooooo many things to do, so worth the expense I would say.  Randy was very interested in many things, and kept wandering off.  Randy had to haul Luke  away when we left 3 hours later, he really wanted to stay.

I had brought Sarah's Christmas presents, as well as Luke and Greg's birthday presents (not to mention Sarah and Caroline's birthday presents) because I didn't know when we would see them again.  I made up Star Wars bags from fabric Sarah had purchased....very cooool!

We left about 7 on Saturday morning (Christian did NOT want to go that early) because of school work still waiting for Randy, and another blizzard coming our way, starting Saturday afternoon in the mid-west.. It started raining about 1/2 way through Oklahoma, and snowing about 2 hours from home in Missouri.  Neal called to ask where we were, and he already had 1/2 an inch and it had barely started to snow on our trip.  When I called Neal this morning, church optional for us...we had 4 inches and Neal had about 10".  I doubt we have school tomorrow, because I understand the plowing is not going very fast.  It is wet, heavy snow.  I'm glad we got home when we did...but what a great vacation in Texas land, thanks to the wonderful, friendly, hospitable Gessels!

Love to all,    MOM

Easter and birthday stuff

Preschool fun

 We've had a lot of fun in preschool in the last few months. We've been to the zoo, the aquarium and had lots of fun learning at each other's houses.

Christmas 2012

Christmas was really fun in 2012. We went to Utah to spend it with Grandma Debbie, Grandpa Mark, Gary, Emilee, BJ, Miles and Chad. We got to play in the snow, visit the Sandy aquarium a few times, bowl, open presents, and hang out with relatives. Caroline, Debbie and Emilee caught the nastiest flu bug and were pretty sick for a few days. That's why Caroline is crying and has a running nose in almost every picture. She did enjoy being held by everybody and loved getting her first baby doll.

Halloween 2012

I haven't posted in a while. These are some halloween pictures that I posted on facebook but need to post on here. We went trick or treating and to a ward party. My in-laws came to visit in October. We went to the Children's Museum downtown. That place is always fun to visit.

Luke goes to school

Luke's first day of Preschool!

 He wore a spiderman pack pack that looked huge on him. (Not seen in this photo the glitter that sparkles on this manly bag)

 Luke's preschool class. Good luck to us co-op moms.

 Baby girl is now 6  1/2 months old. Crazy! She weighs 17 lbs 13 oz.

 Greg went to an Astros game and got some free hats. Note: Astros = the only team that the Royals have a good chance of beating.

 First pig tail.

 Brother sneaking in on Caroline's picture.

 What a cute girl!

 We put our kids in buckets because all the bumbo seats have been recalled. Kidding, but that's what Greg said. Now that I think about it, he said, "A white trash bumbo seat." Luke just copied Caroline for the attention.

 I made this quilt for a friend having her first girl. She needed it. I think it turned out well.

Neal, Emily, Sally, Austin, Micah and Christian came and visited us for Labor Day. We went to the beach, played games, went to the park and hung out. Poor Austin got fried by the 2 year old who can't stay still enough to get well coated by sun screen fairy. I am the worst at getting photos, so Christian with my kids is the only photo that I got. Why didn't you take more photos with Christian? You ask. Oh I took about 6 and only noticed when I downloaded them that they are all blurry. Nice.

 

August 24 Luke turned 3! Happy Birthday to my big boy. Luke knew that he was getting a garbage truck for his birthday because he found where it was stashed a few months ago and we told him it was for his birthday. So when anyone said something about his birthday, he would say, "It's a garbage truck birthday!" It may be just me, but that totally sounds a little white trash. 

He loves to pretend. He loves the show, "Fireman Sam". He'll say, "There's a Ponti Pandi fire. We need to call fireman Sam!"(Ponti Pandi is where fireman Sam lives.) He also loves to play with his garbage truck. He says, "It's trash day!" and dumps all of his toys on his bed to make it look like a trash heap. It does, so mission accomplished, I guess. 

He listens to the radio when we're in the car. He likes Carly Rae Jeppson's "Call Me Maybe," and "It's Always a Good Time" and The Wanted's "Glad You Came." When these songs come on he tells me to "turn it up." Luke is so smart and such a good brother. We love him so much!

A Busy June

This has been a busy few weeks. We had a ward luau that was a lot of work. The Young Women leaders were in charge of decorating and so I was at the church until 1 with my kids on Friday, but others stayed way longer than that. The luau was on Saturday and the decorations and entertainment were awesome. The turnout was higher than expected and the program was great. The only downside was that many people brought friends, but not extra dishes, so the food we had wasn't quite enough.
         
The week of the 11-16 of June we had girls camp. Luckily, it was only the 13-16. The Tuesday before, I was supposed to pick up Greg's mom from the airport and the electricity went out. I kinda thought there was a way to open the garage door without the electricity, but I was panicking and thinking I was stuck. Well, I got someone to agree to let me use their car as a back up and then like 20 minutes later the electricity came back on. I went to camp Wednesday and while there someone asked me if Greg was ok.(During this same week, he was at Scout camp.)Apparently he had pulled a muscle in his back and had to make a painful three hour drive home. One of the guys that wasn't going to stay at scout camp all week, had to. So that was crazy. Thursday I stayed home, as planned, and we hung out. Greg slept and tried to stay flat on his back. The sweet mercy of this injury is that his mother got to take care of him. He wouldn't have seen her at all if he hadn't hurt his back.

 Friday I went back to camp early in the morning. I had 30 girls attending camp in my ward. We had the biggest group(like 2x the next biggest ward.) My girls had been trying hard all week to get the spirit stick. Friday, they upped the anti. During lunch we performed the haka. The girls sang camp songs constantly. Actually, they only sang 2 songs over and over: "The Great Ship Titanic" and "Sipping Cider". I swear I tried to teach them other camp songs, but we'll try again next year. They didn't win the spirit award that day and were disappointed(but did win the spirit award during the camp awards for the most spirited ward for the week).

During free time I went to the "batting cage" in quotes because it was the most pitiful excuse for batting cages ever. They didn't have it set up until 20 minutes into the 30 minute slot and only had one ball that went into the machine. I then taught the girls in the pond the correct way to splash from a canoe. It's a hard life, but someone has to pass on these little used skills. I then went to the archery range where I managed to hit someone else's target during my first round. Yes, I have skills. That night we had our bishop's dinner, stake fireside and then ward testimony meeting. We actually had one of the bishop's counselors bring us pizza and some of the Young Women's Leaders brought sheets and sheets of Texas sheet cake. So we gorged ourselves physically and then spiritually. I was so glad to be able to attend some of girls camp and to tell you the truth, it wasn't as hot as it could have been.

That night I drove home exhausted and I got home around 12:30. I had talked Debbie Gessel into picking up my sister, Bonnie at the airport. Her flight came in at midnight and I knew I would be tired and probably not be a very safe driver. And again because of my husband's back injury, he could stay home with the sleeping children. I fell asleep before they got home. Saturday afternoon I went and picked up a few camp things and then took Debbie to the airport.

Sunday was father's day. I made Greg eggs and french toast and gave him Legos from the children. Our church was canceled because of fumes from the new hardwood floor they had put in that week. Greg went out of town on Monday for a week to Banff, Canada. So Bonnie and I hung out all week. Friday we went to The Woodlands Children's Museum. There was a firetruck there that you could steer or turn on its lights. There was also a pole and dress up clothes. So basically Luke spent the majority of his time there since he is obsessed with trucks but particularly firetrucks. We then went to the fountains on the waterway for about 20 minutes until Luke got bored. It was super hot and he didn't want to get wet. It suited me fine. He fell asleep on the ride home.

Saturday we went to the mall for a "children's fair", more like 5 booths. It was outside, but they did have free snow cones so that was nice. Luke ate 1/2 of his and 3/4 of my snow cones. The ladies working the snow cone place were entranced by his cuteness and gave him another snow cone and a lei. Luke got a monkey face balloon animal to wear on his wrist. We then went to the mall playground for about 10 minutes. It was a zoo there. They kicked us out to clean it so we left. Greg came home that night around 7. It was nice to see him because I had hardly seen him the previous two weeks. I had to wake up at 4 the next morning to take Bonnie to the airport. We had so much fun with her and I'm glad she had a week off to come visit us.

Sunday our ward got split. It seemed like a stake conference the way there were people all the way to the stage. It was sad. I was so certain I'd be in the new ward that I had prepared to say bye to those people but not the others, mentally. But they kind of cut around our subdivision and we are right on the border. I do know that the split was inspired so that makes me feel good about it. I do feel bad about our Young Women that was split in half. Luke is doing well in his potty training. He has the basics down. I just have to remind him sometimes to go pee pee so he doesn't get so caught up in playing that he has an accident. Going poo was a little harder for him to get down, until we started offering popsicles and candy as rewards for it.

Baby girl went in for her 4 month check up yesterday. Caroline weighs 15 lbs 7.5 oz (90%,)is 24 1/4 inches (50%,) and her head is 16 1/2 inches (75%). She tried rice cereal yesterday for the first time, and, no shock, didn't love it. She rolls from back to front and then cries 'cause she doesn't like tummy time. She came out with a bunch of bonnie brown hair but the sides and back were wearing thin, so we decided to give her a haircut. It is basically a mohawk. On the one hand it doesn't look awesome, but it didn't look great before.