Enough Already

Enough already with the weather!

We are really enjoying the cool temps that come with it and thankfully we've not had significant damage. We are all safe. We have a (leaky) roof over our heads. Our home and trees are still upright. Our vehicles are drivable. The only real downside for us is that we'll end up doing the bulk of the needed repairs out of pocket. Hopefully that will occur this week!

Ellie, our up and coming Meteorologist, even said a prayer of thanksgiving for our safety as she lit a candle during Church service Sunday morning. She's really been on top of the weather reports lately. Thankfully this has helped calm her fears a bit. Though listening to her tell Grandpa & Yia Yia about our leaky roof, you'd think that our entire roof was about to cave in.

But many others have not been so lucky and the damage has been intense.

We had been planning to attend an outdoor concert and firework show on Friday evening, but we knew bad weather was headed our way. We had been in touch with our friends throughout the day to talk about the status of the weather and what we should do. We toyed with the idea of putting blankets out as recommended by organizers and then stay away and under shelter until the storm had passed. But we also didn't want to deal with all the soggy blankets on top of tired kiddos at 11:00 at night. Logically, if the weather report was right, it made sense to stay clear from the park until after the storm had passed. It was supposed to hit our area between 4 and 6:00. The concert was to kick off at 6:00 with fireworks at 10:00. But it was just killing us to hold tight. It was an incredibly beautiful day! It was a top 10 day until the storm hit!

We did hold out and I'm so glad we did. The storm came in fast and hard at 4:30ish and hit the north side of town (where I work and where the park is) really hard. They claim it wasn't a tornado, "just" straight-line winds. I've learned more about straight-line winds this season than ever before.

Trees - large large trees - are down all over the place. The ground is so saturated that these huge 100 year old trees have been totally uprooted from the ground. And this time, the heavy storm path went through our older part of town. People have intense hail damage where the hail was launched like bullets from a gun. At work, water was streaming through the top of our closed fire door. I was on the phone with Carie just as it hit us and we could no longer hear what each other was saying... except, stay put! Once it moved on, the few of us remaining headed to our vehicles and headed home. A mid-sized tree had fallen but thankfully it missed the vehicles in our lot, if only barely. Down the street, co-workers weren't as lucky. Before we could actually go anywhere we had to uncover our vehicles from the piles of leaves plastered to every possible surface. I removed the bulk of the leaves before heading home, but even after driving on the interstate I still had a significant amount of leaves remaining on my car. Leaves were lodged in places that required us to pull them out piece by piece.

Needless to say, all events were cancelled.

Suddenly it was a stay at home night and we found ourselves starting our big project for the weekend. No rest for the weary, I guess!

All Good

Upon the dentist’s request, Abby had her appointment this morning.

Turns out, it is all good. According to the dentist, she just hurried Mother Nature along. Everything is healthy and nothing is damaged. Her permanent tooth is behind it and ready to come in.

He predicts that the tooth will fall out before her regular check up next month. I hope Abby is okay with it not falling on the 2nd day of 1st grade!

Ellie continues to lobby for a loose tooth.

Poop Basics

Some would say the boy is "potty trained". We would say we are "parent trained".

He has no qualms about going potty in the potty. At home or away from home. The big potty. Standing up. We have even gotten used to the whole standing up requirement. Even the part where he thinks it is okay to not lift the toilet seat or better yet, lift it mid stream.

He even, on occasion, wakes up dry and then takes way too long (for my comfort level) to actually get to the bathroom to do his thing. All the while I imagine just how much pee he has stored up inside of him and how I really need him to stop being distracted.

As long as we keep on top of asking him to use the restroom he can stay dry all day. As long as he/they are in the routine, all is good. He doesn't need our assistance once he gets to the bathroom, but getting there is another story. If we are out of routine, all is still good as long as we escort him to the restroom on a certain interval. If we don’t, he is wet. Guaranteed. I can easily count on one hand the number of times he has initiated the potty effort. We’ve been doing this routine for months. Seems that we, the parents, train well! I'm hoping this will change soon, but honestly he could care less if he is wet.

The other part of this is, of course, the whole "poop training". Just like he doesn't care if he is wet, he could care less if he stinks.

As I was cleaning his stinky bottom the other day we talked about where poop comes from and where poop should go. He knows where poop should go. The first thing he does upon entering the restroom is announce "poop goes in the potty!"

So I ask him - "Spencer, where does your poop come from?"

Spencer - "From my toes!"

Perhaps we need to back this effort up a few steps and re-address the basics.

First Loose Tooth

We have our first loose tooth in the house.

Ellie has been lobbying for a few weeks now that she has a loose tooth. Every time we check the tooth of the day, it isn't at all loose.

Abby has the first loose tooth and unfortunately it didn't come about naturally. Somehow her mouth met the counter and knocked it loose this afternoon... just as I was out buying corn on the cob for dinner. It is clear that it is coming out soon. How, I don't know. Abby thinks it would be cool to lose it on the 2nd day of 1st grade. It would be a miracle if it didn't come out before then.

Her Dentist would like to see her so we'll soon get his opinion on how things look. Ultimately I don't think it is a big deal and I kind of hope that he pulls it... it is that loose. It is clear that she is not interested in having us pull it! She just turned 6 and ultimately I'd presume that if it were going to fall out on its own, it would do so in the relatively near future.

What I really hope is that this isn't the baby tooth that doesn't have a permanent tooth behind it! This really is my biggest worry. Carie and I are pretty sure it isn't, but neither of us can remember for certain. I'm not ready to deal with that, but when does parenting give us things that we are ready to deal with?

Helloooooo Summer

The first day of summer... no wonder it hadn't felt like summer yet.

The girls are enjoying their first season of baseball. But don't say baseball in front of them, they are adamant it is "softball". Totally makes sense to me!

But "officially" it is "coach pitched baseball" and half of the baseball team is their soccer team. Hence how we came to experience baseball to begin with. The girls are enjoying playing with their soccer friends. Spencer is enjoying hanging out with his soccer buddies (the other siblings).

Their coaches are great, a husband and wife team who take coaching these kids very seriously. It is quite the change from our soccer experience that has been more recreational thus far. We’ve had great experiences in both programs, just vastly different. The fact that the husband is retired (injured) from the SWAT team and the wife is still on the police force after 15 years of service might have something to do with their personalities and approach. I’m very thankful for their time and dedication to these kids. We’ve had nothing but awesome – role model type – experiences with all of our coaches.

Nothing Like A Good Rain

First Harvest

Last night the kids were able to pick their first harvest of the season. They have been watching the plants grow day to day and reporting any notable growth.

They were so dang excited with their harvest that I suggested they take their 8 green beans and 2 sugar snap peas inside and eat them for a snack, and that they did. We eat both with some regularity and they are forever picking the pea out of the shell and we are forever asking them to try the whole thing. But not last night! It might be the first time they actually ate the entire sugar snap pea… and we didn’t even say anything! Amazing how growing your own vegetables entices you to broaden your horizons!

I anticipate that being the case with tomatoes this year as well. Last year I was reluctant to plant any of the standard garden veggies, well, because I seemed to be the only one in our family that actually liked tomatoes. No need to plant one - or many - plants just for me, thanks. But I was proven wrong and it seemed that tomatoes were okay to eat as long as they grew them and picked them. I'm hoping that will be the case again this year.

So given last year’s semi-success with our half effort in raising a garden, we opted to do it again this year and expand it a bit. Meaning… this required some re-landscaping and moving of stuff to make room for said garden. Prior to kids we had a garden and did fairly well. Then we had twins and it just hadn't happened since. Gee, I don't know why! This year we seem to be making time for a vegetable garden but our flower gardens are screaming for attention.

Ellie was really interested and involved in the garden process and selecting what we were going to plant. Her top requests were strawberries and green peppers. Oddly, she was stuck on green peppers though we did try and persuade her to other pepper varieties. She wasn't having any of it, so green it was.

In the main garden we planted different varieties of tomatoes, a green pepper, cucumbers, cantaloupe, green beans, and sugar snap peas. Unfortunately both cantaloupe plants are gone, thanks in part to bunnies and/or hail. We held out hope that they would survive but that clearly is not going to happen. One of the green bean plants doesn't look so hot but oddly has produced a couple of green beans. I guess we'll see how it holds up and hope that the other two produce nicely. Everything else is growing great.

With Ellie’s top request being strawberries, we also started a strawberry patch. I'm happy to report that they are doing quite well. Surprisingly we are getting strawberries! I know that may sound odd, but I've heard that you don't get much of a crop the first or even second season. The strawberries we have gotten have been enjoyed by the bunnies, but at least they are (mostly) leaving the plants alone. I hope that remains true through this season and the plants are able to come back next year.

Father's Day

Even though we are a 2-mom family, we still recognize and celebrate this holiday. Carie called her dad to wish him a great Father's Day, we sent many cards to him though they will arrive quite late (because we suck), we sent cards to my Grandpa (again, late), and we had dinner with my family... my parents, my brothers & their families. It was another great opportunity to witness our unbelievable family dynamics and dysfunctions. We continue to be amazed and we wish it could be so very different.

Since we were headed to Lincoln for the majority of the day anyways (thanks to the nap schedule), I suggested leaving a bit earlier to get some fun family time in. The plan (made at 10pm Saturday night) was to head to the Children's Zoo. A place we really enjoy going and it opens in the morning unlike our other favorite spots that don't open until noon or 1.

That morning we woke to a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, pounding rain, and a bit of hail. Clearly we should have checked the weather before coming up with our plan. Hmm... now what? After wasting too much time checking the weather report, we decide to get ready to go and leave town as planned. After all, everything was packed and ready to go. Any responsible parent packing for a day trip with young kids knows the effort going into packing and preparing.

The kids woke up in incredible moods! Hooray! It was so nice to have happy children in the morning. That didn't last long before the complaining ensued. I remember one point in our drive where I was all like... "Seriously, is this attitude really necessary or at all beneficial to anyone?" Stellar parenting on my part, I know. But seriously! Weather wise, once we get going it appeared that the sky was clearing off and it turned out to be an incredible morning and the most perfect day to go to the zoo. We arrived to our destination and everyone was ready to have fun.

They were very excited that the butterfly garden was open!












Ticklish spot...













Don't squash that butterfly...

















After our morning adventures, we headed to my parents house to get the stinky children cleaned up and get Spencer his much needed nap. The kids had some good downtime and enjoyed playing with their cousin while Carie and I got some food ready to take to dinner (to my brother's house) and were able to relax a bit ourselves.

After Spencer's nap we headed over to my brother's house for dinner. We ate, chatted for a bit, cleaned up, got the kids into their jammies, and hit the road for home. They were all tired. It was early, but still approaching bedtime. We opted to not use any video entertainment which sent one sassy girl into quite the fit while the other girl fell asleep. This does happen to be the same sassy girl previously mentioned. This has been going on for a bit now and we are ready to move out of this phase. The boy was lobbying for us to comply with his sister's demands. Suffice it to say, no one was really happy.

The Swing Of Summer

We are well into summer activities, even though it really doesn't (to me) feel like summer. I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel like summer yet.

After having a week long break, the girls' started summer school. They just finished up week 1, and they absolutely love it. They've got 2 more weeks of fun ahead of them before moving onto the next summer activity, swimming lessons.

This summer school is pretty cool. Until recently, we didn't realize that there were different types of summer schools offered within our district. Carie and I refer to them as the "fun" summer school and the "mandatory" summer school. The girls' K teachers looked at us like we were nuts for signing them up for summer school until we told them what classes they chose. We kinda got the impression that they didn't even know about the "fun" summer school. Maybe because they are teaching the "mandatory" summer school? The kids go from Monday - Thursday and just in the morning. They still get to have free play at home all afternoon.

I have to say that I'm very excited about Abby's choice of classes... Fizzing Liquids & Math. Every day this week they have done fun experiments, some we've done at home and some not. Each day they get cooler! We thought the list of requested supplies was fascinating. It will be so much fun to see what they do over the next couple of weeks.

I'm not at all disappointed in Ellie's class, it just doesn't sound as fun as what Abby is doing. To me, summer should be all about fun! Ellie chose... reading and math. I do look forward to this continuation of reading experience to help build her self esteem. She is an excellent reader; she just needs to be reminded of that. Unfortunately (for Ellie), Abby can read anything you put in front of her (according to her teacher) and Ellie isn't quite at that level and thinks she should be. Most importantly, Ellie is quite excited about her class and she is having a great time. Though I'm not so sure how important class is now that she's found Adam... from last year's summer school experience.

Better & Worse

Because I seem to be full of the good, the bad, and the ugly these days.

Let's start with the bad and ugly this time, shall we. We had major major storms last night. I don't know if the national weather service was making up for the lack of notice and lack of sirens from Sunday morning or not, but the sirens literally went off from 7:00pm through 9:00pm. If someone missed them, they've got other issues. The kids had a slumber party in the basement. Before they laid down I asked them if they wanted to stay there or go to their own beds later. They wanted to stay, and so they did. I was happy about that given the uncertainty of what was still ahead of us.

We had Flash Flood Warnings and Tornado Warnings. Thank goodness our basement isn't flooding (thanks to our sump pump) and we had a safe place to go. Our yard was a different story. I'm sure other folks were greatly affected by both. Just how does one seek shelter in the lower level of their home if they are up to their eyeballs in water?

The storm was incredible. The clouds were incredible. It brought stillness, sudden cool weather, winds, tons of rain (that has nowhere to go), and tons of hail. We do have noticeable hail damage. Thank goodness our neighborhood and immediate surrounding areas didn't experience more tornado damage. Unfortunately, other areas weren't spared and the devastation is incredible... physically and emotionally. There were many areas hit by the storm, but this area is understandably getting the most attention. My heart just breaks for these families.

The good... if it is at all possible to follow up with good after that. The kids all seem to be rebounding nicely. I don't know if they didn't experience a "bad" outbreak of HFM or if other stories I've heard were a bit dramatic. In any event, it has been quite manageable and it felt like we had all new kids this morning. I'm ready to see more of those smiles, hear more of those laughs, and get back to our usual silly selves. May the cycle end here, please.

Parenting

When your daycare provider calls and says... "Your son is running a high fever of 102.5".

Your first reaction should be... "I'll come pick him up"... end of discussion.

We shouldn't have to tell you that you ought to pick up your son. Your son is sick and he needs his parents to take him home and take care of him.

When your daycare provider tells you at noon that he will need to stay home the next day. You need to make arrangements for him to do so. He has two parents; it is your job as parents to figure that out. You had plenty of notice. Don't wait until the next morning to scramble to make those arrangements and then try to negotiate for him to come down for part of the day... because you couldn't get a hold of your mother-in-law and your dad has to go to work. And seriously, you are going to expose the older grandparents just so you can go to work?

We even tell you what it likely is. You received a call over the weekend giving you a heads up on what to look for. You knew Sunday evening (as soon as we knew) that this was a potential scenario. We were all at the same place when your children likely came in contact with it... either at the girls’ birthday party or the Children's Museum. He is showing the same signs and symptoms that our kids did over the weekend. We've been to the doctor and have been diagnosed... potentially saving you that trip. We know how long the fever lasted in each of our 3 kids. We look in at his throat and see evidence of such illness and suggest you do the same.

Instead... you spend your time talking to the doctor's office to get ammunition to negotiate with your daycare provider as to why you feel that he doesn't need to stay home. Are you kidding me?

Seriously... Your reasoning is that it is so contagious that you don't think we need to make an effort to stop the cycle?

Stop taking advantage of your daycare provider! It is her nature to take care of people and to go that extra mile. Stop pushing her boundaries!

In a typical daycare or school scenario, they would require the child to be fever free for 24 hours before returning. We aren't even asking that! We are simply asking that he be at home while he has a fever and while he is most contagious.

End of rant.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me

What a weekend!

We had some really great moments! Going into the weekend we knew it was going to be a busy one, but a fun kind of busy. We celebrated the girls' birthday, spent some great time - with some incredible weather - at the zoo, went to our first (and probably last for a while ;)) swim competition and watched Olympic athletes compete, saw the theatre production of The Wizard Of Oz with some friends and then had a great dinner with them, and capped the weekend off with Grandpa, Grandma, Great Grandma and my mom’s cousin coming to our house and spending the day with us.

And now (of course) moving on to the not so great moments…

The kids are sick - again. We are all so tired of being sick. It feels like that is all we talk about anymore. Turn on the broken record... "How are the kids doing?"... "Oh, they are sick with (insert anything)".

This one I think we've linked back to their visit at the Children's Museum last Wednesday... exactly 3 wonderful days of incubation, which seems to be our usual timeline. Where else would we have picked up Hand, Foot & Mouth!?!? Saturday morning both Abby & Ellie were running fevers. By Sunday morning they mentioned that their throats hurt. Abby had mentioned the night before that she had a headache. We looked in their mouths and it didn't look pretty... swollen and irritated tonsils were the most prominent. So Carie took them into our (after hours) Urgent Care on Sunday afternoon. We tried Sunday morning only to realize that they didn't open until noon. The girls' weren't complaining much at all, they rarely do. We thought maybe... oh, I don't know... at worse it would be Strep Throat. HA! When Carie called me to tell me what was going on I was having a hard time hearing her. I was leaving a noisy grocery store, the reception wasn't that great, and my ears seem to be failing me lately. I swear I heard her say they had cancer of the mouth. Imagine my relief when it was just Hand, Foot & Mouth. Let's just hope that it didn't get passed onto any of our visitors we had on Sunday!

We've known about this disease but we've never experienced it firsthand. The girls managed to make it to 6 before having their first experience with it. Spencer now seems to be affected by it as well. We've had our share of illnesses in the past, but in this past school year we've come down with illnesses that the kids had never had before. We can be done expanding our disease repertoire, thank you very much.

Then the major event we had this weekend was the touchdown of an EF2 Tornado... with no warning... in the middle of the night... literally blocks from us.

I remember waking to use the restroom at 2:11, which is unusual for me to do in the middle of the night. I heard some storm activity, but it didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. At 2:28 I hear what I thought were the sirens. Both Carie and I bolted up and confirmed that we were hearing the same thing. On a normal night, I'm absolutely positive that I wouldn't have heard them... at all. I think Carie was grateful that she didn't have to wake me! We immediately try to figure out what is going on... and there was no coverage!

"... Without warning, in the dark of night, the first tornado to cause what may be the most significant damage in Omaha since the deadly, infamous tornado of 1975 landed in the metro area Sunday. It spun a nearly six-mile path of destruction, stripping fences in Chalco, ripping off roofs in Millard and downing trees and terrifying families across the city..."

The sirens ended up going off two times in our area. Unfortunately the tornado had already touched down, done its damage, and had moved on by the time the first siren had sounded. We did get the kids to the basement and they didn't even wake... on the way down or back up. Ellie says she did recall me asking her if they wanted to just sleep downstairs or go back to their beds. Around 4am we did a quick look around the exterior of our house and everything seemed to be okay so we called it a night. We got some nice phone calls early the next morning from folks who were worried about us. The most surprising call came from a parent of an old pre-school friend. They are such awesome people and it was so nice of them to think about us!

I still can't believe how close the severe damage is located to our home. It is incredible to witness the damage. While we’ve tried to be in touch with what is going on around us, we’ve also tried to limit the exposure to the kids. They are already freaked out and worried about the storms as it is.

Some of the local coverage can be found... here, here & here.

Happy 6th Birthday Abby & Ellie

We love you very much and we hope that you have an incredible 6th birthday.

Party In Photos

The following post highlights the birthday party activities. This post shares a few of the photos from the afternoon.

The Big 6th Birthday Party

This was the girls’ first "big" friend party. Last year they each invited a couple of classmates for a low key party. This year there were many more invitee's, with 25 total kids invited. That may sound like a lot, but when you've got two kids inviting friends from three classes... it adds up quick! The day of the party we had 17 kids having fun and laughing their tails off.

We also hired a clown/magician for some of the entertainment. Just as we were deliberating on what to do for the girls’ party, we happened to be talking to some friends of a friend who very highly recommended "Rainbow Trout". Her highlights, as witnessed at another twin party, included incredible face painting, a hilarious magic show, and balloon sculptures. This got enthusiastic applause from the soon to be birthday girls. She also provided a bean bag toss game with prizes. Man were they stoked!

Suddenly our previous plan A became our plan B and Rainbow Trout was booked. It may sound over the top to hire a clown. I didn't ever see myself as the parent who held big birthday bashes with over the top entertainment. But I'll tell ya, she was incredible and pretty inexpensive... especially when you start comparing it to hosting parties at other activity type centers. She was well worth it!

Our second planned activity was cake decorating. The girls have been so interested in cake decorating since Carie took her class this past winter. So we were on a mission to pull this off. Then recently the girls attended a birthday party at Doodle Cakes where they got to decorate cakes. All the party guests seemingly had a great time and the girls were still interested in doing that at their party... with a twist. We weren't going to pay the money they were asking to host a party there. No way, no how.

Carie had most of the supplies she needed. We bought the cake rounds and boxes inexpensively. We even found a place where we could buy a case of 5" round cakes! I was willing to make them, but not one at a time! So a box of 48 cakes later, we were in business and ready to roll. Carie made all the frosting, assembled the base of the cakes, and colored the frosting to the meet the girls’ requests. The kids went to town experimenting with the different decorator tips and had a great time making their own masterpieces. One parent later reported that her son was so excited that they weren't allowed to look at it he was ready to show it off to everyone.

We opted to skip the birthday present opening in favor of keeping the kids engaged and having fun. It worked awesome for us! It totally removed the potential for chaos at the party.

When we sent out the invites we included a little note to the parents. The note talked about our approach to the party and how each girl had their own guests with the intent that parents didn't at all feel obligated to purchase multiple gifts. We were also up front about the plan to not open gifts during the party. I hope no one was offended! Both Abby & Ellie fully knew what to expect as we walked through the plan in advance. The girls' are following up with thank you notes to each friend so they know that their gift was appreciated.

And It Continues

This weather is nasty. The sky looks crazy. The wind is a bit much. It rains huge drops, and then stops. It looks like the clouds are duking it out!

I know we get crazy weather, but this is just not normal. It looks like we might be in for another fun night.

Carie asked me to buy some more flashlights. That sounded like a reasonable idea to me!

Midwest = Severe Weather

As we were watching and evaluating the storms tonight I got to thinking... I wonder how many people (who don't live in the Midwest) know the difference between a "Tornado Watch" and a "Tornado Warning". To me, anything with Tornado in front of it doesn't sound good!

Tonight we went from everything being honky dory to sirens just as we were about to tuck the kids into bed. Wouldn't ya know it; we were actually all on top of the bedtime tonight!

So instead of climbing into bed, let's all go down to the play room! Spencer pretty much went with the flow. He was interested in what all was going on, but he did what he needed to do and didn't get all freaked out. Abby and especially Ellie was a bit on the nervous side. We explained what the sirens were all about and why we were going to the play room (the safest area of the house). They were worried about flooding, at which point I taught them all about sump pumps! Meanwhile Carie was in charge of checking the news reports (in the adjacent family room). At one point Carie checked on the kids and Ellie instructed her to go back to watching the weather. That was Mommy's job and Ellie needed her to be doing it! Oddly, they sounded the sirens way early and the storm heading straight for us was still about 45 minutes away. The storm was moving incredibly slow and doing a lot of damage.

With the storm being so far out we decided to have a little sleep party in the play room! It was better than getting all ramped up again.

The kids helped me setup the big air mattress and we collected all of their important things... blankets, pillows, and their Webkinz! I finished reading to them and turned out the light. We didn't have high expectations of anyone actually falling asleep, but at least we'd be resting. After all, they were surrounded by toys! We figured we'd keep an eye on the storm, listen for more sirens, and move to the back when it was time.













Amazingly enough, both Ellie & Spencer fell asleep! They both just fell asleep. Wow! Abby came out and checked on us a couple of times before we decided we were all clear and moved everyone back up to their own beds. Spencer, half asleep, talked to me all the way upstairs to ensure that I had all of his important things. Ellie never woke during the transition. I think Abby is still a bit nervous and she is needing some extra cuddling to get to sleep.

I don't think we ended up with any damage from the first storm. We'll take a look in the morning. We do plan to call and have the roof looked at... hoping that the hail we had did some (or just enough) damage to the roof. Hey, we need a new roof!

Hopefully we are done for the night!

Birthday Party UPs and DOWNs

Both birthday parties went swimmingly on Saturday. The weather was pretty nice, the clown/magician showed up and rocked the house, Carie pulled off her cake decorating project that I begged for, the kids had a blast and left at the conclusion of the party. With this incredible experience behind us, I shouldn't fret about large kid parties - in our home - anymore. This is definitely the UP part of the day and I'll write more about it when I can get a chance to share pictures. Hopefully there are pictures to share!

We had a small lull between the parties, a lull that grew even smaller by the time we got the kids party completely wrapped up and the family started arriving. The family gathering was smaller than usual with Grandpa & Yia Yia moving, uncle Micah & family not being available (which is a whole nother topic), and Uncle Jeff getting sick.

This is where it goes downhill...

Just after we get into the swing of the family party Ellie comes up to me (looking all serious) and whispers something in my ear.

"I really miss Grandpa and Yia Yia and I forget what they look like."

Talk about direct knife to the heart. This has got to be one of the hardest things for me, as a parent, to deal with. It just kills me to see them hurting so badly. It simply brings me to tears. I know Carie is struggling with it to. The real sucky part is that we can't do a single thing to "fix it". I don't need to fix everything in their life, but this is one that I'd love to fix. I know I can't fix it. I really do know that I can't fix it. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to.

Missing Grandpa & Yia Yia certainly aren't new feelings for either of the girls. They have been managing these feelings for the past 7 months. They write them letters (on their own initiative) telling them this. I just hadn't prepared myself for it to be a big deal this weekend, and I should have. This is the first birthday that they have missed. It was no surprise to us that they weren't there; we didn't expect that they would be. It just isn't an option. But to the girls, they just don't understand any of it. They weren't expecting them to be there either, but I think it really sank in when everyone else was there and they weren't. They are still grappling with the bottom line fact that Grandpa & Yia Yia aren't here... period.

They tried to talk to the girls on the phone over the weekend and Abby flat out refused. She misses them and wants to SEE them; she doesn't want to talk on the phone to them. I hope this passes and she agrees to talk to them on the phone soon. She has been lobbying hard to go to Oregon. I wish we could, I really really wish we could. I would love to make this a reality for them, but I can't.

Then there is Spencer who is extremely confused, and doesn't know it. Everyone here manages his confusion pretty well. No one gets bent out of shape when he interchanges names and what not. But to witness his confusion really hits home that he just doesn't even know Grandpa & Yia Yia. He talks to them on the phone. He gets things in the mail. But he doesn't have anything physical to associate all that with... except his other grandparents. The upside I guess is that in his case it is just our sadness that we have to deal with and he isn't struggling like the girls are.

We have pictures of them with the kids on our digital photo frame. They see pictures of them! But that isn't cutting it for these young kids. I wish it were!

There were many tear filled conversations with them on Sunday. In those conversations there was something mentioned about them potentially coming back in November or December. Unfortunately, that is another 6 months away... almost as long as they have been gone thus far. We can't say anything to the kids about this. It is too far away with too many uncertainties. These timelines are too big for these young kids to understand.

For the time being, we'll continue to make sure they know how much they are loved by all. I just wish we could do more.

A saying that has hit home for me a few times in my life... It is always easier to be the one who leaves than to be the one who was left.