December 27 At My House

Wednesday:  Dylan brought the children to me today at 11:15; they are on their "Christmas break" from school. I got the house all ready for their time here--dolls for Erin, cars for Cal, drawing material for Aidan, and books for Brendan. I always put the stuff far away that I don't want little kids messing with--it's enough to just keep them from emptying every cubby in my house--and I don't want to be hyper about what they play with. FYI I have NINETY cubbies containing everything from books to games to toys, art supplies, etc. You should see this place when all four of them have played here for four hours--it looks like a disaster struck. But do you know what? It only takes about an hour to put everything away in its "proper" place once again! I would rather have a messy house for a few hours than to have ZERO children come and visit me. I tend to be rather obsessed with ORDER vs CHAOS and find that I don't do well at all with prolonged DISorder. This is a rather pathetic admission, but it is the truth about me--I just like to organize my little place so that I know where things are and can readily find them. There are worse faults to have, honest!

Brendan brought over his Anime drawing book and he worked on sketches throughout the afternoon. He's very good at this!

I finally gave permission to the little kids to play on the upper bunk--I'm always concerned one of them will get pushed off or some other mishap may occur--but they were very happy to go up and down and were very well behaved about it. Cal knows that he is not allowed "up" until he is FIVE. I know this is very random-sounding--but this little guy has soft bones and we can't risk him breaking one ...

I could--but I won't--eat this child right up.

The little lantern is a nice toy to play with in this dear little spare bedroom.

They just love to play here! Erin gets the dolls all tucked in and Cal enjoys being draped with one of the dinosaur blankets and they are so sweet ...

I coaxed the kids into building for awhile with my magnet toys. I have such nice toys--I am very thankful for them! Something about not being allowed to have many toys as a kid rubbed off on me and made me a toy enthusiast.

I pointed my camera in Cal's direction and was just about to suggest that he growl for his picture when he opened his darling little mouth and very fiercely growled at me. Way to go, Cal! 

Here is Cal with our little doll mirror ... not sure if he can SEE himself holding it right against his face--but whatever!

Dear Aidan. Dear, dear Aidan. You are difficult to put into words ... but you are greatly loved by your grandma and your mom and dad. Lots of wisdom requested for you.

Cal got a "bang" out of my dinosaur match game/puzzle deck. He truly loves dinosaurs.

Erin enjoyed our little dolls and changed their outfits throughout the day.

Our almost five hours went by without any catastrophe's or meltdowns or ... grandma having a nervous breakdown ... the Lord is strong when I am weak. He is very good to all of us, and I am thankful.