72 days ...

Would you like to see and hear about the last night and day we had with the Pahman grandchildren?

Thursday evening, we girls decided we needed to paint our nails ... but first we had to trim them.

Emma was SO excited to paint my nails! We used a clear nail polish that had pink sparkly glitter in it. "This is just like what Aunt Emily does, isn't it Grandma? She does girls' hair and nails and makes them pretty. That's her job!" so said my Emma Joy.
Emma painted my fingernails first; then I did hers ~ and then we did each others' toenails! They were very sparkly when we finished.

I got out the Christmas present I bought for Grandpa Jones (!!) and read the stories with each of the kids separately so that they could wind up the little train themselves and see it go around the tracks!

Matthew was especially delighted ...

... and needed his tongue to help wind the little engine up!

Emma and I played with the ABC blocks. We made all kinds of short words, sounding out the letters together, and then Emma stacked them all up and made this tower.

Matthew was a little bit pouty while waiting his turn ...

... but when I asked him to smile for the camera, he did a pretty nice job even though he was still feeling pouty on the inside!

We did our whole play-doh routine again because it really is a lot of fun ... AND it is something all three children can have fun doing together. A lot of times around here, one of the kiddos will want to play in the playroom downstairs (with me) while another one wants to play in the family room (with me) and the other wants to read books (with me) ... so it ends up that one or the other of them is somewhat unhappy since I can't do all three things at one time with them.

I have plenty of equipment to go around to all three children with play-doh ... but they still have to share and wait their turn if they want to use the play-doh factory or another toy I only have one of ... but that's OK because learning to take turns and trying to wait patiently is part of growing up!

Matthew spent some fun time with Grandpa in the family room while Emma and Christopher and I built with LEGOS in the playroom.

Emma was very proud of the model she designed ... and she decided that the one I made was especially for her!

We also read a bunch of books together. Believe it or not, reading to three children can be stressful. I think it's because there are THREE children instead of just one or two. With two children, you can comfortably sit on a couch with one on each side of you and read while they both look at the pictures. But you can't do that with three children because someone always has to NOT sit right next to grandma ... and that's a problem!

So a few of our reading times took place at the dining room table where I could walk around with the book, read a page and then show the pictures to each of them separately ...

... not ideal, but we made it work for us! I love reading books to little kids, asking them lots of questions after each page, seeing if they will know how the story ends, or just showing them a picture and have them tell me the story without the words!

I knew that this was my last day to see the children for awhile. I didn't mention it to them, though, because I just wanted them to play like every other day. But I was very aware that time was running out ... I wanted to make the most of every single minute ...

And then before I knew it, Jesse and Di were here to pick up the children!

Emma was sad to leave her Grandma Jones ... and well, sad is quite an inadequate word to describe my feelings. Jesse tried to comfort her. And I showed her the calendar in the kitchen and counted out the days (72) until we would be leaving to drive down to Texas to see everyone again.

Christopher was pretty undaunted ... he is always on the move, ready for the next activity ...

We reluctantly helped load the kids into their SUV, gave innumerable hugs and kisses, cried, and waved good-bye as they drove down the driveway ... until we couldn't see them anymore. They were planning to sleep the night at Di's folks and then begin their trip back to Texas early this morning.

Ten weeks from now, Grandpa Jones and I will be packing and getting ready to head south. My eyes haven't been dry much today and I have such an ache inside. It's really difficult to have all nine of our grandchildren live so far away and have months go by without being a part of their lives ... but I'm trying to make the best of the situation and do what I can to be a faithful grandma to all of these beautiful children.