September 29 with Kaity

Thursday:  I suggested that we explore for a little while late this afternoon ... walk down the railroad tracks by Dwight Lydell Park and follow paths into the woods, etc. Kaity thought it was an excellent idea--so we did exactly that. I had charged my phone earlier in the day and it was an absolutely GORGEOUS day, so I was excited to take a few photos ... only to find out when I went to snap the first picture, that I neglected to put my battery back in my camera! Oh no!!! I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. So ... these are PHONE photos and not very good ones at that.

I've determined to go back early one morning in the next few days to get some better pictures of this beautiful little spot ... how blessed we are to live SO NEAR to such a pretty place.

Kaity and I went home from there, ate dinner, and just hung out for awhile. Kaity wanted to pick up some "SLIME" on her way home, so we stopped at Walmart where I mislaid my car keys (!!) but God was gracious enough to lead us back to the place where I had left them--so no bad consequence, just a bad scare! 

It was super nice to be with Kaity tonight. I am so thankful for her and for the time God has allowed me to be part of her life.

September 27 Eight nonstop hours

Tuesday:  We had a pretty "typical" Tuesday today. I picked Cal up from the new house at 11, drove to get Erin from pre-school by 11:30, played at my house from noon until 4:30 when we headed over to pick Dylan up from work, and then ate pizza and played for awhile with all of the kiddos until about 7pm. It varies from week to week as to who is getting picked up where, and actually today was Brendan's first day on the school bus--he was thrilled!

Here are a few pictures I took with just Cal and Erin at my house:

Erin has been pretty enamored with this little "work station" since she doesn't have to be bullied about it by Aidan. I remember purchasing it more than 20 years ago now, when I was an "expectant" grandma (!!) and thinking to myself how extravagant it was of me to spend $54 on a single toy item ... but I have certainly gotten every single dollar's worth out of it. Sadly, we have lost a few of the parts--but the children are unaware of it and just love to use the wooden tools to take apart stuff.

Cal likes to play with it too, but he seems to respect the fact that Erin is his older sister and doesn't mess with her--I will say, Erin is rather dramatic when Callaghan "takes" something she is playing with--but for the most part, these two do very well together. It's not that Erin and Aidan don't get along--it's just that Aidan has quite a strong bent to him and Erin tends to give in too quickly and then is unhappy that she didn't assert herself more strongly when her toy has been pulled away and not returned.

I remembered how much Cal likes playing with balls--and since I now have a super nice computer monitor that I do not want damaged even slightly--I don't have ANY balls inside the house anymore. I blew up two balloons and tied them--one each for the kids--and then I used another balloon to blow up and let go to zoom around the room, which pleased these little ones greatly. We had a lot of fun counting down for our rocket to blast off.

They are in their new house now and beginning the unpacking and organizing phase--always a bit difficult, but at least this house has a lot more room to put things away and lots of nice closet space and shelving too. I stayed and played with the kiddos for a little while after our pizza. I am always glad to see Brendan and try to interact with him--I love him so much and miss him terribly. And Aidan! Always, always, always so much FUN to be with. Their new basement is a very nice playroom, carpeted--and a good place to roughneck and horse around--so we did. By 7pm, though, all of my energy was depleted and I drove home, finding that the route I took home from their house to mine was exactly 14.5 miles. There are many ways to drive to and from their new house--the route I used was 28th to the 96 to the Beltline and then my house. It took me about 17 minutes--not bad!
 

September 24 Kicking a bottle

Saturday:  I spent a few hours with Kaity Saturday afternoon/evening ... it was a challenging time for us because there wasn't really anything Kaity wanted to do--she said "NO!" to games, art, taking a walk, playing with stuffed animals, studying her Awana verse, dolls ... and finally she talked me into watching "The Secret Life of Pets" which we did enjoy. We ate a meal of our usual hotdogs, nothing unusual about that. Kaity did not have her phone with her today--perhaps that's why she was so lifeless--I'm just not sure.

Finally, near 7:00 she agreed to take a walk in the neighborhood--so we did! It was the best part of our time together! I love walking with Kaity. She is so much fun outside. She helped me get my "mile" in today and I am glad she did!

We found a discarded empty plastic water bottle laying on the side of the road and decided to play a game with it. It's amazing what kind of games you can make up out of nowhere ... but we decided to see which of us could kick the bottle STRAIGHT and keep it in between the two yellow lines that divide the road--this was over on Chauncey, where the traffic is next to nothing.

Kaity won our game: 7 to 1! She has a very accurate KICK! We had so much fun outside tonight and I am so thankful we decided to do this. 
 

September 22 Kaity!

Thursday:  I picked Kaity up from Jesse today at 4pm. We made a detour to Meijer to pick up some gum (!!), some plastic bags (the Meijer type--I ran out of them! I've been using my own bags for grocery shopping instead of Meijer's and suddenly I have NO bags to put little bits of garbage in) and a Kit-Kat candy bar (for Kaity). Then we headed over to my place. I had Kaity's Awana verse all ready to play games with; but sadly, Kaity informed me that I have been confused about the verse thing--I've been a week behind. So as Kaity played on her phone, I got this week's verse ready to memorize. I asked Kaity what she learned last night at Awana during study time and she casually informed me that she NEVER listens to the teaching on Wednesday night! She just goes on her phone and zones out. 

I was SO sad!

Sigh. I wasn't going to give up that easily, no way! AND just as I was trying to figure out WHAT to do next, Kaity received a text from her classmate and friend, Sophie (Sophia), telling her about the high school soccer game that was starting TWENTY minutes from then and ... could she come? Please?! It only costs $5 per person!! Naturally, Kaity nearly DEMANDED that we go to the soccer game.

I had several mental objections to this plan ... #1 when Kaity and I first walked into my house at about 4:30, Kaity ate about a half watermelon and several other "snacks" because she was after-school hungry and I figured we probably wouldn't eat our hotdogs until 6:30 or so. It was now 5:40 and we had not eaten dinner. #2  Five dollars EACH doesn't sound like a lot of money--but right now, $10 is more than I care to spend for an evening's activity. #3 It was COLD outside--and WINDY too!

I decided to BARGAIN with Kaity. I told her if she could sit at the table for 15 minutes and work on her memory verse with me, I would then cook us up our hotdogs and then we would pack a snack and some water bottles and go LATE to the soccer game. I also told her that I could not buy any items from the concession stand--like ZERO.

Kaity agreed to the plan, but with an attitude that was rather flippant. We talked about 2 Corinthians 5.17--just the first half: "If anyone is IN Christ, he is a new creation ..." It's difficult to explain what it means to be IN Christ and I didn't do a very decent job defining "new creation" either. (But today, while studying in Acts, I read about the NEW LIFE Jesus gives us, the kind that changes us into new people and makes us more and more like Him ... so I think that Saturday I will try to explain this again to Kaity.) We then ate our yummy hotdogs and arrived at the high school at 6:23, paid full price to get in (although it was only a few minutes until half time which I later learned was the cutoff period of paying), and Kaity met up with Sophie. I shot a few pictures of them with my phone.

After sitting up high watching the game and watching the girls run around, I was SO cold I could barely think. I told Kaity I was going to walk to keep myself warm. The area around the stadium is pretty open, so I could see the girls (mostly) from where I was walking. I found a few pathways leading off into the woods but I didn't feel free to explore and leave Kaity unattended. I was heading back to the stands to retrieve the girls for a little woodsy adventure when they sprung out of nowhere and told me they had been following me all along!

SO ... we followed one of the pathways into the deep woods, which was very fun. Sophie kept saying, "This is FUN!!" which made me think she didn't have much experience in the woods--but Kaity was having a good time too, so we explored for awhile.

In a few places, there was evidence that the first day of Fall was upon us! I LOVE Fall! 

I managed to log in TWO miles with the walking I did, so that was good. Kaity had fun with her friend, and I truly enjoyed meeting Sophie. Thank you, God, for giving us this time together.

September 20 Two plus two

Tuesday:  It was a busy day! I gave up taking photos of every situation because I was too busy ... handling the situation!

I picked Cal up from the "old" house at 11:00. We drove over to Mayflower and got Erin at 11:30. Erin and Cal played at my house until about 3:00. Here are pictures of that ...

I'm not sure how to interpret the above facial expression on dear Erin ... but she WAS pleased to play with Playdoh today. I separated out about 1/3 of the "stuff" I have to play Playdoh with so as not to overwhelm little Cal. They both played for 30+ minutes without any disasters whatsoever.

Cal was serious in the EXTREME about this entire activity. He was so much fun to watch as he felt it and squished it and molded it ...

Erin! She had played on the playground before I picked her up today and I didn't realize until looking at these pictures how smudged with dirt her face is.

This is my favorite of Cal yesterday ... such an intense little person ...

Erin plays the piano with all of her little heart and soul ...

Cal loves trains ... even just this little circle track delighted him for the longest time ... in between playing with about 185 Matchbox cars ...

Erin was wearing a brand new dress! "Look, gwamma! When I spin awound, my dwess twirls!" Yes, dear, it certainly does!

Sadly, little Cal still is not putting any weight on his right lower extremity from one week ago with the mishap at Altitude. His x-rays showed no broken bones last week ... Kelly says she is going to take him in again to have him checked. We did NOT go to Altitude today because Cal insisted on crawling everywhere he went, although he did not appear to be in pain.

We left my house a little after 3pm to pick Aidan up from school and then drove over to Brendan's school to pick him up. It was 4:00 by then and we just drove back over here and hung out until about 5:30. I will admit that I was super tired by then and I let the kiddos "pig-out" on a few videos ...

THEN we drove to the NEW house where I got quite the tour by all four kiddos, each begging me to follow them in different directions while holding on to Cal (who isn't easy to hold on to!). It was very fun to see the inside of their new place. Each of the children seem very pleased with their rooms and bedding and the fact that they have more space now to play. I'm so thankful this all worked out for them.

September 18 Kaity comes to church

Sunday:  Kaity came to church this morning, and so did Emma! This was our second week in Matthew's Gospel and Pastor Jim taught on how much better it was and what GOOD NEWS it was that Jesus is our King and not Herod ... or any of our present-day politicians for that matter! It was super nice to have both Kaity and Emma sitting with me in church. My heart is always sad to go alone.

Kaity ended up spending the day with us here at the Beach House. Emma had some pre-planned school work for Kaity to do, we reviewed her Awana memory verse for the week, and just hung out.

Emma took Belle for a walk in her cat back pack ...

... and told us all about it when she returned--how Belle had a fit when cars would go past on Cannonsburg and all of her little sounds she made when she wasn't quite happy.

It was fun to listen to Emma tell us all about it. We really didn't do anything else special, but just had a quiet day together. Sometimes that is the very best of days anyway!
 

September 17 with KT

Saturday:  Emma picked Kaity up from their dads on Saturday, they ran a few errands, and then came here. Kaity and I ate dinner together and Emma hung out with Kaity throughout our time together. Here they are messing around with some Play-Doh, which is always relaxing and fun.

Kaity asked if she could spend the night, so we okayed it through Jesse, Emma took her there to get a change of clothes and other items ... and Kaity slept over! We rented the most recent "Jurassic Park" movie (2022) and watched the entire movie--I didn't run screaming out of the room even once--I'm not saying that I didn't SCREAM, but I did stay right in my chair for the entire movie. !! It was super nice to have Kaity spend the night. We made a nice comfortable bed for her on the couch and all of us were tucked in by 11:00.