January 3 First post of 2023

Tuesday:  School is back in after winter/holiday break, so I only had Cal and Erin at my house today. We had a very nice few hours here before we went back to their house.

Erin took care of all "the babies" for awhile--tucked them in, arranged their blankets, fed them bottles, and even rocked them to sleep! Cal lost no time whatsoever and just immersed himself in CARS ... and MORE CARS.

Erin sat at the art table for a very long time today just coloring and sharpening colored pencils while Cal played nearby.

Erin likes to play with scissors. Thankfully, I have an entire set of "kid" scissors. She makes a super mess with all of her paper cutting, but she is quite good with manipulating scissors for her age and I don't want to discourage her.

Look at our small explorer ...

He kills me ...

Erin requested that "we" draw one of her favorite pigs that she has named PUA. Pua's middle name is LUCY. SO ... it turned out that I did the drawing and coloring. Erin just directed me as to HOW it should be done: i.e., which way PUA was facing, which colored pencils matched her, etc. Erin was very precise in her instructions.

She asked that I write PUA on top of "our" drawing but then decided LUCY needed to be on there too. I told her I would put the name LUCY underneath our little pig but Erin said: "That wouldn't look right, Gwamma." SO ... I printed LUCY exactly where I was instructed to do so.

Erin was SO super contented to sit and watch as I drew and erased, then drew some more and erased some more ... but she was very patient until we got it looking at least somewhat like the stuffed animal she likes so much. She decided to bring PACO over to see how he liked our picture and then requested that we do his picture too.

PACO's cousin (RAMONE) came along for our art time, but he did NOT want to be sketched. So we didn't!

Little Cal plays and plays and plays ... zooming cars ... crashing cars ... filling up their tanks with gas, checking their tires, etc. He's very intense about the entire process and super pleased to be surrounded by cars EVERYWHERE.

By about 2:15, we put on FROZEN 2 to watch the end of the movie that we hadn't seen last week. While the kids were watching, I picked up a lot of the runaway cars that had zoomed into the bathroom and down our hallway. Both Erin and Cal fell asleep on the ride back to their house. I transferred them into the house and covered them with their special blankets. Cal continued to sleep for quite awhile; but Erin woke up pretty quickly.

Here is Erin modeling her pretty Princess shoes for me ...

I think she is the cutest thing ever. I love her personality so much. She loves to whisper secrets, and she is so conversational and chummy. It's the best.

Here's a picture of the zonked out Cal. Erin tucked his special baby in next to him.

The older boys returned home from school shortly after 4:00 and we hung out in their basement until Dylan and Kelly got home from work. They were quite rough with me! Yikes. Aidan actually thinks I AM A HORSE and will hop onto my back and command that I get moving! I can only go so far before I collapse; but usually it's from laughter, not from anything more serious.

I returned home here by about 7:45 and was totally finished cleaning up and doing dishes by 9pm. Not bad for a Tuesday. I am blessed.