Enjoying Fall!

Last night, Rayna remarked wistfully to her cousin, Bri, "I've never been to the Ozarks!"

(She has LIVED in the Ozarks for four and a half years now! Guess we forgot to tell her!)

Last week, Grant was checking over Rayna's math homework and found that she had put as the answer to one of her word problems, "Not enough information given." In her mind that was that!

Rayna remains the tooth pulling champion of this family! The minute she notices she has a loose tooth, she YANKS it right out. No dawdling for her! No lingering loose teeth--EVER! It is almost worrisome how quickly she will pull them out. Last month, she pulled THREE teeth in a single week and a fourth tooth the following week! (or something close to that!) I remember when Doug was her age, he was so zealous about pulling his own teeth that I feared he was possibly pulling out permanent teeth to get his dollar. I seriously worried over that! His never came out as quickly as Rayna's though...he would work them for several days before getting them out.

Rayna, cuts right to the chase. She mentioned a few minutes ago that she had discovered she had another loose tooth, then, a minute later, she happily came to me, tooth encased in a baggie to trade it for the traditional dollar. She told me that she didn't want to take the tooth with her to Lake of the Ozarks tonight to put it under her pillow because she thought I might lose her tooth before we got back home again (I save their teeth--don't know why!), so, she suggested it would be best if we just do the transaction in daylight before leaving home today! So much for the tooth fairy and the mystery of childhood!

**********************************************************************************

Last night, Doug went to a Fall party that everyone from Mrs. Young's class was invited to. It was nice for him to have a social event for once. Seems like Darcy is always on the go with her friends, but Doug doesn't get as much opportunity for socialization with his friends. One of the mothers of a student in his class organized the party and pulled off a really fun evening for the kids!

***********************************************************************************

Today we are off to "Lake of the Ozarks" where Darcy is meeting up with a lot of the friends she made last summer at Missouri's Scholar's Academy for their first reunion. The kids really BONDED with each other, those three weeks they lived together on the MU campus last summer and Darcy has remained in almost daily contact with many of her friends from there, since then, thanks to SKYPE and Facebook. They are all really excited about seeing each other again this weekend. Darcy's group has decided they are all going to dress as a character from Toy Story. Darcy is going as "Jesse".

***********************************************************************************

Grant joined a newly formed Bluegrass Gospel band this past summer--Red Letter Edition. They have played at a number of churches recently, including the Cowboy Church in Springfield.

(I'll get photos added in this post soon! Need to e-mail them to myself off my phone, first!)

Semester Wrap-Up

It's been a good semester! Darcy and Rayna both had straight A's and Doug got mostly A's with a few B's! Tonight, after school, there was an assembly for Bolivar Intermediate to honor those who had exceptional grades for the semester. Rayna was honored for straight A's. When we got home, I mentioned that I would put her certificate in with her report card in the box where I save that stuff. Rayna asked if I could FRAME it instead. I told her, "Certainly! We can put it in a frame and hang it on your wall!" To which she replied, "No. I want you to hang it on YOUR wall...so you can see it every day and remember how smart I am!" Oh! Okay!

Meanwhile, Doug's school (Bolivar Middle School) is ALL ABOUT motivation. Every time we turn around there is some sort of reward being handed out. Doug has gotten to get on the bus and go over to the Esquire Theater to see two movies so far this year ("How To Train Your Dragon" and "Despicable Me") for having all A's and B's for the quarter and not missing any school days and not incurring any disciplinary actions. If he qualifies all four quarters, then he will get to go to Branson to Silver Dollar City, too. Darcy got to do this both years she was at the middle school and they even gave her the money they would have spent on her ticket since she is a season pass holder and didn't need a ticket. The bus leaves early in the morning (on a school day) and doesn't get back until late in the evening. At the middle school, they also have ping pong tables set up in the lunch room for use any time and they have dances every hoopstitch (three so far this year). Doug LOVES middle school and Rayna can't wait to get up there!

Doug and Rayna's letters to Our Soldiers...

The employees at my workplace gathered gifts to fill a number of "shoeboxes for soldiers" this year. Doug and Rayna each wrote letters to put in two of the boxes. Doug asked Rayna to help him with his, so she added a few words on the pages of his letter (in purple ink). This is Doug's letter:









And this is Rayna's letter...

Taken Literally

Grant got a chuckle last night listening in to this conversation....

Rayna snapped, "Doug, will you MOVE?"

And Doug patiently, but firmly, explained, "Rayna, I LIVE here!"

Always Eager for Morning to Come...(some children really don't require any sleep)

Our daughters linger in bed as long as possible and seldom awaken with smiles on their faces...but their BROTHER has always been quite a DIFFERENT story! Once, a few years ago, I heard noise at 2:40 in the morning and when I went to investigate, there was Doug, in his room, with his lights on, FULLY DRESSED and ready for SCHOOL! He thought it was about time to get up and get ready!

Doug is SO EXCITED that school will start this Thursday (while everyone else in the family is mourning it!). Which, might have contributed to what just happened....tonight at 10:44pm, as Grant and I sat in the living room watching the last few minutes of an old Hawaii Five-O episode, Doug came bouncing out of his room, squinting in the bright light of the living room and happily announced, "Good Morning, Mom! Good Morning, Dad!" Poor kid! He thought it was morning and he was ready to get up for the day! He looked a bit dazed as we choked back our mirth and informed him it was still night time and he needed to go back to bed!

He'd had two hours of sleep...that should be enough for ANYONE as far as he's concerned!

Conversations From the Backseat:The Spanish Word for Love

Yesterday Grant and the kids met me at El Rodeo's for lunch. I guess Rayna was inspired by the Mexican food, because as Grant drove them on to his office, he could hear Rayna in the back seat listing off every Spanish word she knew. She started out by counting in Spanish and when she had reached the limits of her knowledge in numbers, she moved on to listing off various commonly known Spanish words and finally resorted to listing names of Mexican food. THAT'S when her brother realized that HE could speak Spanish, too! Confidently, he called out the name of his two favorite items at El Rodeo..."Chips! Eggs!"

Must be Spanish, after all, if you can order it at El Rodeo!

***************************************************************************************

Last Sunday, as we were getting ready to leave the church parking lot, Grant leaned across to my seat and we exchanged a kiss. For some reason, a simple kiss between us always illicits an expression of exaggerated nausea from our oldest child. Evidently this reaction has now been passed on to our middle child as well. At any rate, as our lips met, the tenderness of the moment was punctuated with a gasp from the backseat followed by a nauseated, "OOOOOOoooo!" from our son. Rayna promptly pied up and declared, "You'd better get used to it, Doug, cause that's what you're going to have to do if YOU ever get married!"

Doug will be eleven years old on Friday. The Goldsmiths and Grant's parents came over late this evening to have an early celebration. My parents are coming Thursday. Then on Friday Doug is having a sleep over with his friends, Jacob and Luke. We plan to take them to the lake in Stockton to swim in the early afternoon, then to Incredible Pizza in Springfield for supper. He's been looking forward to having his friends back over for another sleepover since last year's sleepover!

(In the picture above, Doug had just finished pigging out at the Chinese Buffet! Everyone had been kidding him about his "birthday belly"!)

Typical Sunday Morning

This was Doug last Sunday morning, certain he was ready for church. It is pretty typical. The kid is forever putting his T-shirts on inside out or backwards or both and never noticing anything is wrong (though USUALLY he manages to get his Sunday shirt right side out).

This Sunday morning was a bit worse than usual. Usually he has his pant's leg caught up in a sock and his tie around his neck rather than under his collar, and his collar twisted around cockeyed...but, this Sunday morning, he even was obliviously wearing his shirt inside out. I had him lift his tie so I could see how he had managed to do his buttons and snaps with his shirt inside out and, as you can see, he had found a way! Don't you think it would DAWN on him that SOMETHING wasn't quite right? Not my son!!!

On my hot tail...and the true cause of thinning hair!

Well, Rayna continues with her life-long talent for creative use of language! A few days ago I overheard her as she was playing a game of trouble with her Grandmother, exclaim, "You're on my hot tail!" (I think she was meaning her grandmother was hot on her trail!)



Then, tonight, she informed her dad she was watching BOTH her sister's soccer game and the game in the next field. Her dad asked her skeptically, "How can you watch BOTH of them at the same time?" She answered (as though it was QUITE obvious), "Well, I have TWO eye-balls!" Yeah...duh!






Earlier in the evening, she had approached her daddy with a solemn face and gravely asked him, "Do caterpillars have BONES?"






A few days ago, Doug was again reminding me (nagging me to death!) about his need for a haircut. I had been meaning to get him in for a haircut, but we've been busy and it has gotten pushed to the back burner for the last couple of weeks. Ever helpful, Grant suggested, "Why don't YOU just cut it rather than taking him in to have it cut." Mind you, I've been stuck cutting GRANT'S hair for over 18 years now because he refuses to go the barbershop in spite of the fact that I have absolutely NO CLUE how to cut hair and dread it every time I have to once more pick up the clippers. Grant's helpfulness fell flat though, when Doug, hearing his daddy's suggestion, replied in horror, "No!" His grandma asked, "Wouldn't you like your MOMMY to cut your hair?" (Mind you, this is the kid that has asked me at least 20 times a day for the past two weeks to take him to the barber.) Doug looked at me and then solemnly looked at his father and replied emphatically, "No. I be bald!" So, now I know...my son blames his father's thinning hair on his mother's lack of barbering abilities!

The Last Word

This morning I had several sobering moments. The first, when I walked into the bathroom to ask Darcy something and caught sight of the two of us in the mirror. Darcy, in her stocking feet and her hair pulled back smoothly behind her head, is now exactly the same height as I am with my hair still in it's ratted just got out of bed state. If my hair had been combed, she might have been a micromillimeter TALLER than me. Ow! I have been holding tight to the quarter of an inch height I had over her. My child VISIBLY grew literally OVERNIGHT!

(What I won't add here is that even though I am no longer TALLER than my oldest daughter, I still weigh TWICE as much...really ouch!!!)

So, my morning was already not off to an auspicious beginning. Then, Darcy once again reminded me that her DADDY is her FAVORITE parent. (Like I've done anything to deserve her rejection lately! It's been well over 24 hours since I last embarrassed her in front of the entire world over the internet. Man, can't kids cut their folks any slack any more?! Besides, I was very careful to conceal her identity, wasn't I?!)

Rayna, always the rescuer, raced to me and gathered me up into a hug and said, "You are MY favorite, Mommy!" I was beginning to glow in the exclusivity of her affection when her daddy peeked around the corner, bits of shaving cream still on his face as he peered at his youngest daughter with a sad-puppy-eyed expression. That's all it took! He didn't even have to utter a single word of protest. Rayna was falling all over herself to correct her error and announce, "YOU'RE my FAVORITE, too, Daddy! You and Mom are both my FAVORITES!" Well, so much for my corner on the "favorite" market...I had had my place in the sun for all of 10 seconds out of 13 years of parenthood! Children are so fickle. Glory so fleeting.

On a mission, I peeked into Doug's room and coached him, "I'm YOUR favorite, aren't I?" Not looking up from his Nintendo DS game or even hearing what I had said (I am sure!), he mumbled a monotone "yes". At least I have ONE child who is well trained! Except, that, at that moment I realized the shirt he was wearing looked an awfully lot like the shirt he wore to school YESTERDAY, right down to the spilled food marks near the collar. Now, mind you, on TUESDAY morning, I caught him wearing MONDAY's shirt and had to instruct him to take it off and PUT IT IN THE DIRTY CLOTHES AND GET A CLEAN SHIRT OUT OF YOUR DRAWER! And, actually, on Wednesday morning I noticed he had on TUESDSAY'S shirt and again instructed him that at night the clothes you remove are to go in the DIRTY CLOTHES HAMPER never to be touched by you again until they have been WASHED. And, on Thursday morning I caught him wearing WEDNESDAY'S shirt. So, why it surprised me this morning to see him wearing yesterday's shirt is more a statement about my feeble-mindedness than anything else! I asked him, "Where did you get THAT shirt?" He admitted he had retrieved it from his clothes hamper. (Maybe I should just be rejoicing that he has finally learned to put the clothes IN the hamper rather than dropping them on the floor two feet from the hamper?) I again explained the purpose for a dirty clothes hamper and introduced him to his two dresser drawers filled to the brim with CLEAN shirts. And, this time I relieved him of his Nintendo DS so that his mind could be clearer the remainder of the morning.

After Doug was looking spiffy in his CLEAN shirt and had nothing to do (it is horribly boringly dull to be stranded without your Nintendo DS in the mornings), I thought it might be a great time for some Mother/Son time...since I am his favorite parent and all. So, I patted the spot on the sofa next to me and invited Doug to sit down with me. I thought we could just chat and enjoy each other's company. Doug sat down and immediately bounced back up again, suddenly remembering that he needed to WASH HIS FACE AND BRUSH HIS TEETH. This child has never voluntarily washed his face or brushed his teeth in ten years...but just the thought of having to sit next to his mother and chat was enough to drive him such desperate measures! So much for me being my son's favorite. I could read the writing on that wall!

So, it is understandable that I was moping about in utter dejection about 15 minutes later as my three children assembled at the front door to be driven to school by their favorite parent. Rayna, dear that she is, fell for my shameless bid for favoritism by changing her stance once more and declaring with heartfelt sincerity, "You ARE my favorite parent, Mommy!"

To which Darcy replied, "Dad's MY favorite!"

So, Rayna felt compelled to stand up for me and she announced with even deeper sincerity, "Well, Mommy is MY favorite!!!"

I might have begun to warm in the glow of her words, except for Darcy's quick retort,
"I've had more experience. I KNOW the right choice!"

Well, that sort of trumps all arguments. She's had more experience so she KNOWS the RIGHT choice!

Doug, was diplomatically staying as far away from the spirited argument between his sisters as any intelligent man would!

Some Things Never Seem to Change:

We have had Doug for four and a half years now. For the fourth Christmas running, no present of his has lasted over 24 hours under the tree without the wrapping getting peeled away just enough at the corner to expose what lies beneath. Of course, the violated present is carefully repositioned under the tree in such a way to COVER the fact that it has been peeked in. No threat or consequence has spurred Doug adequately for him to choose to control his impulsive disobedience in this matter. So, this year, I neglected to put his BIG present under the tree (it is still hidden in my room), but his three smaller presents from us that went under the tree were placed there only after Doug was warned, "Do not even TOUCH your presents. You are not allowed to lift them or touch them. You can look, but you cannot touch them at all, period." Less than 24 hours later, all three of them bore carefully hidden, strategically made tears at one of their corners. Two of them were torn sufficiently that he could see WHAT they were. One wasn't quite torn enough to make out what it was. (He must have gotten interrupted?) The consequence was pretty strict this year...afterall, he is TEN AND A HALF YEARS OLD. I'm not putting out his big gift until it is time to open it.

Earlier in the week I got annoyed. I don't even remember why, now...but I was annoyed and left the house to do some grocery shopping. Grant was in the living room folding clothes when I left. Little Rayna came out and sat on the sofa close to her daddy and, gently patting him on the leg, she reassured him, "Sometimes people just get mad at each other, but that doesn't mean that they don't like each other. Things like that just happen, sometimes." So nice to have a six year old counselor in the family!

School Program

Doug had his school program last night. The theme was the Twelve Days of Christmas. The kids sang many songs. Even though Doug has difficulty speaking, his mouth was moving right with the words of the song, singing his heart out. I was so proud of how he put his full attention and focus into the program. Doug loves music. He always has!



(This last photo is of Doug with one of his teachers after the program.)

He is Our Sunshine....

Gotta love him! Doug just wears Grant and I slick. And correcting his English is a never-ending job with a child that constantly talks.

Just a few minutes ago, Doug was yammering on and on about "Nemo Daddy. Nemo Daddy. Nemo Daddy".

Grant said, "Nemo? Nemo doesn't mean anything, Doug. What are you saying?"

Slowing down, Doug tried again, "You my daddy."

Grant again corrected, "You ARE my daddy."

Doug repeated (as he knows we expect him to do), "You ARE my daddy, daddy. You ARE my daddy, daddy."

Grant, "That's better. And you ARE my son."

Doug (repeating), "You are my son."

Then, with a mischievous glint in his eye, he began singing at the tops of his lungs, "You are my son, son. You are my son, son." (To the tune of "You are My Sunshine"!)

That left Grant and I both cracking up! So, often, our efforts at trying to teach our son to USE verbs (especially the "to be" verbs) and to enunciate clearly leaves us tearing our hair out...it was a nice change of pace today to find ourselves belly laughing instead!

He Wants to Sleep-Out!

As I was trying to fix supper tonight, Doug was in the kitchen getting tangled under my feet asking question after endless/almost-indecipherable question.

Then, one totally confused me. My son asked, "Can I sleep out tomorrow?" After much unraveling, I finally figured out that he wanted to get up EARLY tomorrow morning (like what morning in his life, HASN'T this child wanted to get up EARLY?)!

Of course! If "sleeping IN" means you are going to sleep late, then, surely "sleeping out" must mean you are getting up early. Makes sense to Doug!

And NO! He most certainly cannot sleep out tomorrow because I want to sleep in!!!

Doug's idea of a reasonable hour to get up and start your day is 3 AM sharp. My idea of the perfect time to call it a day and head for bed is 2 AM-ish...or even 6 AM! Now, don't get the wrong idea and think Doug is an early bird. Not at all. He is an all-around bird! Given his druthers, this child would go to bed around midnight and rise at 3 AM and still run in hyper-drive through the entire day! He is a master at getting around obstacles. We won't let him get up and play at 3 AM, so he gets up "to go to the bathroom" and proceeds to happily goof around in there for an hour or more. I finally had to make a rule that he is not allowed to turn on the bathroom light at night. There is a little nightlight in there and though it is tiny, still it gives enough illumination that one can find the toilet, especially when your eyes are already accustomed to the dark. The new rule has helped discourage him from having to use the bathroom so much during the night.

He USED to turn on his bedroom light at night. Once, I found him at, you guessed it, 3 AM fully dressed for school and waiting for breakfast! It was then that I decided he would not be allowed to turn his bedroom light on after we put him to bed until we came in to awaken him the next morning. Well, that worked about one night. Then he conveniently forgot, so I nonchalantly removed his lightbulbs from their fixtures and he spent the next week without operable lights in his room day and night. It was pretty inconvenient for him in the evenings. Once he had served his time and I screwed his lightbulbs back in, he managed to remember the rule from then on. Until, he happened upon a loop-hole...what parent could blame their child for going to the bathroom? So, we had to institute the "no lights can be turned on in the bathroom at night" rule next!

Another Power Ranger Goes Down in Flames...

While cooking supper tonight, I was entertained as I eavesdropped on my two youngest children, engrossed in a world of their own in the adjoining family room.

Rayna, as is her custom was admonishing Doug first about one thing and then another. It seems her brother made the mistake of calling her "Rayna"...in a rather high-brow tone I heard her correct him, telling him that actually her name was "Eliz-a-beth!". So, he agreeably amended his sentence and this time called her "Eliz-a-beth", but, by then she had again changed her mind and imperiously informed him that ACTUALLY her name was "AMANDA!" Patiently, Doug began once more, this time addressing her as "Amanda". I was chopping potatoes and the rest of his part of the conversation was drowned out until I heard Rayna's voice cutting through with disdain, informing him, "I CAN'T MARRY YOU, DOUG! You're my BROTHER...and that would be...AWKWARD. Besides, you're a POWER RANGER and I am a PRINCESS. I don't WANT to marry a POWER RANGER!" I could just imagine the toss of her head that must have accompanied her pronouncement.

I HAD to sneak in and look at the scene at that point, and this is what I found...



Sure enough...it IS just like Rayna said...he's a Power Ranger and she is a Princess, so, of course it would NEVER, EVER work out!

If the Suit FITS, Wear It!

I had to snap this photo! When Doug first joined our family, he LIVED in Super Hero costumes...even slept in them at night. If I told him he HAD to wear his pajamas, he would put the pajamas on OVER his Spiderman suit! That first Spiderman suit of his eventually disintegrated (while still on his little body)! He would even wear the Spiderman suit under OTHER costumes! It wasn't unusual for the child to have on four or five layers of costumes all on at the same time! Guess he figured that THAT way he was always prepared for whatever crisis might befall and whichever super-powers he would need at his disposal!

Doug is four years older now, and no longer LIVES in his super hero costumes, but each costume in his enormous collection still ranks among his most prized possessions. Tonight was a first though... I looked up to realize his LION was the one wearing the Power Ranger suit! Something about a lion in a Power Ranger uniform just cracked me up!

Fall seems to have come later than usual this year and is lingering longer! I love it! Our sleepy cul-de-sac is lined with very mature trees that are just gorgeous. Yesterday, I took this photo of one of the trees on our block.

Today, I was musing on the unusual morning we had Saturday and something crossed my mind that I had not considered before. Doug, having committed a very serious offense a week ago Monday, had lost Halloween priviledges...no dressing up or trick-or-treating for Halloween and no candy. I hadn't cut him totally off sugar, but he hadn't had any CANDY in nearly a week by the time Saturday morning rolled around and I have been eliminating red dye from his diet lately. He is still off the candy...and I think it is making a noticeable difference. Amazing how drastic the dynamics within the family can change with a shift of just one of the children. I am seriously thinking of making myself and all three of the kids sugar-free. After parent teacher conferences, we had to ban our oldest child from energy drinks. It seems she had been gulping a can down every morning and then bounced around happily hyperactive through her first two hours of school. She is making straight A's and is not a discipline problem, but her teachers all agreed she is a bit too exuberant in the morning and all concurred that maybe ending her energy drink habit would solve this problem. Her father and I think that it is probably more a psychological effect than a true effect...she drinks an energy drink PLANNING on it hyperizing her and then acts accordingly. But, regardless of whether the pop's effect is real or placebo, the problem is easily solved by eliminating those type of pop drinks!

I also, have been surprised since we brought Ransom home a few months ago, how wild about the pup, Doug has been. I hadn't expected that. We got Rivendell as a puppy after Doug had already been in our family for a couple of years and, even though she came in a small, non-threatening puppy-size, he remained as wary of her and as uninterested in interacting with her as he was of our two large, grown dogs. So, I was surprised at how he has really just taken to Ransom...and has remained comfortable with her and fond of her even though she has now gotten larger than full grown Rivendell and plays a lot rougher and has much poorer manners. Logically, she should be very intimidating to him. She isn't, though. But, last night as I was watching yet ANOTHER episode of Canine Cops with Doug and was noticing once more how every police dog featured seems to be unusually DARK colored just like Ransom, I finally made the connection. That is just it...our dog LOOKS like the dogs the POLICE MEN use to track down the bad guys and sniff out drugs. Doug is wild about this dog because it LOOKS like a police dog--and what could be cooler than that when you are a little boy who is determined to grow up to be a Super Hero? Yup...and now he has his own personal police dog to help him reach that end. Of course they are going to be tight!

A Few Images From Our Week:

Just in case anyone was worried, Doug HAS gotten a new Halloween costume in time for the big day. He wound up picking it out himself. No, I did not take him shopping. But, over the weekend, his Texas grandparents were visiting and on the way home from church Sunday afternoon, we decided on a whim to head to Branson. Yea Yea, the girls and I spent several hours shopping at the Branson Landing (a wonderful, scenic outdoor mall along the banks of a river that feeds into Lake Tanneycomo). Doug, his Dad, and his grandpa went their own way. Doug was dying to go to the Disney store, so that was their first (and only) stop. The rest of the time they just sat at a table outside the fudge shop nibbling on candied apples! The first time we passed their resting spot, Doug begged me to let him show me "something" he had found at the Disney store. We whizzed in. He led me straight to the Power Rangers (size 10) costume and noting the 40% off sign, I scooped it up and bought it. We were in and out in about sixty seconds flat. No trauma! No drama!



These are the beautiful roses Grant gave me first thing the morning of my 46th birthday!


Today Miss Rayna informed me she had made me a "birthday card". Actually, it was a picture folded down the middle that had nothing at all to do with anyone's birthday! I was quite impressed, though! I think my six year old has a future in comics strips! I love all the dialogue she fit into her picture! (In case you can't read it in this photo, there is a picture of a mom, a dad, Rayna, and a small dog with pointy ears. The words read, "Thak you Mom for giting uss a puppy!!!!!!" Then there is the label "Dad" over the lone male in the picture and he is exclaiming, "STOP Rayna!" and above the small girl (with the very large head and much more hair than the rest of us) are the words, "OO my gosh Mom a puppy mom" I love it!


And I have NO IDEA what they have been doing to my oldest daughter this year during the school day...every single day this week, she has come home and collapsed in the living room and SLEPT SOUNDLY. This the child who, to function at maximum efficiency, required (WANTED) only about 4 hours of sleep out of every 24 hour period from the age of 8.5 months until shortly past her 13th birthday. Some switch flipped in her brain when she turned 13 and she turned into a nap-monger! Now she's catching up on all that sleep she disdainfully forsook her first 13 years, I guess!

Today the kids all had "early out" and we were home by 1:15. Her KC, MO grandparents were here visiting for a few minutes, but, the moment they left, Darcy went comatose. I can tell she is SOUND asleep, because her eyes are partly open. When she is faking it or just beginning to drift off, they are closed. When she hits deep sleep, though, they always open just a tad. That was a bit disconcerting when she was a baby, but I'm used to it now!


And, I just have to reprint here the first few sentences of my little sister's blog entry for today:

Annika is now the proud owner of a completely closed abdomen. Muscles and everything!

I gave Dr. Superina a big smile and said, "All done!"

And he grimaced a little and said, "Well. Let's hope."

Clearly, you can see why Jörg and I adore him.

Snapshotos from Saturday:

We went to Clinton, MO on Saturday to attend a bluegrass festival that Grant's old band was performing at. Greg, (the guitar player who moved to Colorado to accept a pastorate just about six months before Grant moved to Bolivar to accept a teaching position at SBU) was back in town for a visit and had scheduled to guest appear with the band during this performance. Greg had been with the band 14 years and Grant had been with the band 28 years. It was so weird hearing the band announced on stage while Grant was standing NEXT to me, rather than up on stage. It was a bittersweet visit...good to see all the guys and their families again, but sad, too. That band was such a huge part of Grant's life from the age of 17-45, that it seems odd not to still be a part of the band. Surprisingly, Grant hasn't found any regular bluegrass group to pick with down in this part of the country. Two different bands have invited him to join, but both have fallen apart over pre-existing personality conflicts within the band before they could really even get off the ground. I think Grant misses picking a lot. He brought his bass down to Clinton with him in hopes of finding a good jam session, but it seems we missed the jamming...there had been some jamming on Friday night around the campsite, but no one hung around Saturday night after the show to jam. We didn't even end up taking the bass out of the van.

Grant, bless his heart, let me take Ransom with us. This delighted Doug to no end. He spent quite a bit of the day "training" Ransom and taking her for walks.









We listened as the band warmed up. Darcy, exhausted from an overnighter with her friend, Jaylin, fell asleep on the ground. Doug continued "training" the dog. And, Rayna worked her way into a black mood over not getting to have first turn, "training" the dog.






Rayna had fun most of the day, though! She was delighted to see her old buddy, Alayna, again. (Our kids grew up hanging out with Greg and Tracey's kids during the numerous band gigs that filled many of our weekends back in our "old life".)







Rayna's day REALLY brightened when she was able to "save" a little frog. Rayna has the deep-seated belief that any wild-life she finds needs her intervention to survive! And she is certain that they mourn her terribly when she has to "abandon" them to the wild once more because her mother just doesn't understand how much the little frogs, insects, birds, rabbits, etc, NEED her!












Darcy was actually looking quite comfy and content before I aimed my camera her direction. She gets a bit scowly faced whenever she thinks I am taking her photo. (Her mother just causes so much frustration in her life, these days!)









Brian's (mandolin player's) dad did his morning workout using Doug...much to Doug's delight!












Rayna spent a great deal of time working with Ransom. Ransom listens to her and obediently follows each command. Of course, the fact that Rayna and Doug were well stocked with doggy treats didn't hurt! Ransom was quite attentive to both of them in turn!














Darcy and Trent got to catch up on old times, too. I was shocked at how much Trent has grown in just the year and a half he has been away! He is as tall as his father, now!