Anderson was up and down in our room before 6:30 this morning. He was so pleased with himself that he had put on his clothes and was ready for the day. I asked him if his bed was wet and he said no. I later checked and his clothes were not wet but that could be the only reason I could think of to get up and put on clothes that early in the morning.
After laying with us for a few minutes, he headed towards the kitchen. I walked through and saw him looking at Reagan's bracelet. Last night her bracelet broke and she was in tears as she asked me if I could fix it. I was able to fix it last night and spread it out for her on the bar. Anderson saw the bracelet laying there and was studying it. He said "I think I can fix it." Of course he thought that hooking the clasp was what was wrong with it last night. I helped him hook the clasp and he was so proud of himself for fixing his sister's bracelet. A few minutes later, he went upstairs to tell Reagan that he had fixed her bracelet. Sweet boy.
This morning as everyone was putting on their shoes, Campbell asked to wear her "sandal shoes" wanting to wear her sandals. I told her that she needed to wear her tennis shoes because of her boo boos on her feet. Graham then told her that they were not called "sandal shoes" but called "sandals." She looked at him and shouted back "yes, Graham, sandal shoes."
The kids went to Grannymom's house this morning while I ran to work and then home to work on some last minute packing. The plan was to leave for Disney World tomorrow (Friday) evening. Then it got moved up to Friday afternoon, then Friday morning, then early Friday morning and then the plans changed for us to leave today when Robby came home from work. I lost over 24 hours in packing time but managed to pull everything together (mostly). The kids didn't know that we were planning to leave early but with all of the business that packing for everyone causes they must have known something was up.
At Grannymom's house, Grannymom and I worked on Campbell's feet for a few minutes trying to pop her blisters from yesterday. I held her down while distracting her and Grannymom poked her with a clean needle. She jump each time and cried pretty hard after we were finished but soon forgot about it all. Later in the afternoon, I would catch her looking at her feet and she would ask "Grannymom do that to me?" And I would reply that Grannymom didn't hurt her feet.
Grannymom said that Keaton wasn't interested in drinking her milk today. Keaton was too busy swinging her bottle around and watching everything else that was happening in the room.
As we were driving home, Reagan saw some apartments and started listing all of the reasons why people should have big yards. She began with you need a big yard so you can have lots of room to play and so you can have lots of kids. Reagan continued with needing a big yard so you could lots of parties when Graham interpreted with "and you can shoot 'em up." I explained that we don't "shoot people up" but for the next few minutes he was fascinated with saying "shoot 'em up" during every conversation that we had.
I figured that since it was over 100 degrees today, we all needed to start our vacation early with Wendy's frostys. I was in such a good mood that I even let them eat the frostys on the way home It was a pretty mess free event. Graham spilled a few bits on his shirt and surprisingly Campbell didn't spill much (or not much that I could see). Once home, we gave Belle more water and I sprayed the kids down as well. Keaton had fallen asleep at Grannymom's house and briefly stirred as I took her inside. I gave her a bottle and then I had to wake that little sleeping beauty so maybe she would sleep a bit in the car tonight.
Reagan, Anderson and Graham went into my bedroom and started watching a movie once we made it home. Campbell stayed in the new mudroom sitting on the steps looking out the window. She told me that she was waiting on her daddy to come home. I said that was fine but knew she had at least 3 hours to wait. Later, I saw her laying inside of the new bench. She was so pleased with herself and them told me that she was going to sleep there. I thought about getting her a pillow but soon forgot. She loved hanging out in the mudroom and told me she was sitting "outside" I think she liked being "outside" and that is probably the best "outside" place to sit in the middle of the summer since it is really inside!
I had seen recipes for how to make brownie and cookie mixes from scratch. And for some reason, I thought that would be a good thing to do this afternoon. Actually, I was fairly packed and since the kids all helped, it kept them busy and unable to mess up the house (any more than it was already messed up). So the four big kids sat at the bar and each picked out a mix to make-brownies, sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies or chocolate chip cookies. They had their recipe beside them and I also had their recipe laid out on my side in front of them. Reagan was able to read her recipe and I passed out the ingredients to everyone letting them dump them in their bowl. This whole event was messy and chaotic but everyone enjoyed it so much that they traded recipes and we did it again, and again and again! We ended up with 4 bags of each mix for a total of 16. I then sent them off to watch a movie and woke Keaton up to keep Campbell entertained. Then I started on cleaning up the kitchen-just imagine the boys and Campbell pouring and stirring dry ingredients in a metal bowl and doing this 4 different times. At one point, Campbell filled a measuring cup with mix from her bowl and dumped it into Anderson's bowl. I was mostly able to fish it out but that bag of mix will be quite a surprise!
Yes, I did say that I woke poor Keaton up to keep Campbell entertained. Campbell crawls around on the floor coaxing Keaton to follow her and Keaton enjoys all of the attention and can keep up with Campbell. Campbell did find a paci and had me put it in her pocket. She told me that it was for Keaton when she saw Mickey. I guess she thinks that Keaton will cry when she sees Mickey Mouse and the paci will help her even though Keaton doesn't like her paci at all.
I fed Keaton and left her in the highchair while I went to do something. When I returned, Graham and Campbell were up on the kitchen table eating crackers as well. Graham was drawing "a map of the North Pole" on my to do list.
It was 5 and Robby wasn't home yet so I fed everyone supper-trying to clean out the fridge so they had a hodge podge of foods. Then I went outside to start working on the roof bag. Everyone followed me out and I had the boys help a bit as I was reminding them about us leaving tomorrow and this way we would be all ready.
We finished loading up when Robby came home and even did the ice chest but no one ever asked why we were putting ice in them a whole day early. I gave everyone popsicles while Robby gave Campbell a shower. We then told everyone to go and put on their clothes because we had to run to the store. And still they thought nothing of it even though I usually don't make them change out of their play clothes and even into new underwear for a trip to Sams. Once we loaded up the car and headed down the street at 6:49, Robby asked them if they wanted to go to the store or just go on to Disney World.
Of course the unanimous answer was Disney World. Robby said "ok" and we drove on and that is when all of the questions started. "Are you serious?" "Are you teasing us?" they all wanted to know. Once they figured out we were serious, the roar in the car became pretty loud-they went from calm little children to going wild in just a few minutes. Campbell even shouted at Robby "go faster Daddy."
Campbell, Graham and Keaton were the first ones to fall asleep and they all slept for a little while. The road construction between Little Rock and Memphis put us about 30 minutes behind. We came to a complete stop twice but I guess it could have been much worse. We made it to Memphis around 9:30 and the kids had watched 2 and a half movies already. We had already passed out plenty of snacks but Robby and I were hungry.
We soon stopped near Olive Branch, MS at a McDonalds. Of course when we drove up the kids saw the play place before we could drive somewhere else. And then that McDonalds was under construction so they potties were outside. They were the very fancy porta potties so we made our potty stop there, played on the slide for a bit and bought hamburgers for everyone to eat in the car.
Graham must have slept very hard because as we were getting out of the car, he told me that his pants were wet and indeed they were-along with his shirt and car seat. I changed him into his pajamas, rinsed out his clothes and sprayed his seat with fabreeze. I am hoping that his clothes dry (and aren't too stinky) by in the morning. Don't worry, I do have the child more clothes but they aren't too accessible. My plan was for them to wear their daytime clothes in the morning. So that is why I have underwear on the vent in front of me, a shirt hanging over the head rest of my seat and shorts drying handing off of Graham's seat.
We have been eating our rice krispy treats like mad and at home today Reagan told me that she wished I had a Mickey Mouse cutter so I could have made mickey shaped treats. The sad thing is-I do have two mickey cookie cutters but I forgot all about using them this time on the rice krispy treats. Oh, well they will be gone in a few hours so it won't really matter anyway!
We left McDonalds at 10:25 and then stopped briefly to get gas. Around 10:40, Keaton had her second bottle and hopefully she has settled in for the night. It looks like we are 20-40 minutes behind two years also when we left at the same time for this all night drive. The only difference is-one more kid and that year we didn't know we were driving all night long.
At 11 everyone was still awake but as soon as the movie finished, we had the boys move our van sticker and then we turned off their movie so they could go to sleep. It looks like everyone is sleeping well-though Anderson may have a crick in his neck from how he is sleeping. Graham awakes occasionally and fusses but them goes back to sleep.
I tried to read a magazine for awhile but fell asleep twice. Robby has listened to his book about the President's club and is now watching a movie about Margaret Thatcher. I am catching bits and pieces of it but might now look at my Ikea catalog or do a little bit of blog reading. It is now 2 and we are on the other side of Birmingham. We have almost 7 hours left on this trip so that isn't bad at all.
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