I'd like to thank God that the children and I made it home safely last night. We had to take Mark back to Grand Rapids after having him home this weekend. We actually had a great although lazy weekend. We drove down on Saturday afternoon to pick up Mark. The time we were suppose to be there got pushed back two hours which made me a little cranky since I wanted him home NOW! We left Grand Rapids right away instead of staying for dinner. We stopped at Brann's Steakhouse about half an hour down the road. Their sign said "immediate seating" but they lied! We had to wait about 15 minutes. Of course 15 minutes with three kids is 15 minutes too long. After we were seated the kids were pretty decent. Henry order the children's steak and ate it all. Irene had mac and cheese and hardly ate any of it. Mark and I were actually able to eat and enjoy our meal. After dinner Gavin and I popped into Barnes and Noble while Mark, Henry, and Irene went to Toys-R-Us. Then we met back up and finished the hour and half trip home.
Sunday...what did we do? Not much. It was a lazy day. We were all kinda pooped out and relaxed at home. I really can't recall our Sunday...am I getting old? What did we do????
Monday Henry had school. It was nice to be able to take him in. My friend Ann's sister usually takes him in for me. Her daughter is in his class and she knows how difficult it is to take three kids in and out of the car. Plus I needed to talk to Henry's teacher about school next fall. I signed Irene up for the three year olds class that meets twice a week. I wasn't sure if I should sign Henry up for preschool again or if he should do the young fives class at the public school. He is the youngest student this year in the four year olds preschool program. I'll spare you all the details of where his birthday falls verses appropriate age for kindergarten and blah blah...basically his teacher and I decided that Henry will do the four year olds preschool program again in the fall. Then when he starts kindergarten he'll be older instead of the youngest student AND he'll have more experience with numbers and letters and should be at the head of the class instead of behind. He'll also be in the morning class which has more students in it. He'll have less one-on-one with the teacher and get a more accurate classroom setting. Right now he is one of six students and while I think the one-on-one time is just what he needs for his first time in school I think it will help him if this next year his class size is larger. Does all that make sense? It does mean we'll be paying two tuitions every month but I feel it is worth every penny.
On Monday we (or rather Mark) did our taxes. It went surprisingly well. Not getting unemployment for all though months, and having to sell some of my jewelry just to get by, may be made up for this tax time. And of course having Gavin...my little tax deduction ;) According to Babytalk magazine 2009 was a better year to have a child because of the higher deduction amount given. Quite frankly...I feel we deserve any and all money we get back. We had to beg and plead to get what little assistance we did and we never received unemployment and there were times when I thought Gavin would be born on the side of the road since we wouldn't have had enough money for gas to get to the hospital. Whew! Those were some tough months!
Tuesday morning we knew Mark would probably be going back to work. I made breakfast for us all and then Mark and Henry took the car for an oil change. Henry got a kick out of it since you don't get out of the car. Mark rolled down his window so he could see and hear everything. When they were done they picked up Irene, Gavin and me and we went for a little ride around town. After lunch we packed everyone up and heading back to Grand Rapids. We went to the mall and discovered that we forgot the stroller. We had to pay $7.50...YES $7.50 to rent a stroller!!!! What an obscene amount of money for a stroller rental! I don't feel we spent enough time at the mall to get our $7.50 out of that stroller. We did have a delicious dinner at a place called On The Border. Mark and I had a very good burrito made with shredded beef. Henry had a corn dog and ate the entire thing. I was very pleased since he eats like a bird and he was so well-behaved. Irene...yeah...the usual.
We drove Mark to his truck after dinner. I was starting to get worried about the road conditions. The weather had been wet and kinda snowy and it was already dark and cold. And this brings me to where I started this post...thanking God that we made it home. The freeway had not been sanded/salted and it was slick. I was going very slow as was the car in front of me. Then a tanker truck decided to pass me. Yeah...not my idea of fun! Then cars in front of us started jumping on their breaks. Cars everywhere in ditches, crashed into each other. Police cars and tow trucks lit up the road with their lights. I was frightened and we were creeping down the road at 25 miles an hour instead of the posted 70. I called Mark (yes I know I shouldn't have been driving and talking!) he said to turn around and come back to his truck. We made it back to him and we all went to Toys-R-Us. Why the toy store? Basically to amuse the kids and give the road commission time to get out and sand the roads. By the time we left again it was almost two hours later but the roads, while not good, were better than they had been. I still drove slowly and it was 10:30pm when we got home but we made it safely.
The kids are all overtired this morning and Henry actually told me he was too tired to go to school. Since he loves going to school I can only assume he really is too tired. I am tired too and wouldn't mind not having to go out in the snow. I guess we'll wait and see.
Even though our weekend with daddy ended a bit dramatically we did have a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed our time together.
Irene got her very first hair cut the other day. Yes, she is just two and a half months away from her third birthday but my baby girl has never gotten her hair cut. Her hair has always been very sparse and only a couple of times have I just trimmed her bangs to keep them out of her eyes. We were shopping at Wal-Mart and stopped at the salon. Irene was afraid of the cape and refused to wear it. Other than that she was very good. The picture above is of Irene the day we had to drive to Traverse City for Gavin's doctor appointment. She looked adorable in her skirt and with her hair braided. During the car ride she decided that she did not like her tights and proceeded to rip a hole in them. Then she took out the braids in her hair. I was not happy. I had to take her into the doctor's office looking like that!
My pretty girl with her new hair cut!
Gavin weighs 14 pounds now!
Our MOPS group is selling chocolate crosses for Easter. It raises money send members of our group to retreats. 
I've also joined the knitting Olympics which is explained on the other blog.
