lots of kabobs, lots of emotion

It was a busy weekend at the Hydeen house.

Friday started out with me babysitting I and H again. (I feel like on every other blog I read, people use the first letter instead of the name. So even though I don't think C&A would mind if I use their children's names, I'll join the "cool bloggers" and call them I and H. and on a different note, why does blogger think that children's is not a word? it has that red squiggly under it.)

So, I'm babysitting I and H, and realizing very quickly that the lack of naps on Thursday and inexplicable late night talking/laughing/playing for Lillian and Josiah is about to kick me in the butt.

And sure enough.

H is still getting used to her mommy being back at work, and is struggling a bit with the whole bottle thing. But I figured out a way to get her to eat a little at least. And just as she's going strong, I hear blood curdling screams coming from the bedroom. I put H down, much to her dismay, and head to the bedroom. Josiah is in MY bedroom screaming his head off, and I is in Josiah's bedroom screaming his head off. H is mad in the kitchen that I quit feeding her, and screaming as well, while Brielle has no reason to, she decides that it's all a little much for her, and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em or something. SO, if you're following all this, that means 4 out of 5 kids screaming. And I'm not exaggerating.

I get the gist of what happened in the bedroom from police-woman/rule-follower Lillian. Josiah first hadn't been letting people in the bedroom with him, so when he finally did, and I got inside the room, my sweet little J-man decided to SLAM the door in his face and not let him out. So I (the kid, not me) was freaking out and banging on the door, which probably scared Josiah so much that he started crying and screaming, and then they just continually triggered each other's screams. So I had Josiah stay in my room for a while (if you can't play nicely with other kids, then you have to play in here by yourself) and gave I a few big hugs to calm him down. Then I headed back into the kitchen to feel H again, and tossed a few Cheerios in Brielle's direction, and suddenly, it was close to quiet again. wow.

So I survived the major catastrophe, but for the rest of the day, my blood pressure remained at a higher level than healthy I'm sure.

At about lunchtime (well, it wasn't actually lunchtime, but I decided that after that morning my kids needed an early nap, so we did a very early lunch), my sister and my niece came, and I and H's mom was soon to be arriving. I passed my kids off to Maria, who put them down for a nap while Hazel, H, and I played until Mel came and grabbed Hazel. Soon their mom came and took the kids. Maria, Mel, and Hazel left to do some shopping, and I was all by myself!

ahh, the perfect time to take a nap.

except for the fact that my house was in shambles and I had 6 extra people sleeping here, and 3 others just for dinner. SO, I got my butt in gear.

I did the dishes, etc and tried to make the kitchen look presentable. Then I cleaned the dining room and even mopped the floor on my hands and knees. Let's just say it hasn't been cleaned like that for, well, when did we move in here again???? But it looked good. So I decided to take a break from cleaning and do the fun stuff instead. I got my cricut out and make a bunch of letters to decorate the wall. "ADIOS Christa y Sarah. Dios les bendiga" took a little more time than I thought to cut out, but it was fun.

Soon Tom and Carla (Steve's parents) came, and Erika and Christa (Steve's sisters) were not far behind. They helped me get my house in shape, and Erika even gave my kids a lesson in NOT touching the windows and doors after they were clean. It didn't stick with them. :(

The house was soon bustling with activity again as the kids woke up, my sisters came back, and kabobs were being made. Since the kids were taken care of, I could sit at the counter and lovingly prepare about 50 kabobs with my sisters. We had eaten kabobs at our neighbor's house on Sunday, and since they were SO good, we decided to have them again with our guests on Friday.

Eventually Christa and the kids went with Erika to get her boyfriend Will from the airport, and Steve came home from work. Long story short, once we started grilling the kabobs, we realized that the grill was just going to burn the veggies and only partially cook the meat. So we UN-did all the hours of skewering and made a big old pot of stir fry. and, although I'm a big fan of stir fry, it just wasn't the same.
and I couldn't get those hours back....

But the rest of the meal was a hit. :) and so was the dessert. I'll post the recipe sometime soon, so you can all make it before the end of summer.

Speaking of the end of summer, the REAL reason all the people were over this weekend was because Christa was leaving for Honduras early Saturday morning. So after an evening of just being together and meeting Sarah, (one of Christa's roommates in Honduras, who just happens to be from Sioux Falls, and just happened to go to Dordt for a short time) it was time to say goodbye.

If I were going to give awards to my children's aunts, Christa's award would be
BEST AUNT EVER FOR PLAYING AND PLAYING AND PLAYING WITH THE KIDS

I'm an aunt too, and let's just say that I don't always feel like playing with my nephews and niece when we're together. I like to sit and have grown-up talk with my sister, and watch the kids play together. But I don't do a lot of playing. And I think that's why I so appreciate Christa's relationship with my kids. And so do they.

So we say goodbye and get all teary, and then as soon as I'm in the hallway away from the rest of everyone, my tears flow a little more freely. I know I'll see her at Christmas, but it still kills me, even with skype, and facebook, and emails, and all the other wonderful indulgences of modern technology. it's still not the same.

Okay, so then by Saturday at lunchtime we're "all" (except Christa) sitting at Red Robin, unable to hear each other talk, but enjoying a few last minutes before Erika and Will leave for a super long road trip.

And soon enough, it's down to just us and Tom and Carla. Steve and I took their van to Bellevue (SO glad we don't live there anymore, by the way) to buy ourselves a dining room table. Craigslist has redeemed itself. I absolute LOVE the table, but I'm not a huge fan of the color. If it gets the best of me, I might consider restaining it. anyone done that before? is it worth the work???

And then...sure enough, Tom and Carla left as well. The kids were so upset that I"m sure they heard them crying around the block and down the street. But man, it was an emotional weekend for all.

Sunday we even went to church at the Fort St. site, which is the "home base" of our church we attend now. We regularly attend in Gretna, in a middle school cafeteria, so to walk into the church building and worship there involved some emotion I wasn't expecting either. It was good.

So all in all, a wonderful, bitter-sweet weekend.

I don't feel the greatest, but it probably has more to do with the food I've been eating than the lack of sleep or the excessive emotion of the weekend. Carla's way of blessing (or, is it CURSING?) :) us when she comes is by bringing a VAN full of food and milk and treats and meat and all-around goodness for us to enjoy together and then keep here! The suggestion is always made to freeze some of this and some of that, but for some reason it never makes it to the freezer! :) Thanks Carla for the delicious food!

Okay, time to be done. Is anyone even still reading??? :)

I thought I'd just end this post with a few photos of our weekend, only without the photos. Because I didn't take a SINGLE one! :( I'm very sad. but not sad enough to express emotion over it. I've had enough of that for a while....