That's how I roll

I know that my neighbors think my children are completely wild and unsupervised.  I'll allow that it may be half true.  My lovely friend and neighbor across the street will not let her children play out of their yard, and it must make her crazy to be enforcing that with her children while my brood is racing off in all directions.  For anyone who thinks I am unaware of what my children are doing outside in the front, I'll have you know, I AM watching them.  Check this out:

The computer is strategically located right here, in front of this window.  That means I can sit here, doing my thing, AND I can look outside and see that yes indeed, Delaney is, in fact, riding her Big Wheel (Dan calls it a Hot Cycle) down the middle of the street, wearing nothing but her crocs and a swimsuit. 

Yep, here's the view from inside the house.  See, I can look out and check on my minions, no problem.  And, lest you worry that Delaney was completely on her own, worry no more!  Joshua and his friend were riding escort on their scooters with her as she raced down the road.  We don't have a very busy street, by the way.  We get very little traffic, and most of it knows to slow and look for kids. Predominantly, my kids.

Here's my swimsuit-clad darling. She took off the crocs and managed to skin her toes, since she scoots with her feet, rather than peddling with the pedals.

And yes, I can watch most of my children all at the same time.  We have a couple kids in the area and I think most of them were out this day, having a very good time.  However, Delaney was the only one in a swim suit!

The Pool

Since we had such a good time last week at the pool, I thought it might be a good idea to go again.  Plus, with school not starting for another week and a half, I needed stuff to keep the kids busy and entertained.  The children were quite delighted to go to the pool, and I had fun because we coordinated to go with our friends.  So I got to visit and stay cool in the pool while they played.  

In a surprising turn of events, Delaney decided she was done after about an hour.  At first she was okay to just sit here.  Then she demanded to be changed into her clothes.  She spent the last 20 minutes of our swim time fully dressed on the deck.  Such a pickle!

I love this shot.  It makes me laugh.  Here we have Joshua, chillin' on his floats, completely oblivious to his irate sister, as he mows into her.   And we have half of Callie, who is certain that I am focused on her, and she is oblivious to the drama below her.  Yes, it does make me giggle.

Now I am focused on Callie.  She's turning into quite the ham.  And she's getting pretty comfortable in the water.  She had me in stitches, because she would tell me she was going to swim to me.  Then she would plop her face in the water and run towards me.  It was quite amusing.  While her technique needs a bit of work, she at least is putting her face in!

And I had to get a shot of Marian, my fearless one.  I love the way she hurls herself at the water with 100% commitment. I  love to watch her.

What to do with a Box!

Who knew a box could be so much fun?!  To be honest, I'm not even entirely sure where it came from.  It merely appeared on the living room floor this morning and after a minor scuffle, Delaney emerged the victor and proprietor of it.

She put it on the couch and proceeded to make herself a nest. 

Yep, snuggled all cozy in her box with her little pillow, her blanket and her striped cat that she insists is a tiger.

What a cutie.  She was all content with her stuff and her thumb.

Okay mom, stop bothering me now!

Family Day

Whatever Marine Coprs unit thing that Dan is officially attached to held a Family Day today.  I was a little concerned, since the park was an hour drive away and today's forecast involved rain and thunderstorms.  We decided to head out anyway.    

It was hot.  I was really hot.  Fortunately, I dressed for it in my shirt that does not show sweat marks, because let me tell you, I was sweating! Still, we had fun.  The kids played at the park and we ate hamburgers, hotdogs, chips and soda- much to the children's delight.  Then we wandered down to the balloon lady.  

She made some great balloon things, but she wasn't very fast about it.  I love Delaney's face in this picture.  She's watching her balloon dog being made.

And there she is with her purple dog!

Callie got a pink cat with a very long tail. She was thrilled. The lady even drew faces on them. (The balloons, not the kids.)

Here is Joshua with his gigantic sword.  Marian also got a big sword, and she was probably off fighting someone.  That, or she'd discovered the bounce houses were being set up.  They had a couple bounce houses- a regular one, one for little kids, and a fantastic obstacle course one that ended with a big slide.  That was their favorite.

Daddy and Delaney watched the fun.  Delaney wasn't sure she liked all the commotion.

Here's Marian, coming down the big slide.  They liked this part the best.

Hopping through part of the obstacle course, here comes Joshua!  He really had a good time with this.  All of them would finish and race back around to do it again.  I loved that they were getting all that energy out!

It took Callie a little longer, but once she decided to try it, she had a great time as well and went round and round and round with her big brother and sister.

Delaney finally got brave enough to get in the kiddie bounce house.  She then did not want to get out.  I put this picture in because its not blurry.  Delaney and this little boy were buddies and it was so cute.  One of them would jump and then bounce onto their tummy and the other would do it next.

Joshua got into trouble for trying to run back up the slide.  So, after 2 hours of having a very good time, this is how he ended- unhappy and complaining about the whole day.  Yep, that's why I love kids; nothing is ever good enough!

He got to go on the obstacle course one more time, and check out his attitude!  Isn't that awesome?!  Mr. Grumpy, refusing to have any fun at all.  It was too funny to pass up.

My 3 hot sweaty girls.  After all that racing around in the heat, we were ready to go.  You can't really tell, but they are red-cheeked and sweaty-headed.

So we got sno-cones before we went home.

Then we sat in traffic for eternity to get home.  We did stop for gas and I, being quite pregnant and having drunk 3 bottles of water, had to go to the bathroom.   I waited, and waited, and waited in line, and the gal right before me backed up the toilet and it flooded the bathroom.   So I had to go back in the car with my already unhappy bladder.  Yes, that's how the event ended for me!  Now it is pouring down rain and all 4 children are our cavorting in it.  What a great Saturday!

Last drops of fun!

Dan and the 2 older children come home in about 3 hours!  Yay!  I have spent this week trying to squeeze the last drops of fun with just the 2 little ones.  I realized I'm just too pregnant to really do much.  I know I was a lot more active with Delaney right up till I delivered, so I do not know why I am so physically unable to do anything.  I'm going to blame it on being 35.  If doctors are convinced that turning 35 makes you suddenly of "advanced maternal age"  they must be right. Ha!  Still, its the only excuse I've got, so I'm sticking to it.

I took Callie and Delaney to Mount Vernon yesterday.  Callie asked for a Mommy-Daughter Date and that's what she picked to do.  I got them out there by 9am to try to take advantage of the morning weather.  It didn't help.  I was still sweat-soaked by the time we got to the museum.  Ug.  I hate sweating, and its all I do these days.

Callie was delighted to see the sheep.  We heard that there were piglets, but I was so NOT going to take the bus to the other side of Mount Vernon so I could hoof it around the animal area and sweat even more.  I said she'd have to wait for Daddy to take her and I hustled her to the air conditioned museum area.

The girls love the hands-on museum for kids.  For some reason, Delaney was entranced by this table for tea.  She spent most of her time right here.  Callie helped her get a full setting of stuffed animals and Delaney proceeded to feed them all "tea".  It was very cute.  Delaney was so into it!  Callie flitted from one thing to the next like a butterfly.

Callie and I put his puzzle together and she was so proud of herself.  She also played with the puppets, the baby dolls, the doll house and got Delaney her own little puzzle to work on.

Daddy has set the tradition.  Whenever he takes the girls on a Daddy- Daughter Date to Mount Vernon, he always buys them ice cream at the food court.  $7 later, I had happy campers.  Disgusting prices, and at 11am it meant they weren't hungry for lunch when we got home.  But they had a good time and it got us out of the house.  I took a 2 hour nap with Delaney in the afternoon.

And now an awkward change of topic:

Here in our ward, we do Visiting Teaching Groups.  They put us all in groups of 4 and we're suppose to get together at least once a month in any way we want.  My fabulous friend and visiting teaching group companion Sherrie thought it would be fun to go swimming, since our group all has small children.  So this morning, I took the girls to the pool here for the first time.  They had a ball!  The pool has a zero depth entry and a huge kiddie area, so they were in heaven. Callie was such a hoot by the end- she'd put her head in the water and crawl up the ramp!  Delaney would start on her belly at the top, ad slide into the water.  It was so worth taking them!  Plus its always more fun to have friends to chat with, and I had fun too.

The pool had noodles you could use and I think between all the kids we brought, we ended up carting 10 of the darn things out of the water when we were done.  Callie thought it was great though.

Delaney liked to play on the ramp rail, but the lifeguards didn't like it.  It was hard to keep her off it.  Once she finished crying about it she did have a great time walking up and down the pool and waving her arms, telling me,  "I swimming!".

My cutie Callie!  We did take the kids to the 4 foot area.  Delaney definitely prefers to be able to stand up herself, but Callie liked it.  She even got brave enough to actually jump into the water.... as long as I was holding one hand.

An hour after we got home, and well before her usual nap-time, here was Delaney.  She had so much fun at the pool and completely wore herself out!  Yay!

Being Positive!

I feel like I maybe haven't been very positive lately.  Its lonely without Dan, and with no real routine, its hard to be motivated.  So I'm going to sit here and write 3 positive things from this week.  3 things that made me smile, that made me happy, that made my life better.

1.  I love that when I go walking in the morning, I have Callie with me.  She is such a delight and so cute and funny!  She loves dogs, and when we walk through the park, we usually see people out walking their dogs.  Callie will keep an eye out and as soon as she spots a dog, she gets excited.  The dog may be 100 yards away, but she's already calling"Good morning dog!  I love your curly tail!"  She calls out to them till we get close and pass each other.  She tells them what beautiful hair they have and how pretty they are.  It is so cute.  She is so enthusiastic and delightful.  Sometimes she'll say hello to everyone we pass; sometimes it's just the dogs. Always it is with that bright smile and vivacious personality! How can you not smile when you hear her joy?!

2. Friends make me happy.  We had a lesson in RS today about friendship.  I think it was suppose to be more on Joseph Smith and the loyal and committed friends he had, but we mostly discussed what friendship means to us. (No, I think you can tell I did not read the lesson.  And I forgot to bring my manual, which I do usually have!)  I think there are a lot of different levels of friendship.  I love that at some level, I am friends with a lot of my ward. Sure, most of them are more at the acquaintance level, but I think that has more to do with lack of time, than lack of interest.  I got to go to lunch with my friend Belinda this week.  She expressed an interest and out we went.  It was so nice to spend time with another adult, even with wiggly kids in tow.  It was also great because we both watched each other's kids this week.  She watched Callie and Delaney for me, and I was able to step in Saturday when she needed someone unexpectedly.  I love that I was in a position to help her out and she was able to help me out.  I love that being in the church allows me to have friends I otherwise would not have.  It makes me happy to know there are people I can call.  And, as I was leaving church today, one of the Young Men stopped me and asked if I needed anything.  He asked if the YM could help me out with anything, even if it was just dropping by to say hi.  That really made me feel special.

3.  A mowed lawn makes me happy.  When I got home 2 weeks ago, our lawn was a bit overgrown.  I called the local lawn mowing boy, but he was out of town.  I figured it wasn't too bad, it could wait.  Then the neighbors on both sides mowed their lawns and ours looked pretty bad in comparison.  And it only got worse.  The gum tree the neighbor cut down apparently thinks it needs to replace itself, so there were about 10 new trees delightedly sprouting, uninhibited.  It was all very unsightly.  Grass was starting to take over the walkway and the drive and I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed.  I kept thinking I would get around to it, but the idea of pushing that noisy mower in this wretched heat myself was enough to nearly send me into early labor. So I didn't.  And it got late enough I thought the lawn might wait till Dan got home.  Fortunately, the local boy returned home, called, and came over and took care of it.  I love him.  He mows, he bags the grass, and he edges!  All for a fairly low price.  I did give him an extra $10 because the lawn was so bad, I could hear his mower struggling in places and he had to empty the grass catcher every 10 minutes.  My lawn looks so much nicer!  I love it!  It is no longer a jungle and I'm not blushing every time I leave the house.  I am so happy that he came and mowed and I didn't have to.  Its also kind of nice that now Dan doesn't have to worry about it when he gets home.

Follow Up

I let the girls go out in the back yard this evening. Delaney discovered where I hid her swim sui, so I finally patched the hole in the kiddie pool and let them have a splashing good time.  Unfortunately, the mosquitoes had an even better time!  I saw the little buggers all over Delaney, so I pulled out my fabulous Purification essential oil and covered her with it.  When the girls finally finished playing in the pool and came in, Callie's back was more bites than not.  The poor thing was seriously covered with hundreds of bites.  Delaney, not very much.   Lesson to self- make sure to cover both girls in oil before letting them out in that 'squito-infested yard.

And I really sat down to follow up on yesterday.  I want you to know, that as soon as I posted yesterday, saying that my uterus had been quiet for a while, it started back up again.  I contracted nicely and steadily (as in every 3-5 minutes for a few hours) and finally after much stress and concern said, "Okay!  I'll go in!"  So I called a lovely sister in our ward with babysitting age daughters and one was free and she came over about 6pm.  I dutifully  headed over to the hospital, knowing that it was most likely nothing (but having to go find out anyway).

I was pleasantly surprised by my experience.   When I had a similar issue while pregnant with Callie, they didn't want me to go until I wasn't having any more contractions, and they gave me hiddeous medicine, and were a bit overanxious about it all.  Let me say now, that Callie is the only one I went in with for consistent pre-term contractions and she is the ONLY one of my 4 children who was actually born on her due date.  The rest have all come just about 10 days before the doc's prescribed due date.  So, you see why I'm sure its nothing!

So, I went in.  They hooked me up to the monitors and monitored for 30 minutes.  I had a lovely Russian doctor, and felt sad that Dan wasn't there to converse in Russian with him. Actually, that's not the only reason I was sad that Dan wasn't around!  Next we were off to the groping room where I got cultured, and my cervix was checked.  (It was not dilating.)  They also did an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels.  They even took a blurry face shot for me to keep.  I have a very active baby who looks quite healthy.  I have normal amniotic fluid levels.  I have a non-changing cervix, and everything looks good.  They sent me home shortly after 9pm and called at 10:30 to tell me my cultures came back normal.    I love that they sent me home!  I love that they didn't worry about the contractions when they saw that everything looked normal and fine. It made me very happy.  My pocketbook too.  Its hard to ask a nice girl to come over and babysit for an unknown amount of time. One feels the need to compensate appropriately so she'll come again.

There were some issues though.  Apparently I have a very common name.  And apparently there is a lady with my same name who is cross connected with me in the computer, so they cannot access ME in the computer.  Not a great thing.  They spent half of my visit trying to work that out.  I don't think they ever got the glitch taken care of.   Also, 2 months ago I had a great doctor, who I loved.  She moved this summer.  I have not met my replacement doctor, so I am currently kind of doctor-less.  Since this is kid #5, I'm not sure I care very much, but it might be nice to have a familiar face around, and someone who I know has at least heard about my secret hopes for how the delivery will go.   One last thing- while it was inconvenient, it was great to learn that cell phones will not work at all in the hospital.  So, nice to learn before it really mattered. 

Having said that, it was ultimately a pretty positive experience. I felt a lot better when I went home.  And why would I not?!  I got to spend some time alone, reading "Eldest".  I found out my rowdy uterus is all talk.  I got to meet some of the labor and delivery staff and discovered that they were all very nice and pleasant people.  And I found out I have a lot of friends concerned about me and willing to help me out.  Plus, I came home to 2 little girls who had been bathed and put to bed by someone other than myself.  Not too bad an evening, all things considered!

For those of you who have read this far and might be wondering, "what does it all mean?",  It means I'm fine.  It means any more contractions I feel are probably just noise.  It means I won't go in to the hospital again unless my water breaks or the contractions actually get bad enough I have to use breathing techniques.  It means I have an excuse to do less and sit more.  The problem with that is that I exercise so that I can eat.  If I'm not exercising, how can I justify all that ice cream?!

My week thus far

With fewer children around, it seems like the house is a lot less interesting.  Not that Callie and Delaney aren't a barrel of laughs, but somehow, its hard to come up with interesting things to blog about.  So, here is a bit of what we have been doing.....

We went to the park.  Its really been much to hot to be outside at all, but at 9:30 in the morning, with a bit of a breeze, it wasn't too bad.  That's a total lie.  I was sweaty and hot, but the girls had a blast. 

Delaney declared herself to be a monster, and the other kids ran away, but she didn't chase them.  I don't think she understood her monster responsibilities.

Ah, yes.  This is my living room floor.  I cannot even count the number of times the girls or I have cleaned up all the toys.  This was after we spent the afternoon babysitting Callie's friend N. The kids had a marvelous time together, and had some very elaborate things set up for all the little animals.  And I'll have you know that at this very second, this same floor is clean and vacuumed!  (By the way, that adorable ladybug ride-on toy.... Delaney calls it her "Lainey-Bug!"  So cute!)    

Delaney loves the "Once Upon a Potty" video.  She has watched it at least once every day. No, we are not potty training, but when we do, she'll be ready!

This is Callie.  She cannot open the screen door by herself.  This is incredibly annoying, because Callie will go outside and when she needs something, or wants to come in, she will ring the doorbell repeatedly.  And usually she doesn't even need to come in, she just wanted to give me a flower or put a "special rock" inside.  Sigh.  I'd be happier if she needed help to get out, rather than in.

This is Dan's car.  It sat in the garage waaay too long without getting to go for a ride.   Plus, I'm pretty sure the battery was last replaced in law school, which would make it at least 6 years old.  This morning I, in all my bulky glory, got to push this thing out of our minuscule garage.  I even managed to do it without running into the side of the garage or anything else.  This is impressive, because we only have about 3 inches of clearance on either side.  I got it jump started and the girls and I took it out for a new battery.  Yes, I am just that good.

Later we went to Target.  Here are my lovely ladies, trying on sunglasses.  They are so stylin'!

As for me, its been a little stressful this week.  I am 33 weeks pregnant. That means 7 weeks to go.  And I have been having so many contractions. I had a good 24 hours of pretty much non-stop, 5 minute apart ones the other day.  Very stressful, since my sweetie-pie is all the way across the country at the moment.  Should I have gone in?  Maybe.  The only thing they could have done was tell me if I'm "progressing" or if anything was changing in the area of vacating.  If it turned out I really was in labor, then they'd ambulance me over to Bethesda, because they don't do deliveries before 36 weeks here.  So, to get someone to watch the girls (for an indeterminable amount of time, somewhere between 4 hours and possibly up to a week) and to get to the hospital for them to really do nothing was not really how I wanted to spend my time.  Plus, I decided that if I were in denial, then it was all okay.   

On the bright side, I did get the house cleaned.  I figured if someone was going to unexpectedly have to watch my children, I didn't want to be embarrassed by the state of my house.  I also got my hospital bag together, and I put together overnight backpacks for the girls- again, just in case they had to go spend time with someone else unexpectedly.  I even got all my baby stuff together and ready.  Or at least located.  I feel all productive and ready now.... mostly.

The frustrating thing is, that its most likely just practice and I'm un-dilated and will go all the way to my due date.  I don't like this.  I mean, there is always the possibility that this baby will suddenly decide to come early, but there is no way to tell until it happens.  So I'm going to stress for nothing and then later, I'll get to stress that she's not coming.  Ug.  Such a vicious cycle!  Fortunately, I am contraction free at the moment, and feeling better!

For your Amusement

I have seen a lot of bickering and whining and crying this week.  And most of it wasn't even ME!  Somehow, not having the older 2 around has allowed Callie and Delaney to hone their teasing skills on each other.  Add to this the change of routine and all that, and I have dealt with more than my share of unhappy girls. Some days I want to pull out my hair.  Why can't we just be friends?!

Yep, this is the sad, crying face I saw a lot of.  Note that I have already bribed her with a candy to get her cooperation.  I think we were late and I needed to get her out the door so I could drop her off at the babysitter so I could go see the OB.  (All is well, a strong healthy heartbeat of  150-160 beats)  Delaney has just been feeling extra fragile lately.

This is just for you my friends!  I know, people keep looking at me like I'm going to drop this kid any second.  I wish!  However, No, my official due date is Sept 27.  I have 7 weeks officially to go.  I'm just big. Shockingly, I have only gained 18lbs as of Friday, and at least 8 of it will be baby.  I do not know why I resemble whale proportions.  And if you didn't have perfect genes, and were on baby #5, I expect you'd look like a water retaining sea cow as well.  No, I'm not sensitive at all!!  And I think I look a bit bigger because Callie took this picture of me and its from her perspective.   That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Back to the teasing and crying thing.....  As I was doing my hair this morning, 3 minutes before we needed to walk out the door to church, Callie somehow threw an empty water bottle at Delaney and nailed her around the eye.  I heard the "I'm really hurt" cry and hustled downstairs to see this lovely cut below her eye. It bled a little and puffed a little (and looked a lot worse than this shot conveys), and we eventually made it out the door to church.  One of my pet peeves is that this ward starts a good 10 minutes late (yes, EVERY Sunday!), but today I was glad.  It meant we were there well before the meeting started even though we were technically late.

This is Callie.  Her new favorite movie is "Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmeron" and she has watched it every day now.  I have not let her watch any TV since we got home, so this video is about all the tv she gets.  The funny thing is that it is a sad movie.  Every time she watches it, she cries.  She is so sweet and tenderhearted. Sometimes I have to sit with her.  It makes her so sad, but she loves to watch it.  Go figure!

Neurotic Me

As I grow older, I notice things about me that are different.  I'm not talking about physical stuff; that's a given.  I mean the little neurotic stuff.  For example, I use to ride my bike out to the stables, ride bareback for hours, and then bike home.  I don't actually recall showering as regularly as I went riding.  Nope, a little sweat and horse scent didn't bother me at all!  I don't remember caring, or even noticing that it might be the heat of the summer when I was out there in my horsey world.  Now, as a grown up, I am pretty fastidious.  I like to be clean.  I shower daily, and if I sweat, I want to wash it off.  If I'm going to do something sweaty or that will get me dirty, I have to plan around it so I can shower afterwards.  I have a lot of hair, which takes a while to dry, so I really have to plan my day around my shower.  This can get a bit complicated.  I must plan my exercise and/or icky activities (like house-painting in the middle of summer in Arkansas, or going to the lake or the pool) around when I'm going to shower.  Such a more complicated life than when I was 12!

Something else that's changed is the stuff that grosses me out is now different.  I think I may possibly have an actual minor phobia about this.  You may know that we had mice move into the kitchen while I was gone.  The exterminator came yesterday.  (As an aside, I'm disgusted that I could have done all the stuff he's doing, so we didn't really need him at all.  I just didn't know what to do with the mice.)  The man looked at where the mice were, guessed where they were sneaking in and set some snap-traps.  There are now 2 dead mousies in the house.  The man will be back in a week to check his traps.  Eeeew!  In a week, the sad little mousie corpses will be well on their way to decomposition.   Okay, that is a totally normal thing to be grossed out about.  

My problem is that I am certainly capable of disposing of the traps.  I should be able to pick them up and put them in the trash.  Somehow, I cannot yet seem to make myself do this.  My rational mind tells me it is fine. I know it is.  It won't hurt me.  It won't bite me.  It is just a dead mouse.  I am not afraid of mice.  When they are in cages, they are quite cute.  However, attached to a trap, and very dead...... well, I am having a really hard time with this!  Dan sweetly does not mock me.   He, being in Arizona (or perhaps California by now) cannot do the manly task himself.  Rather than laugh at my inability to remove the mice, he mentioned that we have neighbors and friends I can call to do it for me. I think he has forgotten that I detest asking for help.  So we shall see which is stronger:  My inability to pick up a dead mouse, or my inability to ask for help!

Things I miss

I miss being in Arkansas.  Shocking, I know.  I miss several things about it:

I miss the fruit.  Not as tasty here, for some reason.

I miss the fresh garden produce.  Cuke salad, tomato salad, garlic beans...... yummy!

I miss the endless space for the kids to play.  They don't miss it yet, but they will.

I miss the library.  It had a great kid's room.

I miss Diamond Head Chinese Restaurant.  They had a handy drive through and I could drive by, hand over my $3.51 and drive off with the most marvelous Crab Rangoon ever made.  Sigh.  The gal there knew me by sight.  I miss her. I miss those Crab Rangoon more.  No one else makes them so deliciously! Nothing else compares.

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

And now that I am on the subject of things I miss.... I miss my body:

I miss being able to bend over.

I miss being able to roll over at night without needing a crane and pulley.

I miss being able to run 5 miles- now I can barely walk one.

I miss being able to squeeze into places.

I miss being able to drive without the steering wheel poking into my belly.

I definitely miss being able to get up and down without a lot of effort!

I miss being able to grab an errant child.  Now its almost too much work to discipline.  And that's not good.

On the plus side, in 6-8 weeks it will be over and 'll have other things to complain about! But I will NOT miss being pregnant!

Last 3 days!

This is what I've been looking at the last 3 days:

Yikes!  This was much more in focus when it was smaller!  Yes, Delaney napped nicely in the car.  She also teased her sister, cried, whined, giggled, colored, threw toys, watched videos, and did very well.

I finally saw the Arch in St Louis.  I have to tell you I was a bit cross though.  I had gotten on the 64, which was to take me almost all the way home, but it kicked me off onto a detour, and when I took this picture, I had no clue where I was or how I was getting back to the 64.  But I followed all the signs and there it was!

I saw a lot of nothing.

Callie got to be my co-pilot for part of the drive.  She was torn between getting to sit up front with me, or watching movies in the back.  Sitting up front won for an hour or 2 and then it was back to movies.  She was an amazing traveller.  It was a looong, boring drive for us all.  I ate a bag of M&Ms and a bag of Twizzlers to stay awake and I felt so pukey.

I saw waaaay too much construction!  Ug.  I hated it.  Plus, we had to stop almost every hour, and no, it wasn't for me.  Callie had to pee nearly every hour on the hour.  It meant we got to stretch legs regularly though, and that was nice.

We saw lots of lovely Kentucky.

This was where I was going to stop for the night.  Then I realized the hotel was in the middle of downtown.  Yikes!  I hate, hate, hate trying to navigate center-city streets.  So we kept driving.  Unfortunately, in West Virginia, there is nothing.  I mean nothing!  So we kept driving and driving and driving!  I think we went another 2 hours till we found a suitable stopping point.

Who-hoo!!  We made it to Virginia!

Yep, we're in Virginia.  I know it looks like there's plenty of space here, but this was bumper-to bumper, standing traffic from the time we got on the 95, till the time I got off.   I hate traffic!

So yes, Callie, Delaney and I made it home safely.  Callie is busy reacquainting herself with all her toys, and they are now strewn across the floor.  However, she has played quietly pretty much since we arrived home at 4:30 yesterday!  Life is good.