I have never worked so hard in my life. My mom is a slave driver!! She works from sun up to sun down and then a little more. I have to say though that I know that Trevor and I would have never done all of the things we have done at the house if she wasn't here to be the work foreman. The reason I haven't posted much this week is one, that she doesn't let us break long enough to get any pictures, and two, I have had to drag myself in the door every night and there is no way I could have typed or done even one more thing. Yesterday we came home for dinner and I had to say "Mom I'm sorry I can't do one more thing. I have to take a nap." I thought I would just rest but I jolted up an hour and a half later worring that I hadn't fed
Ellis and when I opened the door she and Sarah were cleaning off his tray.


Speaking of Ellis' eating......he has really become a little eater. He is now moving up and eating real green beans, not mashed ones. As you can see they still aren't on the top of his list but I think he likes them better if they are all in one piece. He has also had a few other real table foods this week....spaghetti noodles, hamburger, bread, nutri-grain bar, scrambled eggs, and we have shared a little of our Baskin Robbins peanut butter and chocolate ice cream but after thinking about it I think he should probably wait a little longer until he has that again!! :) oh well I guess mom and Gammy will have to finish that off for him. We have been eating it in coffee cups so as to not give Uncle Michael any ideas that he should be entitled to any of our stash!!


Today at the house we finished up all of the painting. Sarah went with Trevor on a youth water ski trip to Oklahoma so it was just us and the boys today and they were so good. Ellis took great naps and half of the time we didn't even know that Michael was there. When we were painting in the living room we made them a tent in the dinning room so that we could still see them but they were out of the way. Michael can really entertain Ellis. He likes to play wheres the baby and today he enjoyed throwing the soccer ball to Ellis. Ellis of course can't catch it but he didn't care to be hit in the head a few times, he was just happy to be playing with Uncle Michael.




We promised Michael that if he was good today that we would take him to a train store that Sarah saw one day as we were driving to the house. As we were cleaning up the last minute things at the house we told him that he had to get his pants on the it was time to go to the train store....(you see he likes my laundry shoot, he has one at his "Cincinnati house"). He couldn't get into the store fast enough and then he just had to have something. The first item that he had his eye on was a circus train but he soon found something to one up that....the Polar Express train. If you know Michael you know that Polar Express even far exceeds the movie Cars in his life!! Mom and I spent the next ten minutes telling him that it was $200 and that we didn't have that much money, to which he replied "I just need $200", I said "yeah, me too" We finally talked him into a few train cars and a train t-shirt.



Look close there is the new train shirt! Tonight was the VBS Fiesta Finale. Each class was called up to the stage to sing the song that they had practiced all week and then to the gym for cookies. We discovered when Michael's class was called that he was in with the 2 and 3 year olds all week.... no wonder he looked so big. I really think that God had a hand in it though because the 4 and 5 year olds made fiesta shirts in crafts and their teacher made them put them on over their shirts for the finale. I will tell you with out a doubt that Michael would have told his teacher to forget it......there was no way he was putting that shirt over his train shirt, think again!

After the finale we went and rented Michael a movie so that he would be busy while we packed up the apt. On our way to Blockbuster he was talking about the movie Cars and Mom said that her favorite was Doc Hudson. When we were paying for the movie Michael saw a Doc Hudson sucker and he said "oh Cassie we have to get this for mom its her favorite" he managed to slide one up on the counter for himself as well. As we were walking out the door he yelled for Mom to shut her eyes, "no peeking" and "get out of your seat." You see, every night in order to get him to go to VBS we told him that if he went and had fun there would be a prize waiting for him on his car seat. He has gotten and Cars flashlight, a trip for ice cream, and skittles. Since Mom went to VBS tonight to watch the show....and I'll tell you she was good and she had fun....she got a prize on her seat. Anyway we got the movie becasue we are hoping to surprise Big John (Trevor) and Sarah when they get home and have completly moved into the house. This seems like a lofty goal but I think we could do it and I know that If we do it Trevor will be jumping for joy, he is really dreading moving all of our stuff.

By the way, a little update on the weather here......it has been above 100 the whole time they have been here but when I took Trevor and Sarah to the church this morning Sarah had to borrow one of my jackets.........I think Michael summed it up the moring when he said " Cassie its refreshing out here"