What a crazy week/weekend!

Wow! I know I'm not the only one, but I still haven't recovered from the events this past week!

Wednesday I met with my dear friend Chelsea and her kids at a place called Backyard Adventures. It a large building with 6-8 assembled wood playground groupings. For 5 bucks you can play as long as you want. It also serves as a sort of "showroom" for the play equipement, which of course they sell (anywhere from $1300-8000+ a grouping). We had lunch in their party room, and the kids had a great time running around, yelling, sliding, playing..... Took the kids home early 'cause I could tell they were tired! Got home, put the boys down for a nap, and began my annual tradition of baking dinner rolls for thanksgiving. They are YUMMY "Sweet Dinner Rolls". I make 4 batches of 24 rolls (you do the math) to cover the 2 family Thanksgivings that we go to each year. I make the dough in the breadmaker, rolls the ball by hand, and bake them. From start to finish, each batch takes about 2 hours. It's not labor intensive, just time intensive. I had a batch go bad, however. I was watching Mythbusters with Jerry and I forgot about a batch in the breadmaker. It literally exploded all over the inside of the breadmakers. Oops. By then it was way too sticky the work with, so I tossed it. Throughout the day I had also made jello salad, and a snickers pie.

Thursday- woke early to make the last batch of rolls (to replace the exploded batch). Got the boys up, bathed, dressed; myself bathed and dressed, and packed up to go to my parents house. Had lunch there- it was me, Jerry and the boys, Desi and Matt, Mom and Dad, both my grandmas, and my uncle Kevin and his two younger kids. Lots of yummy food! Watched Over the Hedge afterwards, then took the boys home for their nap, and I napped for 2 hours as well.
After our naps, we packed up and went to Jerry's Granny's house. There it was us four, Bob and Jan, Jerry's sister Sarah, his brother Matt and his now fiance Kelly (they got engaged a couple of weeks ago!) and her kids Jacie and Jaret, Granny and Grandpa, Tillie Monk, Vernon (Bob's dad), June (one of Granny's sisters), Jerry's aunt Jill, and Jerry's aunt Julie and uncle Tom. It was a FULL house! And we all had a lot of fun. Gary loves loves loves playing with Jacie and Jaret, and I'm so glad they will be a part of the family now. We got home around 10:30 or 11. Long day!

Friday- I wanted to shop. But Jerry didn't get up until like noon, and then he said he had to climb a tower and move some cables, or something. Blegh. So I stayed home and cleaned for Gary's party, did dishes, laundry, etc etc. Supposed to go out with Jerry Fri night, but our babysitter's sister called tell us that our sitter was super sick. So instead, Jerry and I took both boys to Breadeaux in Manchester, and then Dairy Queen. We spent an hour or so driving around the Lake Delhi area looking at lights. It really was a nice night of family time. When I got home, I watched Kati and Jim's Vegas wedding online. My computer was super slow, so the whole thing was choppy, but I got the idea! Congrats Kati!

Saturday- was thinking about shopping again this day, but instead Jerry slept in and then went and met with his friend, Jer. Oh well, I guess it was a blessing in disguise, 'cause I had forgotten that I had to make and decorate the cake for Gary's birthday party the next day. I went to the store for supplies, and baked and decorated a cake for Gary. It always takes me longer than I anticipate. I can't remember what else I did that day, but I was on the go the entire day. Around 5pm, Jerry's parents came to pick us up to go to Nana's Christmas at Cedar Lodge in Manchester. It's a really really nice place, and I think Monticello really needs a place like this. We were there for 2.5 hours, and the boys were really good the entire time. It was nice to see Nana again. (She's in Vegas as we speak...I'm so jealous) We drove around looking at lights on the way home, and Mimi sat in the back seat with both boys and told stories, and they were both so good and so cute.....

Sunday- mad dash to clean and prepare for Gary's birthday party! Gary had Sunday School in the am, and after that I had Jerry wake up to kinda keep and eye on the boys and help clean up the house a little. Everyone came around 1, we had sandwiches (a bunch of them ate outside at the picnic table...it was nearly 65 degrees out! How nice!), the kids played outside for awhile. Gary opened his presents (his first one was a pack of batteries for the next toy he would unwrap- his response was.... "oooooh, new batteries!") Every gift he opened he would want to sit and play with. He didn't even care that he had more presents to open. That kids got so many Thomas the trains, and so many books about Thomas the train. Overkill, almost. He love them all, though, and he 'drives' them around in the back of his dump truck, so Brendan won't get them. Afterwards, we had cake and ice cream, and sat around and chatted until nearly 5. I spent the next few hours cleaning up and putting stuff away. I watched Desperate Housewives, and shortly after went to bed. And didn't sleep for shit.

Like I said, long weekend!!!!!!!!! (ps...scroll down for a couple more pics)