A Bite from a Friend

When I picked Adilyn up from school today, she had just been bit. It had been quite awhile since she had been beat up at school, so I was a little bit surprised. I was even more surprised when I found out it was her little bestfriend, Abby who bit her! I asked her the story, and here was her response. "I was playing with Morgan, but Abby wanted to play with me. I usually want to play with Abby, but today I wanted to play with Morgan. Then when Abby tried to play with me, I blocked her out, but she blocked me out too. Then I walked away and she grabbed my arm and bit me right there!" I asked her "blocked out" meant, and she told me that it's when you stand in front of someone so they can't get by. It's so funny to hear her tell all these stories about her little social interactions! Of course, I wish that all her interactions were positive and sweet, but we all know that real life is not like either, so why should daycare? :)

Grandpa Lee

I'm a little late on all my posts, but better late than never. My grandfather passed away a couple weeks ago, and Adilyn and I went up to Michigan for the memorial service. When my grandmother passed away 6 years ago, I decided not to go. I had just had knee surgery, and I was still recovering a little bit. The minute I decided not to go, I regreted it. Because my grandmother lived in Michigan with the rest of my extended family, I never really had any closure on my end. I never really felt like she was gone. From that time on, I promised myself that I would never miss another funeral or memorial service again no matter what the circumstances were. Cory and I went back and forth trying to decide who would go and who would stay, but I decided that I would take Adilyn. She can sleep in a normal bed, and she can handle a couple long days better than Kacy could. We decided to use some standby passes that my mom had access to from working at American Airlines all those years. Our adventure began on Friday night. We flew up to DFW to spend the night at my dad's house. Everything went well except for the fact that our bags were stuck in transition, so we had to sleep in Mimi's borrowed t-shirts! Adilyn thought that was pretty funny. In Fort Worth, we picked up two more travelers - Brandon and Greg flew on the same flight with us on Saturday morning from DFW to Detroit. We had to wake up so early; it was pretty painful! Luckily Adilyn slept on the plane a little bit because we had a long day in front of us. Adilyn is such a great traveler these days! We color, read books, talk about things, and she is just fine. The only problem we had was when she had a bathroom emergency at a time when there was no bathroom available. We had just began our decent when she said that she had to go peepee. I told her that we couldn't go right then, but she proceeded to scream, "It's coming out! It's coming out!" I tried distraction, I tried calming her down...nothing worked. I was ready for a wet seat right there! Then I told her that if she had to pee that bad she could pee in the throw up bag. I took it out and everything. I was a kind of serious, but she was mortified! So...she held it! What a big girl! :)
My uncle, Richard picked us up and we headed straight to my grandfather's house where everyone was getting ready. We were there for enough time to grab some pizza then we had to head straight to memorial service. It was so great to see everyone. Of course, the circumstances were not the best, but it is always great to see family that you haven't seen in years.
The memorial service was amazing. My mom and all my aunts had beautiful things to say about their father. There were so many people there that just adored him - friends from the coffee shop, waitresses from his favorite restaurants, and other people from the community. How nice it must be when the end of your life comes that you have a room full of people with beautiful memories of you! There were many slideshows in between when everyone talked, and those are always my favorites. Moments in time that will never be erased...I love it!
When my mom gave her speech, she was crying. Adilyn started crying too. It was really sad. She asked me why Nammie was crying, and I told her because she missed her Dad. She said that was why she was crying, too becasue she missed her Daddy.
After the memorial service, we went to dinner with everyone and then back to the house. Dinner went well, with the exception of Adilyn throwing a fit in the corner. It's a good thing that the restaurant was loud because I completely ignored her. :)
Back at the house, my aunt Marcy and Adilyn made a leaf pile, so Adilyn could jump in it. I think that was her favorite part of the trip! We had to get to bed early because we had to get up the very next morning at 5am. Finally, we made it back to my aunt's house. Adilyn went right to bed, and Brandon and I stayed up and chatted with my aunt. It was a nice time to reflect on memories and all the fun times we had in the past.
I know now that we really need to go up to visit each summer. We thought about going last year, but we didn't because it was expensive. If we would have spent the money, Adilyn and Kacy would have been able to see Grandpa Lee one more time. I would have been able to spend a little more time with him before he was gone. I think that many times when someone passes away, you think about what you could have done differently when they were alive. I don't want to feel like I didn't do enough again. I want to feel like I spent as much time with that person that I could have!
All in all it was a great experience, and I am really glad that we made the quick trip! It was a time that I will never forget.

More Halloween Pics

Here are some more pictures of our Halloween fun!

Halloween 2010

Our Halloween celebrations started off with me dressing up for 80's Day at school. Adilyn really liked my pink hair, and Kacy was obsessed with my jewelry. The next day was the girls' Halloween party. We woke up extra early to get them into their hippie outfit and Thumbelina dress. Kacy was not interested in wearing any of cool hippie accessories, but she looked cute enough in her homemade tie-dyed shirt and khaki pants with patched. Adilyn was more than happy to get into her beautiful dress. She even sat still while I put her hair in a bun to make her look just like the beautiful princess Thumbelina. They, of course, wouldn't sit still for a picture, but they were adorable.
Sunday finally came around, and we ate dinner with our neighbors then got ready. We were kind of rushed because trick or treaters started coming way before the sun went down. I thought there was some universal rule about not starting until it was dark outside, but apparently I was wrong. We threw our costumes on, took a couple pictures and then began our candy adventure. This was the first year that Adilyn really went up to houses and felt comfortable talking to our neighbors. Kacy wanted to walk around like a big girl, but she didn't really care about getting the candy (which was a good thing). After about 10 house, Adilyn asked, "Who is giving candy out to people when they come to our house?" Once I told her that nobody was giving out candy, she wanted to go home. She was so worried about giving other people, that we decided to just head home. We had enough candy anyway! Once we got home, she sat out on our sidewalk and handed out candy to kids for at least an hour. She would get nervous with the scary costumes, but she would still slip some candy in their bags. I was so proud of her! She enjoyed giving candy more than getting candy...hope that lasts. :)
Here is a little video with some of our Halloween pictures! Enjoy!

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