Okay, so this picture belongs way down on the post where it talks about the boys reading, but I messed up somehow and I refuse to completely redo the entire post. So, when you get to the part about the twins knowing their alphabet, come back up here to see the appropriate picture.
I was able to enjoy the BEST long weekend October 9-12. I left home, by myself, about 10:20 Friday morning and headed down to Frank & Tracy's in Fort Mill, SC. A little over 6 hours and two pit stops later, I arrived at their home and was greeted by a beautiful pregnant lady and two gorgeous redheads. Leah's school was having its "Fall Festival" that night, so after a short visit we headed over to the Elementary School for fun, games, and barbecue.
Rebekah and Leah at the school when we first arrived. What dolls!
There was a hoola hoop contest. Here's Rebekah trying her hand at it and below is Leah trying. Neither girl had ever done hoola hoops before, but they had fun trying. Frank stayed busy helping at the food tables all night. He's Secretary of the PTO and was in charge of the drinks, particularly the lemonade, so we didn't get to see him very much. After the festival we girls drove back home and enjoyed some ice cream. Leah pulled her pony tail out and then sat down at the table and crossed her arms with a disgusted look on her face. Tracy asked what the problem was and Leah gave a look like "isn't it obvious" and pointed to her hair. I almost laughed out loud. Tracy handled it beautifully, asking Leah if she was going to let her hair ruin her fun. After all, we were home now and it didn't matter if her hair was a mess. It didn't take long for Leah to decide to enjoy herself and her ice cream and be her usual sweet self, but I thought the whole thing was quite amusing.
Tracy and Leah
On Saturday morning Frank made pancakes for breakfast, YUM!! Then it was decided that we would go and pick some apples. After we all loaded into the SUV, Rebekah decided she thought going to an orchard sounded "boring" and she didn't want to go. Frank offered to let her stay home by herself, then I asked her if she liked to eat apples. She told me "apples are yummy," and I asked if she didn't want to go get some fresh apples to eat. She thought that sounded good, so we drove to York, SC, to an apple orchard that raised winesaps. This was a good photo op and you can see how tall the girls are getting. I was also able to get Tracy in the picture. She (and baby Hannah) looks great and we got some good visiting in during my time at their home.
Tracy and Rebekah
They had some "critters" around the orchard. Here I am feeding corn to one of the roosters. They sold corn out of one of those candy machines where you feed it a quarter and it gives you a palm full of corn. They actually had a bunch of chickens, a few roosters, a mother chicken with some chicks (the girls liked that), a pigmy goat that also liked corn, and a pigmy pig with piglets. The momma pig was feeding her babies until she saw I had some corn, then she shook them off and came over to get some for herself. I wished I had gotten more corn to give to the goat and pig. They were cute and ate out of my hand.
Leah, Tracy, Rebekah and Frank
Here we are enjoying the "fruits" of our labors. Actually the apple trees were all but bare. Frank was able to find a couple apples way up in one of the trees and lifted Leah up so she could pick them, but the orchard had boxes of apples lying around so we could "pick" our bag of apples ourselves. The apples were really very good by the way. After the orchard, the girls and I set down and watched "Heidi" (the old version with Shirley Temple). We played dolls and Rebekah gave me a couple purple happy faces to match my purple shirt. Frank & Tracy had a baptism to go to so Leah, Rebekah and I had pizza and played upstairs until bedtime. I helped the girls clean up their toys, we read our scriptures, said prayers, read a book and went to bed without too much trouble. Church for them starts at 8:30 so about 7:30 I heard Rebekah talking out in the hall, I heard her say something and heard the word "Grandma" so I thought she was talking to someone. A few seconds later I saw her peek in my room, then she ran over and crawled up next to me. It was so sweet! Both girls were excited to have Grandma visit and I enjoyed the visit tons. After sacrament meeting I got ready to head out and Leah gave me a note she had written during the meeting. It was a drawing of "Hidi" [sic] and was spelled phonetically.. "to Gramu Schwartz frum Leah" (hey, u makes the uh sound, right?)
Taylor
From Ft. Mill I headed north thru NC to VA. The leaves are just starting to change good, so the drive was beautiful. After the 6 hour trip on Friday, the 3+ to Blacksburg went really fast. I totally lucked out. Typically Blacksburg Ward meets from 1-4pm but this Sunday was Stake Conference so when I arrived at John and Amy's around 1 o'clock they had just gotten home and changed from their meeting. John was asleep after working 7pm to 7am Saturday to Sunday and he had to go back for another 12 hours that night. Carrington was napping, so I was able to talk to Amy and watch TV with the boys. Amy is a whiz at making the cutest tu-tus. She made a Tinkerbell one for Carrington's birthday on the 17th while I was visiting. I wrestled a little bit with the boys. Taylor is getting so big! Jonas and Sullivan were easy to "zerbert" but Mason just stood to one side and took it all in. He was a quiet boy that day. When Carrington woke up, she was such a doll! Amy said she was cranky but she seemed like a total sweetheart to me. I'm afraid we weren't as quiet as we should have been and John woke up and came out. I got to hear about some of the things he is doing now. He's on an ER rotation and he was on Homecoming Weekend for Virginia Tech. He got to do quite a few stitches and several other interesting things. He said it beats the heck out of the general practice rotation. We enjoyed a delicious dinner, then before I knew it Carrington was going to bed, John was going to work and the boys were being sent downstairs to bed/quiet time. I enjoyed the visit so much.
Jonas and Sullivan
Mason
Carrington
Amy and I talked until around 9pm, then I took off for Roanoke to spend the night with Stephanie. Once I got to Stephanie's, we stayed up until about 11:30 before we decided we better get some sleep before the twins woke up around 7 the next morning. It was after 7:30 before I heard the boys awake and pulled myself out of bed. Alex and Jack call me Gramma Baba. They were so cute when they got all excited that I was there. We went into their play room until Jon came home (he had worked all night at the hospital), then we went down for breakfast. Stephanie made pancakes, YUM!! I guess my kids know they are my favorite breakfast.
Jack on the slide
Alex on the slide
Jack and Alex playing. Check out the concentration on those faces.
Jon tried to visit for a while, but he was so tired Stephanie sent him off to bed. She and I were able to really talk and visit while the boys were running around playing. It was so much fun to see the different personalities of the two boys. Jack is so layed back and willing to sit and let you read to him or to show off what he knows. Alex is always on the go and shows a strong will. He didn't want to get his jammies off and his diaper changed until Steph insisted, then once he was just in his diaper, he didn't want to get his clothes on. Jack was easier to talk into changing and he let me dress him. At one point Alex knocked a stack of books off the bookshelf. Stephanie told him to pick them up, he refused, so she started to count to 3. Alex started to pick up the books, then told Steph, "Jack help". Stephanie said, "Jack didn't knock them down, you pick them up." Alex finally did, but it was obvious he likes to try and push the envelope. The boys get along and play together really well.
(see picture at top of blog)Stephanie, Jack and Alex. Jack knows his alphabet and Alex knows a lot of it.
Stephanie got out an animal alphabet book for Jack to read to me. He has recently learned "big" and "little" with his Fisher Price farm animals, so he would say "A, big a little a" and then tell me the animal... in this case "armadillo". And so on. He did think the big K looked like an X at first, but he did really well. Alex came over to help, too, but he is more into cars than books.
Alex and Jack
Snack time and Alex wanted to eat at the boys' little table rather than the kitchen table. Stephanie told him he needed to eat in the kitchen and the little table was in the living room, so Alex carried the chairs into the kitchen area and then grabbed the table and said, "Mommy, table" to get her to carry the table in for him. I had to laugh. What can you do besides carry the table into the kitchen? What a clever little boy. In the picture above you can see the Halloween pictures the boys had made during nursery at church the day before. Their teacher is into stickers and you can see what wonderful artists the boys are. After snack time came nap time, so when the twins went down at 12:30, I headed back to Fredericksburg.
I owe so much to my brother Cale and his wife Diane for taking care of my mother so I could make my trip and especially to my darling husband Frank for letting me go on this trip. It was a total tonic to my spirit. I had missed seeing my kids and grandkids so very much! I had originally hoped to visit Lauren, Mike and their boys in GA on Sunday, but little John had viral pneumonia and visitors were forbidden. As it worked out, I got to see my Virginia kids instead, so the trip was a HUGE success in my eyes. It was also not so very expensive since my wonderful little Toyota Camry Hybrid averages about 40 MPG on the trip. This is a trip I will cherish for a very long time.
Two weeks into my journey. I have dieted many times over the last 35 years. I've tried several different kinds of diets, my attitude was often they were DIE with a T. I did try WW several years ago with good results, but I was loosing weight for a particular event and when that event was over, so was my dieting. I had bought myself a "little red dress" at that time, but never actually lost enough weight to fit into it so it hung in my closet with the new tags for years, waiting for me to finally lose enough to wear it. It once again became part of my goal. But this time I was tired of feeling bad, I wanted to lose this weight just for me. I think the change in my attitude is what really made me work for it and made it work for me.
I was so happy when I took this picture. I had lost 10% of my original body weight (21 pounds) and I had "rewarded" myself with a new haircut. I was already feeling much better and had more energy.
Back of my "reward" haircut.
I was down 40 pounds at this point and feeling pretty good about myself. The best part of the trip was that I didn't gain any weight while we were gone. I was enjoying my new life style as opposed to trying to stick to some diet. That's WW mantra... it's a healthy life style, not a "diet".
My sister-in-law made sure she didn't show my feet because I didn't have red shoes to match my red dress. Hey, I never claimed to be very fashionable.
Mother's Day. Another outfit that had hung in my closet for several years, waiting for me to fit into it. I was 55 pounds down from my starting weight. Unfortunately this jumper and my "little red dress" only got to be worn for a few months before they were too BIG to look good on my anymore. That was kind of weird. I only got to wear my red dress about 6 times. Oh well, I can live with that.
And finally a big smile. Thank you to Weight Watcher's, thank you to my sweet husband who has been so supportive and a real cheerleader for me, and thank you to my family who have been complementary at each stage to make me feel like not only could I make it, but I was looking good in the process.
