Nolan the Eldest

On Saturday Abby was with my mom, and then ended up spending the night, leaving me with the boys for church on Sunday morning. Nolan cried and carried on, like normal, because I was making him go. But once he realized there was no getting out of it, he was in fine form. In fact, I think he actually liked being the oldest for a little bit. He got to pick where we sat, he took Max to Kids' Church (Max's first time!) and held his hand and helped him the whole time, and was just in general a good example. It's funny, but I really do think that birth order makes a difference in how a person acts and grows up. Abby will be the responsible one, but it may just be because she's the oldest. Nolan acted completely different when he was the oldest for the day. This year we'll see if Max gets "responsible" as he'll be the oldest when the bigs are at school. It's amazing how those other siblings can just impact how you, yourself behave.

Happy long weekend! Or rather, happy end of a long weekend. We didn't have much going on, but it was good family time. Friday the kids finished their first "week" (or three days) of school and I made them ride their bikes to and from school. They were COLD when they got home! Then they just hung around, ate dinner and watched a movie. And I took a bath. :)  Saturday Abby went with my mom to go shopping for a get together we were having on Saturday. I thought Abby was going to burst with excitement. As much as Nolan liked being the oldest, Abby loved being the only. She was ready for my mom to come earlier than she's ready for school, and kept asking when she'd get there. When my mom came, I didn't think Abby was going to let her in, she was just ready to go out to the car! They had a great time, shopping for prizes for games. Abby just loves to plan carnival type games, so they had at least six games set up where you can win prizes (think clothes pins in a jar, throwing a ball at a pyramid of cups, etc.) and some other just for fun games (tricylce obstacle course) and Abby was in seventh heaven with it all. She ended up staying the night with my mom and dad, the boys had a boys' night with Dave, and I went out with our old neighbor Jenny... always good conversation, food, and trips to Walmart!

What's so nice about three day weekends is that you can go out on Saturday night, and still have two days left! Sunday we went to said party and had carnival games and shrimp boil, and finally finished celebrating Abby's birthday, and also celebrated my nephew Cole's birthday. We hung out all day then started to project a movie outside but it started raining, so we moved operations inside to the basement. It worked perfectly, and I think all the kids loved it, even if my mom was probably exhausted by the end of the day!

In the midst of it all, Abby lost her first molar. We got home late last night, and Dave and I both forgot that the tooth fairy was supposed to come. Oops! When I got up, Dave had already warned me that we forgot, so I just looked at Abby and said, "Oh, the tooth fairy didn't come, did she?" When Abby said no, I told her of course she didn't, it's Labor Day. The tooth fairy doesn't work on Labor Day. Abby looked at me a little funny, then said, "Oh yeah! Duh! Of course!" It's like the elves at Christmas all over again. I wonder how long she'll believe, especially if we keep screwing up!

Today we woke up to a wonderful thunder storm. I really just loved it, first lying in bed listening to it, and then all of us gathered out on the porch and sang, and played and talked and listened to the thunder and watched the lightening and even the hail. (I think we've had hail at least four times in the last couple weeks, seems so strange!). It delayed our doing anything, and was just nice time together. After that, we moved Abby's bed into Ava's room, and now the girls are sharing, and Nolan has officially moved back upstairs with Max. So, we went from everyone in their own rooms to two and two and two (if you count Dave and me!). Hopefully it will go well. I really do like having both a guest room back in the basement and having a library/game room/study area room upstairs in Abby's old room.

Within all of this, Ava is also sick again. I think it's her teeth because she's had a molar trying to poke through for a week now, and it's just swollen and painful. At least, that's what I'm hoping it is. She's lethargic and feverish (103+ fevers, four naps on me in three days) and just crabby in general. I got to just sit around with her and read my book, which was nice, but I just feel bad for her. She's supposed to be using her new walking legs instead!

And there's my novel for the day. Back to school tomorrow, Dave traveling all week, and your regularly scheduled programming.