The Week Both Ben and I Were Single Parents

Samantha: 57 Months, Week 1
Aedan: 21 Months, Week 3 (Week 95)

This was a very busy week for the Toll household. Tuesday was really the only normal day for us. Here is a cute picture of the kids sitting on the couch reading together after breakfast. Aedan loves looking at books with Sissy.

On Tuesday morning the kids and I went to the open gym at the TRI for a little while before going to library for story time. I decided to give Samantha another chance at having a good attitude when leaving since she threw such a big fit last time. We had a good morning together, but Samantha got pretty sleepy by nap time since she hadn't napped the last two afternoons. As a result, she took an extra long nap on Tuesday afternoon, making our community group go much better that evening. She was well-rested and ready to play.

The bond between Samantha and Aedan has been growing stronger and stronger lately. It is so cute to witness. In fact, at community group that evening Aedan got upset and when I asked Addie about it afterwards, she said he was fine after Samantha came to comfort him. Often when he feels upset, he will cry and call out, "Sissy!" She will go up to him, hug him, and say, "I will always be here for you Aedan. Whenever you need a hug, I'll give you one." He will continue hugging her until he calms down, feels better, and stops crying. Witnessing this is so adorable, and he often wants a hug from Sissy rather than a hug from Mommy or Daddy.

Another cute thing Aedan has been doing is saying "dark" and squinting his eyes, like he's acting afraid. He makes so many precious facial expressions that sometimes I just like to sit and watch him.

Wednesday marked the beginning of our busy week of parenting alone. After dropping Samantha off at preschool in the morning, Aedan and I drove Daddy to the Dayton airport. He had a campus visit at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, MI and was going to be gone from Wednesday morning through Friday morning. It was exciting for Ben to have his first campus interview after applying at so many different schools. He flew through a connection in Detroit, and here are some pictures he took from the plane. You can see the frozen lake and the snow covered ground of the Upper Peninsula.

Aedan did pretty well in the car considering we were driving for over two hours to take Daddy to the airport. He started getting upset the last twenty minutes or so, not really wanting to play with any toys, but it worked out okay overall. When we went to pick up Samantha from preschool, they were playing up in the gym. Miss Betsy commented that another Dad and me had our work cut out for us because Samantha and Oliver planned a sleepover. She said that they are boyfriend and girlfriend, which surprised because normally she talks about marrying Matteo. However, when I looked in the gym, Samantha and Oliver were walking around holding hands. Little preschool romances are so cute, although I'm not quite sure where this new fascination with boys has come from. Anyways, Samantha came up to talk to me, explaining how Oliver and her had worked out all the details. She was going to go over to his house for a sleepover for two days, which I'm thinking had to do with Daddy being gone for two days. They were going to sleep on the top bunk together because Oliver had two pillows. Then, she was going to come back home in two days. I told her that she wasn't going to be able to do that, and she just started bawling. I think she really thought that her plan was going to work. I tried to comfort her and treat her request with sensitivity because it really was so cute and sincere. I tried to explain that we don't usually let her go sleep over at a friend's house, especially not for two days. We talked about maybe having Oliver over to play sometime, but that the parents would have to talk about that. It took Samantha awhile to calm herself done and feel okay to leave preschool with me. I couldn't wait to share this story with Ben because I knew he would get a kick out of it.

The rest of the day went pretty well considering Samantha did not nap that afternoon. We got to do FaceTime with Daddy once he got back to his hotel and then we had dinner, played for a little while, and got the kids ready for bed. I always have a hard time judging how long things are going to take on a normal day, and it's even worse when I am doing everything by myself. I had good intentions of getting the kids to bed early, especially Samantha, but it didn't quite work out that way.

On Thursday Ben had a busy schedule of interviews, campus tours, teaching a class, and meeting various individuals from the university. I couldn't wait to talk to him later in the day and hear what his impression was of the university and of the town itself. Here are some pictures he took from around campus and around the town. As you can tell, they get much more snow than we do in southwest Ohio, but it is pretty up there with the International Bridge and all the water surrounding it.

Ben had a good, but busy day on Thursday. His overall impression of the school was positive, the faculty and students were friendly, and the class he taught went really well. He said that the students were almost more engaged than some of his classes at Miami with students that know him. The school is pretty small, only about 2,000 students, and the town is not large either at about 14,000 people. However, in comparison to Oxford alone, Sault Ste. Marie has more restaurants and stores. The biggest difference is that from Oxford you can drive half an hour to get to suburbs and 45 minutes to one hour to get to Cincinnati where you can find anything you want. However, there is not much around Sault Ste. Marie, for it is pretty isolated way up in the UP. Ben was the first of three candidates to be invited for a campus visit, so it will at least be a few weeks before Ben will know anything about whether they will offer him a job or not. Living in the UP would not be our ideal location, as we aren't huge fans of snow, plus it is farther away from our families than where we are now. However, it is better than many other schools Ben applied to that could take us to the west coast or down south again, areas where it would not be within a day's drive. So, we will see what happens and what the school decides to do.

On Thursday we had plans to meet the Schroers at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Our kids get along so well, and we hadn't gotten together with them for quite some time. I still had two free guest passes on our membership card that expires at the end of the month, so I was glad that someone was able to use them. Andrea just had to pay for Bennett to get in. The kids had a blast that day. Aedan and Bennett really enjoyed the ball room, which is often our first stop.

Then we went over to the forest, which is Samantha's favorite spot. She loves to climb up and disappear into the tree house. I tried to get Aedan to climb on the spider web area with Bennett, but Aedan kept trying to run away into different areas. He has definitely gotten into the run away phase now. There were several times when I had to chase after him, grab him, and bring him back to where the rest of us were.

We then moved on to the water area, and all the kids played here for quite some time, getting themselves nice and wet despite wearing aprons.

The kids then went over to the construction area where they scooped up pretend rocks, pushed around wheelbarrows, and played with legos and wooden blocks. There are benches in this area where you can see around pretty much everywhere, so Andrea and I were able to sit down and talk a little more than when our kids were running in opposite directions. It was great to catch up with her, hear how her life is going, and share about our children.

Before we stopped for lunch, Samantha and Matteo were busy working together serving us food. It was cute how they were playing together in the same area, but doing different jobs. (Also, I have to make a comment about Samantha's outfit. She picked it out all by herself, and you can see the amount of expression in choosing her outfits. She has a blue shirt with little pink flowers, light blue pants under a blue and green flowery skirt, with a pink crown headband on her head. Sometimes I am tempted to say something about her outfits or encourage her to wear something different, but I know it doesn't matter and it's certainly not worth a fight. I like to give her independence in areas where I can, and getting dressed is one of those areas. It's always fun to see the combinations that she comes up with.)

Aedan joined in helping out in the restaurant as well. He liked to copy what the big kids were doing.

It was getting close to noon, so we decided to go upstairs to eat the lunches that we packed. Samantha sat next to Matteo and ate much better than she usually does when we are out with friends. It was nice not to have to ask her over and over to eat her food. She was in a pretty respectful mood that day, for which I was glad. She knew we had plans to go the museum with Matteo on Thursday, so I told her on Wednesday night that we weren't going to go if she stayed up being silly in her bed or woke up early on Thursday morning. She knew she had to be on her best behavior, and I think that helped her have a good attitude for most of the day on Thursday.

After lunch we went down into the caves before letting the kids play in the sand for quite a long time. It was getting to mid-afternoon and the kids were entering a kind of lull, being perfectly content to sit and play quietly. I like the sand area because it's usually pretty quiet, all kids can find a fun way to entertain themselves, and it gives the adults time to talk while they supervise their children play. Again, Andrea and I had a good time sharing experiences with applying for tenure track positions and shared struggles that come along with having a husband in academia.

It was already past 1:00 and fast approaching the kids' nap times, but we decided to make one more stop before heading out for the day, since everyone was being so respectful. Samantha wanted to go back to the children's area so that she could play in the vet's office, and that's exactly what she did for most of the rest of the time. She said that was her favorite part of the day, and she found other girls her age to pretend with. They took care of lots of animals, looked at x-rays, and had a great time together. While Samantha was in the vet office, Aedan preferred to spend his time on the bus. Bennett and he would take turns driving and sitting in the passenger's seat.

And last, the kids all played together in the house, pretending to make food and serve dinner, even all sitting down together. It was really cute seeing all the kids playing so well together, and I'm so glad that we decided to go to the museum together. I was a little nervous about it since I had the kids on my own and visiting the museum for the day usually tires me out, but it was a fun excursion with friends.

We didn't leave the museum until after 3:00, which is much later than we usually stay, but we were having such a good day that I wanted to let the kids enjoy playing together as long as possible. I remembered Aedan's pacifier, and he was extremely tired at this point, so he fell asleep right away in the car. Samantha, on the other hand, tried to close her eyes and go to sleep, but she was just unable to. I hoped that she would sleep for at least a little while since she didn't nap on Wednesday either, but there was nothing I could do to make her go to sleep. 

I had dinner ready in the crock pot for Thursday night, making our evening more relaxing together. I talked to Daddy on the phone for a long time while Samantha watched a show and Aedan continued his nap in his crib. Then, the evening flew by quickly with cleaning up dinner, feeding and taking out Roscoe, giving the kids baths, and then getting them in bed. When people asked me how my time went with the kids by myself, I always said that it went fine, it's just busy with one thing to take care of after another. It's easy to take for granted how much help I get from Ben, especially in the evening from dinnertime until bedtime. I also take for granted how much I enjoy his company, even if we are both working on our computers, at least we are still sitting together and able to talk and share about our day. However, the biggest way life feels different when Ben is gone is going to bed by myself. I am very task-oriented, meaning I like to accomplish the task at hand, even if I know it would be more logical for me to stop and go to bed. Because of this I stay up much later than I should when Ben is away. Plus, I have a much harder time falling asleep when he is not lying next to me in bed. I was looking forward to picking him up from the airport on Friday morning and being able to reconnect with him on the hour ride back to Oxford before I took off for my trip to Chicago.

After getting last minute things packed up, I was off to Chicago around noon on Friday, expecting to arrive between 4:00-4:30 Chicago time depending on how much I had to stop. However, my trip took much longer because of back-ups from accidents on I-65. As you can see from these pictures, there were overturned semis due to strong gusty winds in two different locations in the southbound lanes of I-65, causing back-ups in the northbound lanes as well. I was stuck for an hour and a half, crawling slowly at first, and then literally sitting still for 30-45 minutes. I ended up just turning the car off and reading on my Kindle while I waited. There was no way to get off the interstate, so I just had to wait. However, I was so frustrated that my trip was now delayed by so much time. I finally arrived in Chicago a little after 7:00 Ohio time and felt completely exhausted from a long day of travel.

Once I finally got to Chicago, I met my family at the hospital as my Grandpa Don went to the emergency room due to numbness in his arm. I had plans to take my parents out for dinner, which we still decided to do, it was just much later than we originally planned. It was strange being there by myself, without Ben or the kids, but it was nice being able to go with the flow instead of being concerned about keeping schedules of the kids. We went to a family restaurant that my mom said was pretty good from going there in the past, and it was 8:00 my time by the time we were heading to the restaurant. much later than I am used to eating at home. As we sat down to eat I just kept yawning, so I decided that I was going to need some coffee to make it through the rest of the night. It was good to be able to take my parents out for dinner and be able to talk to them without having to deal with entertaining and feeding children. After eating dinner we went back to Grandma and Don's to hang out a little longer and get the update on Don's CT scan.

I was super tired and it was close to 1:00 a.m. Ohio time by the time I fell into bed in the second bedroom of my grandma's condo. The one thing I was looking forward to was being able to sleep in as long as I wanted to on Saturday morning since I had nowhere to be and no kids to wake up with. Something woke me up around 5:15, but I was able to go back to sleep and slept until close to 8:30 which is unheard of at home. I was able to FaceTime with Ben and the kids, and it was good to see their smiling faces. I was worried that I might make Aedan upset, but he was doing just fine. Ben was about ready to take them to the park to play because it was going to be in the mid-60s and sunny that day, a beautiful morning to play outside.

I ate breakfast with Grandma and Don before getting ready and heading over to Christy's apartment to hang out with her, Matthew, and Brielle. It was fun to be able to play with Brielle and form more of a bond with her in her own home. She was much more comfortable around me at that time than she was when everyone came to Oxford for Christmas. She knew so many words and even knew how to say my name pretty well. It was great to be able to spend time talking with Christy and hanging out for the afternoon. My parents came over to the apartment in the middle of the afternoon as well so that we could head over to Harvest for Brielle's dedication at the Saturday night service.

The main reason I came up to Chicago for the weekend was to see Brielle be dedicated to the Lord. It is an important step, and I wanted to show my support for Christy and Matthew raising up Brielle in the "training and admonition of the Lord." My parents, brother, Grandma, and Don came, as well as Matthew's mom. It was great to be a part of this moment in Brielle's life and to pray over them as a part of the large group in front of the church as well.

After the dedication, everyone except for Grandma and Don went back to Christy's apartment to hang out and eat pizza together. Brielle hadn't napped for very long that afternoon, so we was getting pretty tired and slap happy. It was funny to watch her running around, screaming, and throwing herself on the ground. I love how all toddlers act the same in this regard when they are tired. Here are some pictures and videos of Brielle from that night.

This is my attempt at getting a "selfie" of Brielle. I turned the phone towards her so that she could see herself, but she was up past her bedtime and wasn't in the mood for smiling for me.

At about 9:30 Chicago time I decided to head back to Grandma and Don's so that Christy could get Brielle to sleep and so that I could talk to Ben on the phone before he went to bed. It was good to be able to catch up with Ben and hear how his weekend with the kids was going. (I will share his words a little bit later.) Grandma and Don had just arrived home shortly before I got back, so they wanted to sit and have ice cream with me before going to bed. Once again, I was pretty tired after a full day out and staying up later than I am used to. It didn't take me long to fall asleep, and I was able to sleep in again on Sunday morning since we went to church on Saturday night.

Sunday morning was pretty relaxed. I had breakfast with Grandma an Don, and then I just got showered, dressed, and packed up so that I would be ready to head out after spending the morning with my family. My parents, Christy, Matthew, and Brielle all came over to Grandma and Don's so that we could spend more time together before I wanted to head back home.

Luckily, I didn't have any trouble with traffic or back-ups and arrived home around 7:30, just in time to see the kids and help put them to bed. It was so great to be back home again and to see my little kiddos. Samantha ran at me, shouting, "Mommy!" and gave me a huge hug. Aedan looked at me with a perplexed look on his face, almost like he couldn't believe that I was actually there, and then he came towards me saying "Ma-ee, Ma-ee," not leaving my side after that.

I figured it would be best to share about Ben's weekend with the kids from his perspective, so I asked him to share a few paragraphs. His words are in quotations, with a few added comments by me mixed in.

"Jenny picked me up at the airport around 10: 15 on Friday morning. We rode back home and enjoyed our opportunity to talk for an hour before she left for Chicago."

"About ten minutes after we got home, it was time for Aedan and I to go get Samantha from preschool. It was a nice day outside so I let the kids play on the playground for a few minutes before heading home. After lunch on Friday, I told Samantha that I needed her to take a nap because I was tired. She thought it was silly that an adult would take a nap too, but I explained to her that I woke up at 2:45 a.m. to get to the airport and was tired. Luckily, both kids napped well on Friday."

"When they woke up, we just hung out. The kids played while I finished making dinner. After dinner, because they were being so cute, I offered to take the kids out for ice cream. Both of them thought that sounded good. So, we headed out to Uptown and walked holding hands across the street. The ice cream was good, even though Samantha spilled quite a bit. They were both a little scattered at the ice cream shop, and it would have been significantly easier if I were with Jenny. We got home and I got the kids to bed, and then I did some work."

Samantha filled up her "Good Choices Jar" while Ben was gone in Michigan, and she decided she wanted her reward to be sleeping with Daddy while I was gone so that way she could sleep in the bed with him and cuddle with him the whole night. The only condition was that she had to go to sleep right away or she was going to have to go back in her own bed. She was super excited about using her reward and made sure to let Daddy know how he was supposed to lay. Her plan was to literally lay on top of him with both of them on their backs. He told Samantha that was probably not a good idea, but that she could have her pillow right next to his and cuddle up close to him. When he got in bed, it took him about fifteen minutes to get enough covers since she had wrapped so much of the covers around her little body. When she woke up enough to realize he was in bed with her, she giggled and then was touching him in some way for the rest of the night. She slept pretty well until about 7:15, even though neither of them probably slept as well as normal. Nevertheless, Ben was excited about having me back in bed with him instead.

"After breakfast on Saturday we went to a local park that Samantha likes. It was 60 degrees outside and the kids loved playing. We were there for an hour and a half, and then we headed to Chipotle for lunch. After lunch we went home and both kids napped again. On Saturday night we just relaxed, played together, and took a bath."

"The kids got up at their normal time on Sunday. So, I decided it would make sense to go to first service together. Aedan is a little more weird about being dropped off in the nursery than Samantha was, and he was sad again this morning. When I bent down to unzip his coat he buried his head in my chest and started crying, saying, "No, daddy..." in a whiny voice. I asked him if he wanted to give Samantha and Daddy a goodbye hug, and he liked that idea. So, we went over to Samantha's class, he hugged her, and then me. Then, he went into his room without any trouble."

Here are the kids all dressed up for church on Sunday. Ben sent this picture to me, and it made me so happy to see their smiling faces.

Once back home Daddy changed Aedan out of his little suit, but he wanted to keep his tie on.

Ben said that he told Aedan to smile and say cheese, and that's how he captured this awesome picture of Aedan. I love his squinty eyes, his pink cheeks, and his many teeth peeking out of that brilliant smile. This might be one of my all-time favorite pictures of Aedan. You can't help but smile yourself when looking at this picture. :)

"After church we played for a while, even though the kids were restless. We had lunch, and I put them down. It was after nap on Sunday that I started to get tired of doing everything by myself for the last few days. Up until that point I was good, but I could tell I was done. So, I took the easy way out...I let the kids watch a show. Aedan wanted to watch a VeggieTales and Samantha picked a short version of Kung Fu Panda that was made for Netflix. I got the kids ready for bed, knowing that mommy was getting close. They were both tired and ready for bed, but I knew they would be happy to see Jenny and I kept them up. All was right with the world when she got home, for all of us...for the first time since Tuesday night."

I was glad that the kids did so well for Ben, as this is the first time I have been gone from them for this long. I was glad that Samantha took naps both Friday and Saturday, making it easier to deal with her behavior, and giving them better evenings together. She is much more respectful and compliant when she has napped and has gotten enough rest. Ben said that she was being incredibly helpful. Apparently on Sunday Samantha started asking about me a lot, and before church Aedan was playing in my closet and kept saying, "Mommy, Mommy." I am definitely glad that we don't have to be apart very often. It was difficult being away from each other four nights in a row, and Ben and I just enjoyed sitting next to each other on the couch Sunday night, talking and catching up with all that had happened over the last several days we'd been apart.

Then, Monday was back to our normal routine again. Daddy off to campus, Samantha off to preschool, and Aedan and I off to Kroger for our weekly shopping trip. Lately Aedan has really missed Samantha when she is gone at preschool. He will walk around the house calling for her, saying "Ce-ce" which is his way of saying Sissy. When he asks, "Ce-ce?" I will remind him that she is at preschool, and he will say, "Ce-ce, pee-kool" with a very sad look on his face. He loves her so much and can't wait to go pick her up again.

Here are the kids together when we got home after preschool. Aedan did something to hurt himself and make himself cry, and Sissy came to comfort him right away. Oftentimes he doesn't want Mommy or Daddy. As Ben put it so eloquently, "A hug from Samantha is like the much needed medicine for him, as it almost always makes him happy." In fact, after she hugs him and comforts him, he will often just look at her and smile, like nothing could be better in the world than being near his sister. It is adorable to see how much he loves her and wants to be around her. And Samantha has done a very good job lately of taking care of her little brother and including him in her play. It is wonderful to watch them together and see their cute relationship grow stronger and stronger as they grow older.

And just because the above pictures aren't cute enough, here are our two cute kiddos in the bath together on Monday night. They have a great time splashing around and being silly together. :) These are the moments I cherish now and will look back on with fondness, the moments I hope I will never forget.

(Blog about February 16-22, 2015)

Weekend Trip to Upland

Samantha: 56 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 21 Months, Week 2 (Week 94)

I have written about starting a "Good Choices Jar" with Samantha. We have been pushing it a lot, letting her fill it with cotton balls whenever making good choices, especially in transition scenarios when we ask her to do something and she willingly does it with no fighting, whining, or delaying. On Monday night she filled up her jar, so we let her choose her reward, which we knew was going to be sleeping in our room. I'm not sure why she finds that so fascinating, but we were happy to oblige. Ben moved her mattress into our room at the foot of the bed, and we got her situated for bedtime. She was pretty excited about sleeping with us, as the only other time she's done this is when my whole family visited at Christmastime. Samantha did fairly well in our room, probably not sleeping as much as normal due to the different surroundings and excitement, but it was fun to reward her for all the good choices she made.

Overnight Monday into Tuesday, we had snow come through. It really was not all that much, but the wind was blowing pretty hard, making it difficult to keep the country roads cleared off. Because of that, they cancelled school for the day which doesn't really affect us anyways as Samantha doesn't have preschool on Tuesdays. However, it did free up our friend Kristyn from having to work, so she invited us over to go sledding down the hill in their backyard with her kids. We had a couple of other plans for the morning, and circumstances kept changing, altering our plans as well. It took us awhile to finally get out of the house, but the kids had a great time playing out in the snow and sledding down their hill. Samantha was rolling around and falling in the snow, having a good old time. She went down the hill on the sled with Aedan, and even encouraged Jonas to try sledding as well. At one point all three of them went down together! Then, once the kids had their fill of being out in the cold, we went in to the house to play for awhile and have lunch together. I packed sandwiches, yogurt, and fruit for lunch so that way we could stay longer instead of feeling like we had to leave right away to get back for lunch. However, after lunch Samantha was getting a little too tired, probably because she didn't sleep that well in our room the night before, and she started to become disrespectful towards me, refusing to listen, saying no, and then trying to hit and kick me when I made her get up. So instead of leaving with a good attitude, she got a time out and wasn't able to play in Jonas' room like she wanted to. I don't like to end fun times out like this, but I can't let her get away with treating me like that. Luckily, I'm sure most parents have gone through this before, so no one is judging me based on her behavior, even though I feel embarrassed about it sometimes.

On Wednesday, after dropping Samantha off at preschool, I took Aedan on a trip to Meijer to pick up my prescription, buy new socks for the kids, and also to get a booster seat for Samantha to use in Ben's car. The car seat that we currently have in his car only goes up to 40 pounds, so we needed something different, and we figured since she rides in it so infrequently, that it would be fine to get her a backless booster seat that she will then use for a long time into the future. However, for some reason Aedan was extremely cranky that morning, much more than normal. He didn't have much patience as I looked for things in the store, and he cried several times pretty loudly. I tried to get finished as quickly as I could, and even though he was upset, he still wanted to pay a penny to ride on the horse. It's a tradition. We can't leave Meijer without taking a pony ride.

These pictures are pretty cute of Aedan, and he doesn't look the least bit grumpy. However, you can tell that he is tired, and then throughout the day his cheeks kept getting more and more red. Ben and I are thinking that his second year molars may finally be getting ready to push themselves through.

After getting back home and playing for awhile, we had to get back in the car to go pick up Sissy at preschool. Aedan wasn't too big of a fan of being back in the car. He was just having a rough morning. However, now that he is forward facing, he can reach his feet a lot better, meaning that he can now take off his socks and shoes. When I saw him do this, all the memories of Samantha doing the exact same thing came flooding back to me. When Samantha was around his age, she would take her socks and shoes off in the car every time we drove, whether we were just going down to road or on a long car trip. You can see the joy on Aedan's face in being able to touch his bare feet. :) I love it when he sticks his tongue out when he is really amused at something.

In this video below, I was trying to record Aedan saying "silly," but he was grumpy that morning and was not in the mood to be compliant. He just wanted to see the camera and not perform for me, but you can hear his really good whiny pathetic voice and way of saying no, which is still pretty cute.

When Samantha got in the car and saw that Aedan had his shoes off, she decided to join in, taking her socks and shoes off as well. And of course, she wanted me to take a picture of her as well.

When putting Aedan down for his nap on Wednesday, he was super tired and after I finished reading him his books, he turned around right away and laid his head on my shoulder. Normally, I lay him across my lap with his head in the crook of my left arm, and he falls asleep with both his hands together up near his pacifier. However, on this day he just cuddled into my shoulder and fell asleep. His hands twitched every once in awhile as he drifted off to sleep, and he would grab onto me again just to be sure I was still there. I don't even remember the last time he has fallen asleep on my shoulder like that. I enjoyed holding him close, rubbing his back, patting his bottom, and feeling his soft hair on my face. I think I may have rocked him a little longer that afternoon. :)

For however good Aedan naps, Samantha has been hit or miss again lately. In fact, she did not nap Wednesday or Thursday afternoon despite trying to get her to go to sleep and going up to her room to tell her to go to sleep. Ben and I started having the conversation about whether or not we think napping might be fading away for her. It is still amazing that she continues to nap when she will be five in three months, but we really think that most days she still needs it. We tried cutting out her naps before Christmas, and it didn't work, so we figured we'd keep them up for awhile. Honestly, I have always hoped that the end to her napping would be more organic rather than forced. I always pictured her just being unable to sleep more often than not, or having trouble settling down for sleep at night, and naps gradually fading away, so if that's what's happening, I am okay with it. I think it will be an easier transition now than it was a few months ago because on days that she doesn't nap, she doesn't act quite as crazy in the evenings. Most of the time she can handle herself pretty well and doesn't totally melt down. I'm sure it will take time for her body to totally adjust to getting all her sleep at night, and we will also have to adjust by making sure she gets to bed earlier at night so that she can get the rest she needs. So we will see, I think we may keep trying to get her to nap for another week or so, just to be sure it isn't a weird phase, and then we will go from there.

Thursday morning the kids and I had to be up and out the door early so that we could help babysit some kids from a family in our small group while their mom went to the doctor. We had a good time playing with new toys, drawing with markers, and watching Daniel Tiger. While we were there, Aedan just amazed me with all the words he knows and the the fact that he knows the correct context for using the words. For example, the kids will often have a small snack while watching a show after nap time, so since we don't usually watch shows in the morning, Aedan kept asking for "nack" (snack) and "show." Also, he kept coming up to Sissy, cuddling with her, and laying his head on her as they watched baby Margaret and Daniel Tiger together on the show. Samantha and Aedan are so cute together. I love their bond and connection, even though they are different genders and three years a part, they love each other fiercely.

The biggest thing that happened on Thursday was an email Ben received from Lake Superior State University inviting him for a campus visit next week. We were both slightly surprised by this email since we hadn't heard anything much since the Skype interview and the strange follow-up email. Ben and I talked about what days would work best for our schedule, and he booked a flight that would leave Wednesday morning and get him back Friday morning. His main interviews, meetings, presentation, and tour would then be most of the day on Thursday. It was kind of surreal that he was asked for a campus visit, simply because Ben has had about ten phone interviews and none of them have led to a campus visit for whatever reason. Lake Superior State University is a small liberal arts college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, almost in Canada. It's in a smaller town called Sault St. Marie. We would not be crazy about living in an area that is pretty cold and snowy; however, I was thrilled for Ben that he got asked for a campus visit. I had been praying for some encouraging news, at least something positive to lift Ben's spirits and let us know that the process isn't over, and then Ben got the email. It's amazing how God is faithful in keeping his promises, hearing our prayers, and giving us the encouragement we need when we are starting to doubt.

Thursday evening we decided to go out to eat to relax as a family. We had free Chipotle burrito coupons that we were going to use, but then discovered that the line was just too long to go there to eat. Instead we decided to go to Fiesta Charra, the sit-down Mexican restaurant right down the street. The kids like the food there, too, it's just not quite as fresh. However, we had a busy night ahead as we had plans to borrow a truck to use so we could get the elliptical machine that I bought off the Oxford Online Yard Sale site for $50. I figured we would be much more likely to exercise if we had the machine in our house and $50 seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. Also, it that weren't enough for one evening, we also had to get packed up for our weekend trip to Upland and I had Bible study to go to.

Friday morning, after getting ourselves packed up and dealing with our kids not being in the best of moods, we went on our way to Upland. Ben and I said that next time we should just put a show on for them to keep them somewhat occupied while we finish up last minute packing. It would make our life a lot easier and keep us from wanting to pull our hair out before we even left on our trip.

As soon as we got close to Taylor and turned onto Grandpa and Grandma's road, Aedan started talking about Brush and Money. He was so excited to see his old friends again. We were excited to see what Aedan would do first when arriving at the house since he is just so obsessed with these singing and talking Veggie Tales characters. Of course, after wondering where Papa was (which I think it actually what he is calling Grandma), he slid downstairs on his tummy to find his friends. They were lined up on the rocking chair in the toy room, and Aedan was SO excited to see them all. He immediately got them all out, playing their songs, dancing and singing along. We had lunch on our own since Grandpa and Grandma were still at work, then we got the kids down for their naps. We told Samantha that she had to take a nap since she hadn't the two previous days and then woke up early that morning because she was excited about going to Upland. It took a little while for us to convince (or was it coerce?) her to go to sleep, so then Aedan ended up waking up before her. Grandma got home around 4:00 and was happy to go in and get Aedan when he woke up. Here is Aedan playing with his favorite friends. You can see that he dances and sings along with them, even knowing many of the words to the songs. It's so funny how attached to these things he has gotten, and it will be interesting to see how long this infatuation carries on.

That evening, once Papa got home from work and Samantha watched her show, we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. The kids did really well there, and they didn't mind having rice, beans, and a quesadilla again, plus they thought it was great being able to sit next to Grandpa and Grandma in the booth.

Since Aunt Jeni and Alaina couldn't come this time, we had plenty of space to spread out in, meaning everyone could sleep in their own room. However, like normal, Samantha had a hard time getting enough sleep, taking awhile to fall asleep on Friday night and waking up at 6:40 on Saturday morning, much earlier than Ben and I would have liked to wake up. We tried to encourage her to go back to sleep, but that rarely works anymore, making for a somewhat tired girl.

On Friday night Samantha helped Daddy and Grandma mix up the batter for a red velvet cake, so she was pretty excited when it was time to decorate it on Saturday morning. Grandma had red and white sparkly icing for Samantha to use, and she spent a long time decorating it, making flowers and other pretty decorations with the icing, as well as using sprinkles to make it even more festive for Valentine's Day.

Grandma was nice enough to let Aedan lick the icing off the spatula, and he thought that was great. He just walked around licking the spatula and saying, "Mmm!" And he learned a new word, "icing." :)

Here are Samantha's finished cakes. They look beautiful and delicious, don't they?

After awhile of playing inside, I decided it would be worth it to get the kids dressed up in their snow gear so we could play in the snow and go sledding down the large hill in the yard. It had been awhile since we'd visited Upland when there was enough snow on the ground to go sledding, so I wanted to take advantage of the freshly fallen snow. Even though it was pretty cold outside, I knew Samantha would love it, figuring we could just stay out for a little while if it felt too cold. Daddy had never really seen Aedan dressed up in his snow gear, so he thought he was pretty cute all bundled up and had to take some pictures.

The great part about Grandpa and Grandma is that they join right in the fun with us. They put on waterproof clothes and gathered the sleds, sledding down the hill right along with the kids. Here are Daddy and Samantha going down the hill together on the torpedo sled that kind of spins out when you get to the bottom of the hill. Samantha was so cute laughing and squealing the whole way down the hill each time.

And here I am going down the hill with Aedan on the torpedo sled. (We almost took out Daddy with our sled near the bottom of the hill.)

Both kids were really enjoying being outside, and it was cold but we were all bundled up well enough that we were pretty protected from feeling too cold. After a few times down the hill, Aedan just wanted to walk around. I think he really wanted to play basketball and shoot into the hoop, but that is a little difficult to do when you can't grasp anything with your hands. So instead he walked around and explored with Grandma. Samantha wanted to go down the hill over and over again, taking turns riding with both Ben and me. We didn't feel comfortable enough letting her go by herself since you had to sometimes help steer the sled away from trees as you zipped down the hill. I'm so glad we had the chance to get outside and have some fun in the snow together.

After having a yummy sausage, vegetable, noodle soup for lunch, we put the kids down for their naps. Aedan always goes right to sleep, but Samantha was a little too ramped up that afternoon, acting silly in bed, and continuing to whisper and wiggle even though we told her to calm down and take a little nap. We can encourage her, but we can't force her.

Then, mid-afternoon Ben and I left for our Valentine's Day date. We had plans to drive up to Fort Wayne, go shopping at Kohl's with our gift cards from Christmas, and then have dinner at Flat Top Grill. We were so thankful to Grandpa and Grandma for being willing to watch the kids while we went out by ourselves. Ben and I love this chance to reconnect and talk for an extended period of time, to have a relaxed meal together, and to remember who we are and our love for each other that goes deeper than just our kids. As a fun idea, we even went through a list of 36 questions that I saw posted on a blog to help you get to know your significant other better. Many of the answers were things we could have answered for each other and were fairly predictable, but some gave me a different perspective on Ben, and I'd like to think he thought the same way about me. It was a great time out together, and we got back to Upland just in time to finish helping get the kids ready for bed and then put them to bed with stories and songs.

Originally we planned on staying through church and lunch on Sunday, but there was more snow coming in starting mid-morning, and we decided it would be safer to just hit the road and get home by lunchtime to avoid any bad weather or slippery roads. Really, that worked out better anyways so that the kids could have good naps at home, we could get everything unpacked and put away, and we could get some laundry started and be in a better position before another week started up again. Plus, we had plans to go over to the Troy's house for dinner that night. The roads were not so great, making a 12 minute drive turn more into a 25 minute drive, but I was glad we were able to get over to their house. They made us a yummy lasagna with bread and salad, along with a very delicious cherry dessert. The kids had fun playing together and meeting their new puppy. It was so great to see their excitement for this puppy. Samantha especially loved the puppy and it made me wish that we had a dog that was younger and more friendly, one that the kids could hug and kiss and play fetch with, one they could take on walks and play with in the backyard. Maybe some day, when Roscoe is no longer with us, we may consider another dog for our children to enjoy.

The other first of the evening was Aedan falling down the stairs while at the Troy's house. He normally is really good with stairs since he knows he has to slide down on his tummy. He has never fallen down the stairs at our house before, which actually is kind of surprising considering how fast he flies down the stairs sometimes. However, as the adults were sitting around the table talking that evening, all of a sudden we heard Aedan crying at the bottom of the basement stairs. The other kids were downstairs playing and watching a show, and the oldest boy said that he saw Aedan fall down the stairs. Now, who knows what actually happened or how many stairs Aedan may have even fallen down, but that didn't matter to Aedan as he was crying very hard and was very upset about the whole situation. The good thing is that the Troys were used to this kind of thing, so our kids crying or throwing a fit wasn't going to phase them at all. I brought Aedan upstairs with me, and he sat on my lap and cuddled with me for awhile until I could convince him to be happy and start playing again. It's fun to be invited over to a friend's house for dinner, and it was a great way to end our weekend.

(Blog about February 9-15, 2016)