A Busy Few Days

I have had a few crazy days.  If you sent an email recently, I haven’t gotten to it and likely won’t for a day or two.  I had company and quite a lot of it.  My company left earlier today and I’ll be playing catch up which is totally okay.

My daughter Kayla messaged me at the end of last week and said she was up for a visit.  She thought she’d come Sunday afternoon and stay through Tuesday.  My daughter Kelli messaged me Saturday and said her Sunday sitter was sick and she needed me.  Kelli works overnights as a nurse.  So she needed me to watch the kids Sunday so she could sleep…and possibly Monday.  My daughter Kalissa also had to work the overnight shift as a nurse and her husband who usually has the kids overnight had to be at work at 5 am Monday morning so, could I watch her kids and get them on the bus?  Sure??!!

So this was the crew that stayed overnight at my house on Sunday night.


It was crazy…I got no sleep but it was fun!  I’ll just show you some photos from our time together.  Here is Kayla with Eli and Emmett, Kelli’s twin boys.  Kayla was trying to figure out how to get the two of them downstairs.  They are too heavy to carry both at once anymore so she sat on her butt and slid down the steps.

Kayla was so sweet and gifted Gannon (who is crazy about Legos) some Lego man hand gloves that she knitted.  Gannon was CRAZY about them and wore them all day…more on that later.


Karl, our son, came over for a visit too.  He was the “funcle” (fun uncle) giving all the kids their favorite up-side-down hugs and even loving up on my foster dog Mork.


Mork was the star of the show…


We got all the kids ready for bed on Sunday night.  It turns out that Kelli’s hospital had a low census and she didn’t have to go in to work so she got to join in the fun.


The overnight was crazy.  Kelli had… one of the spare bedrooms.  She had Georgia and Eli sleeping with her.  Kayla had the other spare bedroom with her son Jasper and Kelli’s Emmett.  I had my bedroom with Anders Kalissa’s 4 month old.  Gannon and Carver were going to sleep on the couch and loveseat.

I couldn’t get Carver and Gannon to fall asleep.  Carver finally did.  Gannon not.  I fed Anders his last bottle and headed upstairs.  Gannon would just have to go to sleep on his own.  It was about 10:30 pm.  I stayed up a bit and then turned my light out.  I was trying to fall asleep and heard this slight knocking on wood.  I figured Jasper or Georgia weren’t sleeping and were lightly thumping their hand on the bed.  Nope.  I ended up getting up there was Gannon laying outside my bedroom door.  He had his stuffed dog, blanket, and pillow and was wearing his Lego hand mittens.  I was sure there were “ghost-ess” downstairs.  UGH.

I ended up making him a bed on the floor.  He laid down…again, wouldn’t go to sleep.  UGH.  He finally fell asleep.  I think I drifted off when at 11:45 pm Anders woke up.  He was hungry.  I had brought a bottle upstairs so I fed him.  He ate and went right back to sleep.  Whew.  I laid down…drifted off and Gannon work me up because he couldn’t find the stuffed puppy he brought upstairs. Oh my.

I got back to sleep and then at 2:30 Anders got squirmy.  I thought he was going to wake up and want to eat so I went downstairs and made a bottle.  I got back upstairs.  Nope.  He wasn’t hungry.  He was sleeping again.  I tried to go back to sleep.  3:10 am.  Anders was awake and wanted to eat.  I fed him and then he went back to sleep.  Whew.  I thought I could at least sleep the rest of the night.  Nope.

At one point Gannon woke me up.  He was missing one of his Lego Man mittens.  For real.  I found it.  Back to bed.  Back to trying to sleep.

5:10 am rolled around and Gannon was awake for good.  Me, not so much.  I told him he could go downstairs and watch TV.  I was sure Carver was likely awake as the boys are both early risers.  Gannon went downstairs and get halfway down and yells, “Carver is not awake!”  Carver yells back, “YES I AM!”  ugh.  The whole house was going to be awake.  Next thing I knew Carver and Gannon were yelling upstairs.  “Can we have a pop tart?”

So much for that night.  It was time to get up and get the boys ready for school.

Everyone ended up getting up.  I explained my whole night to Kelli and Kayla.  Kelli had a bad night of sleep too.  The two of them sent me back to bed.  I tried to go back to sleep.  I’m a terrible napper so I didn’t figure I’d be able to sleep.

They got Carver and Gannon on the school bus.  The little ones watched them get on.


A couple of hours later I was up and was getting my hair done…  This is Emmett.


Jasper and Georgia played really well together.  She took off when I came to take a picture.  You can see her reflection in the mirror on the door.

The kids all entertained us with come rousing music from the pump organ.  All of the adults were counting down the time to naptime as no one slept well.


I made cinnamon rolls…


Jasper doesn’t often get cinnamon rolls as he lives further away.


Emmett was so proud of himself.  He figured out how to open the puppy fence door.  He was all about Mork and hanging with him.


He would give him a toy.


Then he would sit on the chair I put in there and watch Mork.


He had the best time and thought he was such a “big boy”.

Naptime came and went.  The bus came bringing Carver, Gannon, and the two after-school girls that come to my house.  The girls went home, and Kalissa came for a visit and went to work.  Craig and Karl came after they were done with work and I made supper for everyone.  Thankfully Craig was on Dad duty and I had hope for a peaceful night’s sleep.

Finally, at 8:30 pm Jasper went to sleep and Kayla and I stitched.  Here is her project.


On Tuesday we were up.  Kayla had originally planned to go home right away in the morning but we decided to go thrifting.  I had Anders for the day and he was coming with us.  He’s really good and still sleeps a lot so it was no problem.  Kalissa got off work and stopped by to feed Anders.  We told her our plans and she decided to short sleep and come with us.

It was beautiful weather.  It was 36 degrees and we all went to town just wearing sweatshirts.  The snow was melting.  It was wonderful.

We got back at 12:30 pm.  Kalissa went home.  Kayla and Jasper went home.  Anders and I took my recycling to the recycling station.   The weather was so nice.  I couldn’t not do the recycling.  We got back to my house and I fell into the recliner and fed Anders.  We played for a bit…and he went back to sleep.

I started cleaning up the house from having all the company here… and before I knew it the bus came with the kids.  Parents pick up.  Kalissa came.  She helped me with a video and I wrote this blog post.  It’s 8:30 pm as I’m writing and I haven’t had supper yet.  I’m off to eat and then stitch.  I’d love to say it will be an early bedtime for me…but I doubt it.  I have such a terrible time giving up my stitching time…even for sleep..even when I’m pretty tired.  I’ll admit…I’ll likely be sleeping in tomorrow though.

Whew…what a busy couple of days.  Yes, I missed sleep…yes, it was crazy…but I wouldn’t change it for the world.  If you emailed or needed something over the last couple of days…now you know why I didn’t answer.  I’ll be catching up soon.  According to the forecast, it looks like Thursday is going to be a snow day!!

11 thoughts on “A Busy Few Days”

  1. Yes, such busy days!! Losing sleep for so much fun is certainly a good trade because as you know, there will come a time when you won’t get to be so “busy.” So fun to see pictures of your family. The twins are growing up and are so cute, as are the others.

  2. It sounds like the best kind of busy! Your family is lucky to have you as back-up childcare, and it’s a role that you love!

  3. What a busy time Jo, your t-shirt says it all – Live Generously.
    Generous with your family, your time, your how-to information, your life.
    Thank you.

  4. What a terrific few days!! I’m tired just reading about it. But those are the days that make for precious memories for you and all the kids (young and old alike).

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