After 3 long days in the car, my parents, Jayden and Willow, and myself made it back to Wichita from Audubon, PA. I had so much fun being with my sister and her family, I wish we could live closer so we could hang out all the time. The drive home was hard, the kids did really good, but I feel about broken from sitting that long. Most days I never even made it out of the car until we stopped for dinner. Whenever we stopped for gas or at rest areas, I was usually in the car feeding Willow and by the time she was done eating, everyone was piled back in the car and ready to go.
Our journey back across the country started out with a lot of action. We left Kaylee’s house around 8:00, and stopped about a half hour later so dad, mom, and Jayden could get their coffee fix…well hot chocolate for Jayden. Jayden had caught yet another cold before we left. It was mostly up in his nose and of course he has developed an adversion to blowing his nose. Why? I have no freaking clue, but it poses a problem when your nose is stuffed and you try to sniff in all the snot trying to drip out your nose. So, we’ve been in the car for about an hour, Jayden is drinking his hot chocolate, and he tries to sniff his nose. All the nasty stuff in there makes him choke and he throws up the hot chocolate he just drank. Luckily, he wasn’t too bad, it was mostly on his shirt. We keep driving and I am able to take his shirt off of him, clean him up with some wipes and figure I’ll just get him some new clothes when we stop next. Who knew that we’d be stopping in about a half hour. At 9:30ish, we’ve traveled a mere 76 miles down the road, Jayden really throws up and then throws up and then throws up. A ton of phlegm, hot chocolate, and breakfast all over. Nasty. And if you’ve done any reading of my blog, you know I cannot handle barf, it makes me puke. Luckily we were coming up on an emergency pull over on the side of the road, so dad quickly stops the car and jumps out to help me. I am trapped in the car between the 2 kids in the back, one sleeping, one puking. Dad is outside the car on Jayden’s side, helping to contain all the nastiness that keeps coming out of Jayden. Mom is out of the car and practically puking herself. She was just gagging, but it sounded bad, I thought for sure she’d lost her mocha on the side of the road. Of all the things that my mom had to deal with with us 5 kids growing up, the main thing she can’t handle is phlegm. And thats what was coming out of Jayden, a brown (thanks to the hot chocolate), chunky (thats to the breakfast), slimy, shiny, nastiness. Dad and I were cracking up just trying to clean poor Jayden up. I kept gagging and had to keep looking away and taking deep breaths to keep my own breakfast down. We managed to stop right next to a cow pasture, so all those deep breaths I kept taking smelled like cow poop…fantastic…
Now, poor, poor Jayden. We get his upper body, arms, and hands cleaned up with wipes. I strip off his socks and shoes..the only things not hit with puke at this point, and then we hand him off to my mom so we can clean up his car seat. Poor Jayden gets set on a plastic bag on the side of the road, in 23 degree weather, it’s slightly snowing outside, and mom my has to take off the rest of his puked on clothes until he’s buck naked. He was a bit cold. My mom did manage to find his feet pjs in his bag in the back and quickly got him dressed, wrapped in a blanket, and then put in the front seat in front of a heater until we could get the rest of the back seat cleaned up. Oy…what a way to start the trip home. We stopped again around 11, so I could feed Willow, and dad ran into the store and got some Lysol to spray on Jayden’s seat. I felt so sick sitting back there, because I kept getting whifs of sour hot chocolate…not good. The Lysol helped, but pretty much my car needs a real deep cleaning done. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful compared to that. We stopped in Springfield, OH the first night and we made sure to get a hotel with a pool so Jayden could burn off some energy. The 2nd night, we got to Kingdom City, MO, and again Jayden and I went swimming. We made it back to Wichita just yesterday around 1:30 and all of us were so glad to get out of the car! I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere anytime soon. I’m a little tired of traveling with 2 little kids. :)
Here’s some pictures from the Kaylee’s house and during the ride home.
Swimming!

Jayden got strawberries and creme from Starbucks after the whole hot chocolate incident

Good little Willow pretty much did this the entire ride…Hallelujia

The three boys having some lunch

Wyatt and Willow

Kaylee and the boys building a snowman in the backyard

Kaylee and Willow. Miss you K-dog.

Kaylee took us out on the town today to check out some historic stuff at Valley Forge Park.
Here’s Kaylee being the tour guide.

Dad in the back with the 4 kids! We like to keep him on his toes!

Jayden enjoying his lollipop - this was the only way I could take a picture of him - through the headrest… :)

Brennie and Wyatt in the way way back.

Snowy Pennsylvania!


Kaylee even spotted some deer. It took me forever to see them. This ones for you Royal

Well, it kept snowing all day yesterday. Brendan was so excited he kept going out every 10 mins or so to measure the snow with a ruler, he was just hoping we would get 2 inches. We ended up getting over 4! We went out after dinner and went sledding again on some real snow this time. I didn’t have my camera for the night sledding, but here are some other pictures.

Brennie measuring the snow for the umpteenth time.

Dad built a snowman while outside with the dogs. The snow was real light and fluffy, so building a snowman was a challenge. He then brought it into the kitchen to give it a face and some arms - made out of chocolate chips, cheerios, and toothpicks. Doesn’t he just look so proud???

Willow and I hung out upstairs for a little bit yesterday in the warmest corner of the house. Chillin’ in Kaylee’s dream rocker, listening to my Ipod while rocking her to sleep, working on my knitting, and watching all the snow fall out the window.

After being in Washington with the feet of snow that was on the ground, the light little dusting we got here in PA last night just doesn’t seem like much. But it is snowing again right now (yipee!!!) and the small amount of snow didn’t stop anybody from going outside and sledding like we got feet of snow!

Kaylee told me she’d kill me if I posted these pictures….I’m not too afraid of her….yet……I think she needs a bigger sled

So, we decided that going to Washington for 2 weeks just wasn’t enough traveling for us. My parents flew back to Kansas last Monday with the plan to recover for a few days and then get in the car and drive out to Pennsylvania to visit Kaylee and her family. Once I knew they were going, I just couldn’t NOT come along. So, I packed all the clothes I just finished washing from our Washington trip and me and the kids (Royal had to stay home b/c someone in this family needs to earn money and he’s starting school next week…might as well be him!) tagged along with mom and dad for their cross county trip. We piled all our bags and a bunch of food into the back of the Pilot and we left early Thursday morning. And when I say early, I mean freaking early. We decided to leave right after Willow got her middle of the night meal, which is usually around 3 or 4. So, Willow woke up at 3:30 and I was heading downstairs to wake up dad, so he could get up and make some coffee, and I found him already awake in the kitchen making himself some coffee and acting all goofy. Guess he was just too excited to get going! He’s obviously forgot I am NOT a morning person in the slightest way, or he wouldn’t of been cracking all those jokes. Royal got up right after me though to help load the car (and Royal is the biggest morning person EVER), so he was more than happy to joke around with dad. I fed Willow, got dressed, hauled my bags out to the “staging area”, woke Jayden up, said goodbye to Royal, and we headed for the car. As we opened the garage door to pull out, we were greeted with what looked like a freaking blizard. What a way to start the trip. We had no idea it was snowing, no one bothered to look out the windows while we were loading bags. :)

Here’s a little timeline of our first day
4:43am : We pull out of the garage in the pouring snow and 12 degree weather. Dad was driving, Mom was in the passenger seat, I was in the middle in the back with Willow on my left and Jayden on my right. Directly behind me on a blanket on top of some bags and pillows were my parents 2 dogs, Lily and Zoe. Willow fell asleep, Jayden fell asleep, Mom fell asleep, Zoe fell asleep. Lily pretty much started hyperventilating…right in my ear.
5:00am : I feel like I’m going to kill Lily and all her panting in my ear.
6:56am : 137 miles into the trip, Lily finally stops panting. Hallelujia, that dog wasn’t gonna make it much farther.
7:41am : Dad keeps getting real excited about how cold it keeps getting outside and watching the temp drop as the sun comes up. It is now 1 degree outside and Dad keeps mentioning how he hopes it gets to zero and it would be even better to see if my car would register a negative.
8:07am : Never fear, it is now -1 degrees outside.
8:30am : We’d traveled 240 miles (of the 1300 we needed to) and we hit our first of many rest stops. Willow needed to be changed and to eat. The dogs get out and do their business. We all get strapped back in the car and pull out of the rest area and Willow poops.
9:00am : We stop at another rest area to change Willow - we wanted to make sure she had time to get it all out. Dad gets out to walk the dogs. Well, Dad came back to the car before Willow had all her clothes back on, so poor dad and the dogs had to wait outside in the 4 degree weather. We get Willow dressed and put back in her seat, and Dad jumps in the car. Guess he was a little cold, he had no hat on and by the time he got back in the car, his glasses had ice on them. I then remembered I had a hat in my bag by my feet….oops. Maybe next time dad??? I let him wear it in the car for a bit to warm up.

10:15am : My mom’s starbucks addiction kicks in and we look one up on the GPS and stop so Jayden can get a “mocha” (hot chocolate) and mom and dad can get some coffee. I stay in the car with Willow and the dogs. Willow poops again. For the love of pete…..it is not easy to change diapers in cram packed full car.
11:30am : We stopped for lunch and so I could feed Willow. We packed a bunch of food so we wouldn’t have to buy food during the day, however we didn’t think about how cold it was going to be. So mom gets out in 7 degree weather, gets the sandwich stuff out of the back, brings it back up to the front and manages to make sandwiches on the dashboard of the car so no one had to stand outside.
12:01pm : We’re finally on the road again, we’ve only managed to crank out 375 miles. Missouri was the state of stops for us.
12:55pm : We cross the Mississippi River and head on into Illinois
2:20pm : We stop at a rest area that has a play structure. We bundle Jayden up and he plays outside for about 10 minutes before he’s too cold and needs to come in a warm up. I finally get out of the car for the first time to use the bathroom. I was not sure my knees were going to work or my legs support me anymore. I did a little jog around the playground, did some jumping jacks and did some skipping to get my blood moving and then climbed back in the car.

Here’s some Jaydenisms for you. At one point in the trip, Jayden was talking on the phone to Kaylee and Kaylee asks, ‘Are you driving to my house?’. Jayden says, ‘No……….Papa is’. So, literal… Sometimes when he was talking with Brendan on the phone, Brendan would ask, ‘Jayden, where are you?’ and Jayden would reply, ‘Here.’ Like…duh Sadly, during the first day, each time we stopped the car, Jayden would start clapping and saying, ‘It’s Kay-Kay’s house. We’re here!!’ By the end of the 1st day, he stopped clapping…I don’t think he thought we would ever get here.

3:04pm : We finally get on the road again.
5:28pm : We stop at a McDonald’s for dinner. Hoping it had a play area for Jayden. No such luck, darn it all. If you are going to eat McDonald’s food, you might as well have somewhere to play, the food just isn’t enough to get me to stop there for dinner. However, with a hungry Willow and a starving Jayden we stayed and watched Jayden down 6 McNuggets, a bunch of fries, 2 packets of ranch, and 2 fruit parfaits that were suppose to be my parents. Guess he was hungry.
6:35pm : We get back on the road. Willow is not happy to still be in her seat. This is usually the time of night she wakes up for awhile.
7:03pm : A fussy Willow finally falls asleep. Jayden is watching a movie and we’re hoping that we can make it a couple more hours down the road.
7:28pm : An angry Willow wakes up and we decide to call it a night.
We find a hotel, unload our bags, let Willow kick it on the bed and stretch her legs…a much much happier Willow….and we start getting ready for bed. Getting to go to sleep was hard. Willow went right to sleep around 10:30 and I shut out the light. Jayden took until close to midnight to get to go to sleep, it was not petty. I won’t go into lots of detail (unless someone wants to hear about the bad bedtime antics of a 2 year old) but it ended with a really big meltdown and crying so hard he ended up throwing up. Oy vei. I hate puke.

We let Jayden sleep in as long as he would the next morning to make up for the super late bedtime. Then we packed, got our breakfast, and were in the car by around 9am. When dad started the car to warm it up, the thermometer said it was -8 degrees outside, not fun to load the bags and kids in the car with. I think we got to a high of 11 degrees that day. We traveled again all day and the kids did great until about 6:30, when Willow was getting tired of being in the car. We stopped for dinner, let her stretch her legs, then we piled in the car around 7:30 for the last hour and a half drive to Kaylee’s. We got there around 9pm and boy was everybody glad to get out of the car!!! I don’t think we’re going to try and do the drive in 2 days again on our way back to Kansas. At this point everyone’s rear ends are so sore and legs are all cramped up that I’m not sure we’ll ever get in the car again! We’re moving in Kaylee!!!

While we were in Washington, we got a chance to hang out with our good friends Amy and Forrest.
Meet Amy

And Meet Forrest

These pictures are what happen when you leave your camera unattended for a split second to go check on your suppose to be sleeping kid upstairs.

Amy and Forrest just opened their photography studio, Cooper Studios, on Railroad in Shelton and I was so excited to go check it out. Amy is my most favorite photographer, she always manages to take really good pictures of us and most of the time I am wondering when the heck she took the picture because usually Jayden is freaking out.
Take Jayden’s 2nd bday photos, for example. Amy had this great idea about doing pictures in the park with a whole bunch of balloons. Yeah, Jayden didn’t want any part of that. However, Amy did manage to snap this picture

when what Jayden was doing most of the time was this

Thank goodness Willow was a little bit better of a model. Here are a few pictures that Amy took for us.

To quote Jordan : “Today is the day we celebrate…by…..by…..sweet relish! Mom, can I have a strawberry?”

(This will have made no sense to the majority of you out there. The only ones who will know what I am talking about are the ones that were on our family Yellowstone camping trip 14 years ago, or have been privy to watching the video tapes of it…before all the video tapes mysteriously disappeared…)

WARNING: lots of pictures ahead. proceed with caution, you might get overwhelmed. :)

Since we were flying out to Washington on Christmas Eve, we did our Christmas as a family on the 23rd. We figured Jayden would be up before 7, and we could open our presents and eat breakfast together before Royal headed off to work. Of course Jayden picked this day to sleep in until almost 8. Jayden really isn’t a rip into the presents kinda kid. He pulls one little piece off at a time and makes sure that piece is either in the garbage or handed to mom or dad before he gets another. He did love having presents though.

Jayden got a set of working power tools, which he promptly set off around the house trying to drill holes in things. He told me he was fixed things.

He also got a bunch of play dough tools and spent a good part of the morning making green worms.

Miss Willow pretty much just sat around and stared at the Christmas tree…lazy bum

We got up really early on Christmas Eve to get to the airport. Waking Jayden up at 5 wasn’t easy until we reminded him this was the day he got to go on an airplane. That pretty much was like giving him a shot of adrenaline and he perked right up and ripped his pajamas off. He was really excited to get to Nana and Papa’s and play with their “big” trains. The kids did really good on the planes. No freak outs from Jayden and Willow pretty much slept the whole time. Hallelujia!!! Once at Nana and Papa’s, there were many people waiting to meet Willow. Here are a few:
Aunt Jojee - the person to send your kids to when you need to get them to sleep… just so you know incase you want to hire her out.

Great Aunt Nancy - the self proclaimed marshmellow

Cousin Heidi

Great Grandma Leona

Jayden didn’t waste anytime getting out in the snow that was piled around my parents house.

And here’s a familiar site. A happy Royal bringing more wood to the house for fires. Royal was a happy camper to be around stacks of wood and fires that needed poking and bothering again. He’s been going through withdrawls out here in Kansas, the land of no trees.

Royal and Jayden got busy building a snowman. Well really Royal built it, Jayden just threw snowballs at him the whole time. Good kid.

Aunt Kay-kay had sent special gifts for Jayden and Willow to open on Christmas Eve. Here is Jayden in his sweet Christmas pants.

And Willow in her Christmas skirt with matching blanket of course!

Jayden found and played with my mom’s big train set for hours and hours. We found him sneaking out of his bed at night and since my parents house is so big, he was able to get across the house and play with trains for quite awhile before anybody found him.

Christmas morning brought lots more presents with it. And one of Jayden’s favorite was this microphone. I love listening to him sing!

And Great Grandma Joann braved the snowy roads and made it out to the house Christmas morning, just like she has always done as long as I can remember. I’m sure the fact that she was going to get to meet Willow helped too.

Jayden was so glad to be reunited with Papa again. They flew back to Washington 2 weeks before us and boy did we miss them here! Jayden and Papa have their own “special” language, and they sat in this “story” chair and told each other stories in gibberish over and over and cracked each other up.

Willow was also really happy to be reunited with Nana and Papa. Papa and her have a special relationship too, she gets fussy and he puts her to sleep. In fact Aunt Jojee and Papa were competing the whole time we were there to see who could get her to sleep the fastest. It was fantastic for me!

Once our week was up in Shelton, we headed down to Kelso for a week to spend time with Royal’s family. One of the first things Jayden did was get into Grandma’s flour drawer. Every grandma should have a drawer full of flour and sugar for their grandkids to play in.

Willow got to meet her Uncle Gabe and Aunt Brynn, who got engaged while we were there. Congratulations to them!!!

And of course there is always Great Grandma Mary

Somehow, we didn’t get any pictures of Willow with her Aunt Lisa or with Grandma and Grandpa. Who the heck is in charge of this camera anyway????

There are pictures of Jayden in the kitchen with Grandma though. Helping her make pizza dough. If it involves flour, Jayden is in!

Of course with the freaky Washington weather that was going on, the snow had all melted around Royal’s parents house, but then it snowed again!

We just got back to Wichita on Wednesday and we’re lucky we flew out when we did. Thanks to all the snow melting and the rain that started pouring, I-5 got flooded over and was closed for about 20 miles. Royal’s mom took us up to the airport and was one of the last cars they let pass through when she was headed back to Kelso. If Royal and I had tried to fly out any later, we would of been stuck in Washington. Although that really isn’t a bad thing if you ask me. I loved listening to the rain pound on the roof while we were there. It was worth getting up to feed Willow at 3 in the morning just to get to hear it. :)

As usual, Jayden is usually following me around the kitchen, trying to partake in whatever I am doing. I’ve kept him out of the cooking scene for obvious reason…things are hot and well I’d rather not deal with little burned fingers, especially since he refuses to let me look at, much less touch or put ice on something he’s hurt. I’m guessing it all stems back to the unfortunate toenail incident…I KNEW that was going to scar him for life. But today, for the 100th time, he drug his stool over next to the stove while I was cooking dinner, so today I humored him. I could manage to finish dinner using just once side of the stove, so Jayden got free reign of one burner.

Here’s what he made. It’s a delicious combination of a broken up breakfast egg and cheese muffin, a couple of carrots, and a whole lot of salt and pepper (an entire shaker full if you were wondering).

When Royal got home, Jayden wanted him to eat some of the dinner he’d prepared for him. Royal of course could not disappoint.

Here’s a close up of what Royal actually took a bite of and swallowed. Black pepper crusted carrot. yummmm

I’m not sure Jayden even believed his food was edible. He hadn’t tried to eat any of it until Royal took a bite. Jayden always wanting to be like his dad, while my back was turned, he took a big bite of one of the pepper covered muffins. When I turned around he was holding the somewhat soggy muffin in one hand and he was holding his tongue with his other while drooling on his shirt. With his tongue held he managed to say, ‘I don’t like it, my tongue hurts.’ It took almost a whole cup of milk to get the burning to stop. :)