December 16

Really, this is a continuation of my December 15 post, but I'm neurotic enough that I don't want to title a post "December 15, part 2", so I'm calling it December 16. Fair?

We visited Chris' grandmother in the morning; though seeing her was the main purpose of our trip, we only spent about two hours with her. Grandmother has Alzheimer's, and her condition has progressed to the point that she has no idea who we are and gets confused very easily. She does best with just a few people, for a short amount of time, and even then a "visit" isn't really a visit. It was really hard for Chris to see that though Grandmother still looks like herself, and is healthy and active, she is no longer the woman he once knew. But we are so thankful for Chris' Aunt Mary, who cares for Grandmother with a loving, servant's heart. What a blessing she is to the whole family!

We brought Grandmother some chocolates, and she eagerly shared them with Caleb. Though Grandmother doesn't remember much anymore, her love of children and chocolate has remained intact!

Sadly,t his was the best picture I could get of the two of them. I wanted desperately to get a picture of Grandmother and Daisy (whose middle name - Kathleen - is in honor of Grandmother), but Daisy's cold and lack of sleep the night before meant she wanted nothing to do with anyone but me. That was a disappointment.

But Caleb played eagerly with Aunt Mary's box of fun toys, and often stopped his play to show his treasures to his Great-Grandmother.

After our visit, we headed back to Rob and Jodi's house just in time to celebrate this boy's 6th birthday.

That's right. Rob and Jodi invited us to stay with them, even though we were crashing their son Trey's birthday party. I'm still baffled by their graciousness.

And Caleb? He had a ridiculous amount of fun. 

Trey's party was monster truck-themed, and that plus lots of fun big boys to play with meant that Caleb was in heaven. I think this was the first birthday party that Caleb has actively participated in, and he loved it!

Do you see the pure joy on his face as he waves that checkered flag back and forth?

This was despite the fact that we were well past lunch and nap time.

We made lots of exceptions at the party - Caleb got to eat a bun with his (regular) hot dog, he had birthday cake, and we even let him handle a knife. Caleb thought the knife was the best part, especially because it was clear. Funny boy. 

Here are the partied-out cousins, minus Daisy: MacKenzie, Carson, Trey, and Caleb

(It appears that this is a Daisy-free post, though I assure you that she was there.) 

Caleb woke up this morning asking if we could go back to Kansas City, and my thoroughly exhausted children slept so well last night (Daisy slept for 12 hours straight - a new record in our house!) that it was almost worth the lack of sleep while we were in KC.

But, all of that quality time meant that Caleb and I caught Daisy's cold. Lucky Chris gets to go to work, so his odds of catching it are drastically lower. I'm praying for a speedy recovery - I don't want sick babies on Christmas!