independence weekend

did everyone have a good 4th weekend? i think i can safely say we gerbickians did. let's see, i'll give ya a quick run down: drive to my parents in cinnamon lake (oh) friday morning, addy played like crazy & even took an afternoon nap (as did we all!), go to balloon lift off, watch adeline eat gobs of oreos & then have tantrum after we take oreos away, put girls down, stay up late with my hubby & parents, wake up at 10 a.m. (ooh yea), hang out in pj's for awhile, lunch, sister & brother in law arrive, talk with mom & sister for awhile, decide to go shopping with my mom to outlet mall, shop!, back to cinnamon lake where my dad's parents are there & my brother, sister in law & twins are also, eat dinner, give older girls a bath b/c they are so stinkin' dirty!, go to fireworks, come home, chat a bit while watching decorating shows, sleep, wes up early to canoe on the lake with my brother, i get up at 9 a.m. (again, oooh yea), breakfast (asiago bagel), pack like crazy & drive back to westerville, arriving at noon exactly. there you have it! (the rest is just boring boo-ha-ha.)

here is a hot air balloon lift-off, for all those who are not from ashland, ohio.

i believe there were 28 balloons this year(??) which seemed like a lot at the time...they just kept filling up & lifting off! adeline was over the top excited about it all, especially when pop-pop took her to see them up close. of course, she wanted to take a little ride in the balloon, which they do, but she wasn't tall enough or something. at any rate, it's a pretty fun time with little ones.

& i just love to give you cute pictures of my kids. so here's another.

& this was addy's 'job' all weekend: take stones from the ground, place them on the outdoor table. it was hard, dirty work but she did it anyway.

all 4 grand babies prior to the fireworks. as you can see, they were eating & chloe & zoe had these adorable white shirts on...so to eat, they were topless. if you have a kid, you know you've done this. what i'm not posting is a picture of the girls down to their skivvies running inside. imagine it, b/c it's a keeper. (for parents)

let me just say that driving even 90 minutes north drops the temperature 10 degrees. it was such a nice, cool weekend. i know it was cool in columbus as well, but this was even better. (sorry mom & dad, not enough to make us move). it was a fun weekend with my family...adeline has cemented her twin cousins as her first best friends in the whole wide world & amelia is trying her hardest to keep up with them.

which brings me to an amelia milestone announcement: she is now climbing up entire flights of stairs. age 10 months. when the 3 older girls were getting their bath, amelia heard the goings-on upstairs & she high tailed it up there (thankfully wes saw her starting & was close behind...but she didn't falter once). what a gal, that amelia.

anyway, we took the 3 oldest to the fireworks at ashland. the fireworks were good, not red-white-&-boom good, but small town ohio good & what's best is that you don't have to wade through crowds of people. we actually parked at the hawkins (a grocery store, for all you non-ashlanders) parking lot & sat on the surrounding grass (yea, by claremont). we were 'those people' but we wanted to ensure a quick exit in case chloe or zoe became frightened (last year, one of them was so scared! & this year chloe still shook from fear of the noise (maybe?), but didn't cry & calmed down quickly). anyway, we were classy, make no doubt about it. functional; that's what we were.

so, thanks mom & dad, for letting me sleep in until 10 & buying especially for me the asiago bagels from buehlers. yum yum.

***

& today we had a play date with a family down the street. they have two girls who are each a few months older than ours. how convenient! & i just have to say, it's great when to meet another family who's in the same boat as we are. 2 girls, dogs, etc. it's just sort of like holding a mirror up, ya know? well, adeline & her counterpart had a fantastic time together, when they did decide to play which each other. we didn't observe any fights, but we did let them play about 50 yards away in a sandbox together (we walked to a nearby park, did i mention that?) & i did see addy throwing sand, but there were not tears shed from the sand throwing.

amelia & her counterpart crawled around the ground, each eating their share of mulch, grass, sand, & dirt. it took about 3 minutes before the moms were comfortable enough to stick our fingers in the other baby's mouth to pull out an object. then the babies would try to climb & do the slides...all good stuff.

& my counterpart & i chatted it up about many things...from feminism & raising two girls to long hospital stays (hers was while pregnant with #2, mine coming up) to husbands who drive bomber old cars (& not the cool, run-on-veg-oil kind, either, sadly) & do cost analysis for nearly everything they purchase to growing plants in our neighborhood, where there is hardly any full sun (due to old, giant, & beautiful trees). she had some great advice about the upcoming separation between myself & the girls, from experience (she went to work one day & never returned home for over 6 weeks! can you imagine being in the hospital that long?! on bed rest?! while pregnant w/ hospital food?! gah!!).

then we come home for lunch. all is well, amelia is snoozing away but addy decides not to take a nap. not a big deal. somehow she snuck past me reading in the playroom & made her sneaky way downstairs to the kitchen. finally, as i'm drying my eyes after finishing the book thief (oh my goodness, a great book!), i hear some clanking of silverware. i hear an ever so faint beeping coming from our fridge. *crap* addy is downstairs. i decide not to get worked up, what could she be into already? wrong mama, wrong.
i found the blueberry monster in my kitchen. i think her hands, feet, & face were blue for quite some time after this (as is the grout in this tile & part of the carpet in the living room where she apparently briefly ate her find). these are the frozen packaged blueberries, not the tub-o-blueberries that we have sitting in the fridge. now those wouldn't have been so messy! but nope, she chose the messy, frozen version. that's just adeline, i suppose.