Ten on Tuesday

1. This trip we decided to split up the drive there by spending the night in Springfield then driving the rest of the way Thursday morning. This worked wonderfully and allowed time for all sort of hotel fun. Spending the night in a hotel was often all my vacations as a child entailed, so I know how much fun it is for kids. We went swimming, sat in the hot tube, at pizza, drank Ginger Ale, ate pretzels (it was New Years Eve after all), then had a night full of Zane's constant movement! Lots of fun!

Ro got his own suitcase for this trip and handled it like a pro!

 "I swim more mamma!"

 Ro made himself at home and I think slept pretty well.

 New Year's Eve selfie!!

Zane woke up at midnight, so we did get to ring in the New Year. He stayed awake until around one, then woke up again at four and asked, "Mamma can you change the time? I want to keep my eyes open!!!"

2. Zach and I passed the time on the road by listening to the pod cast Serial. It was a great way to pass the time, but a horribly frustrating twelve hours, ending with SPOILER ALERT:  figuring out nothing. I mean seriously what about the Nesha call??? Zach and landed firmly on opposite sides of what we think happened for what it's worth. If you have already listened to Serial and haven't seen the SNL skit that is making fun of it, do yourself a favor and google it because it is amazing!

3. Since we drove the second leg of the trip Thursday morning we got there with plenty of time for fun on Thursday afternoon. It was wonderful to get to see my niece and nephews again. I miss them so much and they are all growing up way too fast. Here are all six grandkids, ready for present time Friday morning.

 Left to right: Clay (11yrs), Rowan (22mnths), Adeline(8yrs on the 10th), Zane(4yrs), Levi (5yrs), Blaine (10yrs)

These too had a great time together. Zane has officially surpassed Levi in height by a solid inch.

 Clay read Zane a snake book and then they swapped snake stories!

4. Everyone got wonderful presents that the boys enjoyed playing with the rest of the weekend and spent all day yesterday enjoying them as well. 

 Of course you can never go wrong buying Zane a new costume. He was switched between pirate and nurse (God love him) for days. "Mamma I a nurse, just like you, I help people when they sick." So sweet.

 The Spiderman race track was a big hit with everyone involved. Think it could use new batteries already, that's a sign of a good toy.

 Ro adores his new block table, if you can't tell by this face. Thanks Aunt Trina!!

5. The other big gift was Rowan's chest that Papa made for him. All the boys get a box and Ro's box came complete with a gift to fill it with, castle blocks. Rowan might be a little too young to really enjoy them, but don't worry everyone else loved them. After multiple failed attempts of building a castle with the boys, Zach waited until the boys were asleep and made a big castle using all the blocks. 

 Clay was able to build his castle, using all the blocks, in a house full of people and children. Which I found very impressive!

6. As I mentioned above Thursday our niece Adeline is turning eight. She is such a sweet girl, I wish I could spend more time with her. She is very artistic and a wonderful lego builder, just like her brothers. She was a great help with Rowan, making sure he made it up and down the stairs safely and bringing him back to his mommy/daddy whenever he needed us. So Happy Birthday to Miss Adeline, we love you!!

 She also helped Uncle Zach fix Grammie's clock so it would a ring on the hour instead of thirteen after. We could have a future engineer on our hands.

7. We set a time record on the way home, making it back in just under nine hours. Which is a huge improvement from a solid ten hours the past couple times. Not locking our kids in the car probably helped with our record time. We had finished our podcast within an hour of leaving SEMO, so it was back to singing songs from the nineties, which is pretty fun too.

8. I started on my running program to train for the April Marathon relay yesterday. I remembered how much I hate running. I think it's because I use to run all the time. My senior year in college, and into my first year of marriage, right up until I almost was murdered a couple times in Columbia, MO. I ran 3-6 miles a few times a week and it was lots of fun. I was in shape, it was a great stress relief, and I enjoyed it. Now it's just kind of depressing and painful. But I will do my training program three days a week and something more fun the other days at the gym I guess. Maybe I'll get there again. Sigh...

9. The boys spent most of the day yesterday dressing up as various things. I bought new hooks for Zane's room, but I think he could use a least one more row. Pretty much any empty wall space in Zane's room is getting hooks for his costumes and hats. He loves them so I feel like they should be easily accessible. I tried to dress Ro up as a little pirate with Zane, but he insisted on the police outfit with a Cardinals hat instead. 

10. This weekend we will wrap up our weeks long Christmas celebration with Christmas at the farm. This week also marks the start of me going back to working two days a week. We have been able to change the boys daycare schedule so we only have to pay for two days a week, which means our daycare bill has also been cut in half. I'm very excited and hopefully we can afford it or I'll have to pick up weekends for extra money. We shall see... Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful start to 2015, so far so great here at the Korenak household!!