The Weekend

As you could tell from my calendar of events (listed below), I had two birthday parties to attend. There was a bit of waffling on my niece’s party because I wasn’t actually invited until two days before, which is a bit hard for me considering I had already promised myself to another party (for T-Bird’s nephew). But, after a discussion with Nate, we decided to attend both and just get to my brother’s place about a half of an hour late. In all honesty, I think it was as much a birthday party as it was a “come look at my big expensive new home” party. When I drove up to their new house, my mouth dropped to the floor of the car. It’s one of those houses that you dream about having (at least someone on my salary) but know you’ll probably never achieve. Four bedrooms plus a “bonus room” which is now the playroom, 2 1/2 baths, living room, dining room, family room, kitchen with an island as long as my Queen size bed, breakfast nook with room for a table for eight people, mud room, two car garage, large back porch, nice yard. Granted, with three children, and given the fact my niece’s prior bedroom was not much more than a closet, they really needed a bigger house. My SIL told me that she keeps waking up and wondering if someone is going to tell her, “Sorry, we made a mistake. You can’t have it.” So, I know she’s very happy with it and the kids are happy and I suppose my brother is happy, although he’s always difficult to read. Did I mention it has two staircases, one of each end of the house, on opposite sides? Yeah, the boys had a blast playing hide and seek, especially when I heard the dryer open and not only did J2 crawl out, but also Nate. I wondered how those two hooligans stayed in there so long?!? And QUIETLY, since they were playing hide and seek and J1 was it. J2 hashad a loose tooth. Nate told him to sit down and he would take care of it once my brother was unsuccessful at yanking it out. Nate wiggled it side to side and back and forth, whilst the adults cringed and J1 and Annie looked on it fascination. Nate took a paper towel and dried the tooth, then gripped the tooth with said paper towel and said, “Ooooone, Twooooooo... *YANK* THREE!” We all looked at the paper towel. Nothing. We looked in J2's mouth. No tooth! Then J2 stuck his tongue out and there was the tooth on the end of it. Annie clapped. She is so very precious. So, Nate pulled J2's first tooth. Everyone was happy, my brother and his family have a beautiful new home, my younger nephew lost his first tooth, and we have a great memory that we can laugh about as our children grow older. I can’t ask for more than that. I signed up for a blogger tribute to the victims of 9/11. The information is here. If you would like to be assigned a victim of 9/11 to memorialize, please visit this site.