Sleepover

Our holiday celebration actually began last night. Bobby's brother, sister-in-law, sister, neice and nephew followed him home after he dropped Emma off. The boys had planned to play for a bit, but the drums were just too loud, even when moved into the garage, and the kids needed to get to bed. So instead we sat around and chatted and did nothing of importance, but it was a good time anyway. A few friends came by as well, and we didn't wind up going to bed until after 1am. I've become old or something, because 1am is way past my bedtime - I crashed pretty hard after that.

I woke up to Lucas meowing. He tends to hide when there are young kids, or lots of people about, so he'd hidden as soon as everyone arrived last night. But he was hungry. Bobby and I had done the unforivable - closed our bedroom door!

Lucas' little doorway to the outside world is the window next to our bed. He'd pushed the screen out at the bottom to create his own little cat door, and instead of fixing it, we just left it open for him. However, this means that our bedroom door must be open in order for him to get into the rest of the house... and to his food bowl. He was not happy with us.

I got up, my head pounding from too much wine the night before, opened the door for him, and tried to go back to sleep. No luck - now I can hear him whining in the kitchen. And I know why. We'd picked his food/water up off the floor so the kids wouldn't play in it (water is very exciting), and now he wanted to know where his food was.

So I dragged myself out of bed, put his food/water back in it's place, and stopped to take some Tylenol and drink a big glass of water. This time, I made it back to sleep.

That is until around 7:30am. I can hear Chase in the living room. I can imagine Jessica trying to keep him quiet, trying to keep him confined to the living room so as not to wake anyone. He doesn't like being confined, and he's not a quiet kid. I tried to reclaim my grasp on sleep, but accepted failure after 20 minutes or so, and went out to join them. Lucas was already off, avoiding the commotion at the house.

Thankfully, my headache was gone now, and the water had relieved some of the dehydration. I juiced the remaining three oranges I had, and tried to drink it slowly so I would have some left to drink with breakfast (I probably could have had three glasses, had I enough oranges). I prefer to eat shortly after waking up, so weekend mornings, that's usually the first thing I do.

Since we were the only ones up, I made Jessica and myself some scrambled eggs cooked with cream, shallots, and crimini mushrooms, and topped with fresh basil, diced lemon boy tomato (both from my garden - it was the first tomato that has ripened on this plant), and grated gouda. We also cooked up a little corned beef hash, and shared with the kids.

It's easier to keep them confined in the backyard (sounds strange, I know) so we brought the kids outside for a bit, and Caelyn helped me water the plants. At first she was holding the handle with me, then she got a cup and was redirecting the spray into her cup so she could dump it on the rocks. Effective.

After a while, Bobby, Brian, and Katie were up too. Jessica and I made fried eggs, more hash, and english muffins all around. Jessica mentioned that her family never really ate breakfast together, and I was telling her about my family having big breakfasts together at least every other weekend or so when I was in junior high and high school. My favorite was when my parents made German pancakes together, with all sorts of toppings - lemon & confectioner's sugar, baked apples, sliced peaches, mmm. Mom often made scrambled eggs with all sorts of stuff in them - chunks of potato, onion, and always green peppers (she puts green peppers in everything - sort of the way I put mushrooms in everything). And we always had orange juice, bacon, sausage... the basics. I still love big breakfasts together.

Katie needed to go to the store - she's leaving tomorrow for Hawaii and Australia so she can attend World Youth Day. It's cold in Australia right now, and she needed a good, compact, low temperature sleeping bag. So Katie, Jessica, and I went to Target to look for a sleeping bag - and a baby gate. Brian, Jessica, and the kids had been by a couple times already this week, and we had been constructing barriers to keep the kids out of the back room where the guys were jamming. Ottomans with icechests balancing on top - not all that sturdy or safe. I decided a baby gate would be a good thing to have around for when they, or other kids, were over.

We didn't find the right sleeping bag, but we did find a gate. I put a call in to my parents to see if they had an appropriate sleeping bag that we could borrow, and decided to go to Big 5 later if necessary. For now though, we needed to get back to the house - we have people coming over for a barbecue soon...