whirlwind

i guess it started tuesday with getting ready for ethan to come in. he and i had collaborated and switched his plane ticket to come in earlier than planned and surprise mama and daddy. i picked him up late that night and finally crashed into bed sometime after 12:30. the next morning continued the craziness with adam flying in around 10am. i picked him up--late--but picked him up nonetheless. we spent a few hours doing some last minute shopping and ended up back at my house around 1pm to wait for mama, daddy and logan to show up. they pulled in roughly an hour later and after hugs and tears from mama, we were standing around visiting when ethan just casually walked into the room. ethan said mama's face registered surprise, confusion, and then shock. and then she screamed--loud! we had a fun day talking, reminiscing, laughing, catching up, relaxing, and telling a good poop story or two for good measure. this morning started off early again, as we are hosting a caroling party with the barnetts tonight. so the kids and i spent the morning baking cookies for tonight, the afternoon cleaning and straightening up. we're also doing "our" christmas tomorrow morning, which the kids don't know yet. so i've been trying to make sure all the presents were wrapped and organized. i'm so excited i can hardly wait. i think the kids will love the things we got for them, i just can't wait to see their faces. its so hard not to say anything to them. but i am sooooooo excited.

in other odds and ends, elise has been a super duper helper today. she has cheerfully and tirelessly helped me with whatever job i was doing. she helped cook, clean, organize--the whole bit. she's really good at it too. she amazes me. when she gets a little bigger she'll be unstoppable. its a good thing she got her cleaning genes from her daddy! she's so sweet and good.

ian says this funny thing that i've been meaning to write down. i'm pretty sure it got started by cory and i asking him "if his tummy was hungry" or "is your tummy telling you its full..." and so on. but its progressed to where his tummy tells him all kinds of things. like his tummy tells him he wants to watch "go, diego, go" on tv or his tummy tells him he wants to go pick up lisy, or his tummy tells him he wants to sleep in my bed. its so funny. this morning he said, "my tummy says it wants to open a present. and my tummy's telling me to do that. so i need to do that."

well, i've taken a long enough break writing the post. so i'd better jump back in the whirlwind!