All Alone

Solitude.  Don't get too much of it around here.  Christi needed some this weekend so she headed down to Ferron to stay with her parents for the weekend.  This is her third night away.  That means I'll be getting the kids off to school in the morning.  We'll have to see how that goes:)  This was also a chance for Christi to see her Grandpa.  His health is deteriorating, and she wanted to spend some time with him.  So the title of this post could apply to her.

I was thinking more of me.  As in "All alone with nine kids for 66 straight hours and trying to maintain my sanity."  Or something like that.  First priority...everyone is alive.  Second...everyone has been fed.  In addition to that, we've actually kept the house fairly clean.  My hopes to finish building the shelves in our cold storage room took a hit when Christi decided to leave.  To overcome the lack of time I had during the day on Saturday, I made the rather stupid decision to stay up Saturday night until the shelves were done.  Let's just say it was deep into the am hours when I finally went to bed last night.  But the shelves are in!  We can move a ton of boxes out of the playroom and into the food storage area. Of course my lack of sleep made it rather challenging to make it through today.  We got to church (albeit 20 minutes late).  Parker did Sophi's hair (and it looked great).  Jesi did Lexi's hair.  'nuff said.  Thanks to both of them for their help!  

The kids were really wonderful all weekend.  They pitched in and helped.  Parker volunteered to make dinner Friday night.  The older kids all helped with the younger kids.  I took some time to play with kids and talk to kids one on one.  The most challenging part was Elli.  She definitely missed her mommy and wanted to let us all know it!  She also got past the duct tape last night and I was greeted with a nasty, diaper-eating mess when I got her up this morning.

We were able to survive this weekend, and even do some fun and productive things.  But we are clearly not complete without sweet Christianne.  We all miss her and look forward to seeing her tomorrow!

-Jer