Divide and Conquer

Sunday and Monday, Andrew had a 2-day field trip with a few of his students who were chosen for a choir festival at Millikin University (which is in his hometown of Decatur, IL).  While I could have done the 48 hours with the kids alone, why do that when Grandma and Grandpa live down the street from the Millikin campus?!  Divide and conquer!

Andrew could only take one of the boys because he and a choir parent were driving the kids in personal vehicles and that's all he had room for.  We decided Joey should go to get some only child attention and so Ben could still have a day of school with me.   

 

En route to Decatur, Joey became infatuated with one of Andrew's students named Kate.  When Joey saw her again later that same day, he coyly said hi to her and asked her to sit next to him at dinner.  He told me on Monday that she is his girlfriend.  Andrew remembers back to when his dad whas a high school choir director and Andrew made girlfriends with the students too.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

 

Back at home, I surprised Ben with having a friend from church come over for the afternoon on Sunday!  They played Wii a lot. 

 

Then he and I had homemade pizzas using dough I made in my bread machine.  It made two pizzas that were absolutely delicious!!  Can't wait to make them again.

We watched Hannah become slightly more mobile as she now rolls all around the living room.  In this picture, she started out on the white blanket!  We also noticed she's a much cuter Calvin Klein model than any other.

 

 

Monday morning we actually didn't have a regular school day, contrary to original plans!  We ended up carpooling with my friend Amber to the Zoo and spent the morning there and called it a field trip.  :-)  They have a new sea lion exhibit that we haven't seen yet, so it was neat to check that out.  Ben had fun playing "big brother" to Amber's younger boys Ty (3) and Cody (1). 

 

 

Joey and Grandma Carla also went to the zoo in Decatur that morning as well! She also kept him busy on Sunday, taking him to three different playgrounds around town. Joey loved being the center of attention and was probably long overdue for our poor middle child. :-)

 

Monday night we invited another of Ben's buddies over for the evening while his mom took his sisters to gymnastics.  Ben was pretty thrilled to have so many cool things to while his bro was away.

 

Speaking of brothers being seperated, neither missed the other.  I think it was a really good break for both of them.