Get Up, Uncle Steven!

Last Friday we went to the airport to pick up a special visitor. He is the first of Chris's family to visit us out here and we are so happy about it! We all call him Uncle Steven and he thinks it's funny. I tried to stop, but I just can't.

But he's been playing with the kids, rough-housing with Ian and playing with Erin and riding in the cop car with Chris. And me? Well, he fixed that broken light switch in the laundry room so I don't have to prop a flashlight spring on it anymore to get it to stay on. Poor Uncle Steven is sleeping on the couch, since it's the coolest place in the very hot house. This means that no matter what time he goes to bed, he is the focal point of everyone's morning as soon as they get their little keysters up and at 'em in the morning. At 7am. Yawn.

Usually I stumble out of bed to monitor playtime. This morning, I was kind of grumpy, having been up with a grouchy, sweaty, teething Baby Noodle the night before. But it was hard to stay grumpy when I was fixing breakfast. Because Uncle Steven Moved.

Ian had been studying him for quite some time, hoping that if he stared hard enough, Uncle Steven would wake up to play. Every time Uncle Steven twitched, moved or breathed hard, there was a newsflash.

"Uncle Steven is A-wake, Mommy!" he announced about 476 times in the short time it took me to take the eggs out of the fridge and crack one into a skillet. Ian puts a little extra emphasis on the first syllable of the word so it comes out "aaahhh-wake." After about 15 minutes of this scrutiny, I'm sure Uncle Steven felt small beady eyes on him and squinted around with one eye. I happened to be checking on Erin at the time. She spotted the movement and went 90 mph across the living room to pull herself up on the side of the couch and emit something between a squeal and a whinny at her new favorite playmate (I knew I shouldn't have let Uncle Steven get her from her naps over the past few days; it puts me further and further down the list).

The whinny did it. Uncle Steven was aah-wake and pounced on. So much for sleeping in!

But we've been having a great time. On Sunday afternoon, we mosied on over to the Prairie Grove Battlefield Park (something like that) where a Civil War battle was fought. I won't go on about the details because I don't remember them, but it was pretty neat to read about the battle and to see where it was actually fought. Especially the ones that were ordered to go up this steep hill and go get the enemy, who was at the top, picking them all off one by one. And they had cannons. Ian liked those. But the neatest thing to me was all the houses they had relocated to the park. They were from the 1800s and we had a great time peeking through the windows and door cracks. I am very grateful for my indoor plumbing, air conditioner and not having to wear layers and layers of petticoats. We had a great time. And if you are wondering why I wore pants when it was 90 out, it wasn't exactly a planned trip. We were driving around aimlessly, making our way towards Fayetteville, when we noticed that the park was open and turned in to explore. So we did. :)

This was the church. It was a mansion compared to the school. It had an old organ with a pedal to pump the bellows. It was really neat. But the roll of paper towels and bottle of Windex that somebody left on the pulpit kind of killed the authenticity a bit.

And then yesterday, a friend came to the house and gave us a digital camera!! It came with a picture printer and everything! It can take pictures and video and I've been playing with it almost nonstop. We love it! And it's just in time for everyone's birthday! We are thrilled! So just for fun, I'll post a few more pics that I took yesterday.

Ian is very seriously playing video games. I was in his way. The flash was messing up his game. He was very focused. Now take the picture and go away, Mommy!

I was attempting to take a self- portrait and I was happy with the way this one turned out. I really like having a delete button. See my little redheaded offspring? See how blue her eyes are? See how blue my eyes are not? But I've got some impressive bags under my eyes from that last little tooth coming in.

I was faked out by this picture. They were both looking at the camera and Ian was smiling nicely. Then I pushed the button and everything changed. As my mom remarked with a cute little comment, you can clearly see that Erin is giving Ian A Look. This is a "Men are from Mars" look, if there ever was one. At least they have a good time on Mars. hehehe.

This is what happens when you are talking to someone who thinks it is funny to take pictures of you at various strange angles. Believe me, this is the best of the lot. At least I know what my armpit looks like from the back though. And this one is not as close as the other that showed exactly what you would see if you were a little shorter than me and looked up my nose. I was fixing my hair here, by the way. Notice the smirk on Chris's face? He knew exactly what he was doing, the scamp. Wow. So that's what the underside of my neck looks like. Hmm....