Anybody out there ever return from a vacation and wonder why they ever came home??  As the dazed and dismayed look on Casey Ann’s face plainly showed yesterday, she was feeling the “joy” of returning to her day job…I mean, her loving, caring, eager-to-see-her family!!  It did not help that yesterday was just one of those days.  You know the type – it starts early and goes long, “challenges” hitting you one right after the other, seemingly nothing going as planned along the way…yeah, it was one of those days.  Welcome back, Casey Ann, this is your life!!

Yes, Casey finally got away for some hard earned R&R, thank God!  She is hardly able to leave the house for anything more than a grocery run these days and has taken on a tremendous amount of extra work around the house to accommodate my school schedule.  So when the opportunity came up for her to take a quick and relatively painless (aka: cheap) trip to Vegas, we jumped!  She stayed with a friend who lives out there for a couple of days, then bummed with some Austin friends in town on business for two more days.  And while she was there she did a whole lot of……….nuthin’……..unless you consider laying by the pool, walking the strip, and then laying by the pool again to be more than nuthin’!  Poor girl can’t catch a break, though – when she got home, our sweet thing, Brooklyn, gave Casey the cold shoulder!  She wouldn’t even look at her for several hours…it was heartbreaking!!

Meanwhile, back on the home front, Nana came down to save The Six Pack from my shorthanded parenting ineptitude.  Oh sure, I can handle the diaper changes, the bottles, the nap times, and that kind of thing, but you don’t want to eat my cooking and the babies probably shouldn’t eat pizza for four days straight!  And there is only so much tender loving care you can expect out of this man which I’m pretty certain would have been used up about mid-way through the first morning!!  And of course, you can forget about the cute matching outfits, the fun little games, learning, general hygiene, and anything else above the level of sheer survival.  So thank you, Nana, for saving us all from our own little versions of Hell.  And more importantly, thank you Casey Ann for coming home!!  Really, we know you had a choice……..

Earlier this month the babies went to the doctor for their 15 month and final baby wellness check…my checkbook is eternally grateful!  All is well with every single member of The Fab Five, aside from the slightly stunted growth of Little Mighty Britton Grace.  Little thing is not even on the charts in percentiles!!  But, oh my gosh, that little girl has spunk and attitude in abundance!  Here are the weights and heights:

– Brooklyn Faith:  20 pounds, 4 ounces, 29-3/4″

– Britton Grace:  16 pounds, 9 ounces, 27″

– Jack William:  23 pounds, 15 ounces, 31-1/4″

– Lila Addison:  20 pounds, 11 ounces, 29-1/2″

– Ryan Elizabeth:  20 pounds, 4 ounces, 30-1/2″

Other than a ravaging cold that has currently taken hold in the house and has struck all five of the tots, they have been doing great!  They are working on sign language thanks to Vanessa and the Baby Signing Time video she sent to us.  If you have a little one and have not heard of this, check it out because it is quite amazing!  The babies have been learning to sign things like “eat”, “more”, “milk”, and other little things to help them communicate with us in ways that do not involve screaming, biting, kicking, and screaming!  It only took two or three days for the babies to start using the signs!  (by the way, Vanessa sent us the video as a friend, not in exchange for an endorsement.  However, she is being endorsed nonetheless!  She has a store at www.signingtimeacademy.com/vanessa so go there to buy the videos and other stuff!)

We are gearing up for our first summer with a home-bound Eliot McKenna which ought to be very, very interesting!  Considering Casey is just about as home-bound as Eliot is, it is going to be quite challenging to keep the little girl entertained while Casey manages the rest of the brood and I manage my end of the bargain – my construction company.  Can you say week or three away at Grandma and Grandpa’s house…oh yeah!!!  We are really looking forward to getting out with the whole gang and doing as much as our bank account, our free time, and our will allows!  I see a whole lot of community center pool time in our future and I cannot wait!  Hopefully they won’t charge us for the extra chlorine that will likely be necessary after the Quint Invasion has passed through…. ;-)

So if you can’t tell from my words above, let me state it plainly – we are having fun with life and looking forward to each and every new day as our family continues along in this adventure!  With my trip and my efforts at finishing up my MBA, Casey’s trip, the cameras beginning to roll again, and a few little surprises here and there, April was a super stressful month on both Casey and I and we are very, very happy to have it behind us.  May is looking to be just as hectic, but the difference between this month and last is that Casey and I will be together in confronting the many challenges that lie ahead.  With our two trips, we spent nearly half the month apart from each other and I’m  telling the truth when I say that most of our stress was due to the fact that Casey and I were not able to begin and end each day as we do every other day – with each other.  What an awesome reality!!

Y’all take care,

Ethan

*Dangit!  Casey just told me this wasn’t their last baby wellness check…d’oh!!!  Grrrrrrr………. :)