My cup runneth over...........

The little Sweat brothers

Last week I got to babysit the six big/medium/little Sweat kids while Tony and Cindy were in Hawaii at a youth conference speaking engagement! What a a sweet gig (for them and for me)! I love the photo above of Eli and Calvin. They play together really well. It's like Calvin has grown up over night and he's a real buddy for Eli. The photo below was taken while we were making Sunday dinner. I needed four cups of water to make a rice dish. (Funny side story - the kids like something called "Peas and Shells" which is made with boxed shell pasta in a white sauce with frozen peas added right at the end. On the night when I was making the peas and shells, Reagan was helping and said, "Grandma, are you only making one box?" "Why, yes." "Um, I could eat one box by myself, (although I wouldn't), so maybe you should make two boxes?....or maybe three?" Good point Reggie, good point, I am not cooking for two..... Anyway, in the photo below, Calvin and Vivi are "helping" me measure four cups of water (with Jane supervising). At first I was seriously striving to have them measure exactly four cups of water into a pot. Not surprisingly, it wasn't working out in a way that Julia Child or Ina Garten would approve, and seriously grandma, a 3-year-old measuring water? So I thought, oh what the heck, look how much fun Calvin is having carefully pouring the water into the pot. So I got out a second pot, filled it to the top with water, and those kids poured 1/2 cups of water back and forth from one pot to the other for 15 minutes. I got out a third pot and was about my business with that exact four cups of water thing for my recipe. My cup runneth over with delight.Those bright eyes and curly hair and dimpled elbows (but not Jane's dimpled elbows). Jane is a woman. She did Vivi's hair every day, set out Vivi's clothes each night, picked a cute ribbon for her hair for Valentine's day, and watched the Olympics with me at 8:30 every  night when I was ready to be done.  There is something about Jane that reminds me of my Grandmother Nan, so I have great respect for her and treat her with dignity.

I've learned that it can be kinda stressful to go places when you're in charge of little people. So, on day one of this adventure, I purposely didn't plan a thing. Here are some photos of day one of my "Stay-at-home" grandma experience!~


I love the back of the necks of little guys. Eloise Wilkin illustrations come to life.

I let Calvin direct the rhythm of the morning.After I got him dressed (around 10:00 a.m. :-) we went into his bedroom and he picked the Toy Story book and we read it three times.

 
Then we retired to the upstairs play room/family room (which is where the big screen theater is too!). Sorting his cars by color was actually MY idea. We had heated debates about where to place cars that were equal parts red and green. I am afraid that I won, which is not grandmotherly of me at ALL.  I was actually kinda sad when he lost interest in this. Plus, it meant I had to stand up after sitting on the floor for awhile...look away children, this isn't going to be pretty.........she's almost up, come on grandma, you can do it, unbend that right leg.........

Then Vivi got home from kindergarten and read him The Three Bears. I love her expressions!

In this next photo, Calvin is trying to pick off a hangnail on his big toe. He worked and worked at it, and finally he looked up at me and said "I'll just leave it." It's just fun to hear him learn to express himself. He also busts out singing "Jingle Bells! Jingle Bell! Jingle All the way!" out of the blue. Kind of like his version of making small talk. If things get a little boring, out comes "Jingle Bells!"

One fun thing about moving is you rediscover the dress-up bin! Do little girls come programmed to pose like this?

They had a ball with that box of costumes.

 Calvin is at that age where he still needs a nap, but it ends up he doesn't take one and then falls asleep on the floor at 4:30 pm. Then he's up until 10:30! It got to be 5:00 pm and he was getting pretty whiny but now it was too late for a nap, so I told the kids their job was to make sure he didn't fall asleep. The next photo is the time on the microwave clock when I discovered both Calvin AND Vivi sound asleep in Tony and Cindy's bedroom.

The big girls relaxing after school in Tony and Cindy's bed. I think it's the only picture I got of Lauren. She was gone all one day babysitting, and all day Monday visiting her friend in South Jordan.
 

Eli after being out in the rain.

This is a picture of Reagan and their next-door neighbor Abbey playing their ukeleles! I got to play the piano as they learned the chording to "Reindeer are Better than People" from Frozen. It was so fun.

Family room view into Tony and Cindy's bedroom with a new crop o' kids in the bed.

Okay, this is the most hilarious picture of all. Calvin is still in the process of deciding to be potty trained, so I brought a prize for him, and he was all over it when I asked if he wanted to put on his Toy Story underwear! There is nothing cuter than a slim little bum freed from diaper-dom! We read 10 books, drank a glass of orange juice, chatted a bit, nothing came of it. So I put his pants on him and set the buzzer for 30 minutes. We tried it again, nada. I kinda lost track of time there for awhile, and pretty soon Calvin comes walking into the kitchen bow-legged and looking kinda shocked and announced "I need some wet wipes." That was the end of the potty training experiment. :-)

It was Valentine's Day while I was there. Jane made this all by herself. I thought it looked so professional!

Rats! Grandma is making me do my homework! Isn't that the classic homework pose? I think Tony used to do the very same thing.

I wanted to take a picture of their under-counter lighting, but forgot to turn off my flash on the first one. I thought it was a great picture of the kitchen though!

It was a wonderful week. To go from my usual routine, to running a household of 6 kids is startling! And they're not little kids, they're self-sufficient as all get-out! We only lost three of the six of them during the time we were in charge of them. We found them.

Well, that's my latest adventure. With 16 adorable grandchildren, my cup truly does run over. I love each one of them individually and deeply. But lest you think I am all about my cup being half full (which is usually the case), here is what happened at our house this week: the microwave broke; the disposal broke and dad smashed his finger installing the new one (he says next time he's paying the guy $40 to do it); I was making a lazy turn and mashed the front tire into a median at Walmart and we had to buy a new tire; Dennis and I have had four crowns and a root canal between the two of us; and I have a little carpel tunnel from making name badges, and I don't even BELIEVE in carpel tunnel - see? Here's proof, can you see how carpelly my wrist looks? Oh, and I lost my glasses at Disneyland and replaced them with the world's most unsightly pair of bug-eyed specs ever created, as you can see. (I'm getting them re-done).
Love you all!! Blob