Sleep Overs and the Attack at Chick Fila

Chris and I LOVE to eat lunch out. I bet if we stopped eating lunch out we would save quite the bundle-- but we love it so oh well. Christophers six sisters also like to eat lunch out. This combination makes for a lot of fun mid day snacking! Earlier this week we met his sister Kelly and his parents at a chic filet. It was super crowded as usual and there were tons of kids in the play place. Since I couldn't sit right next to the window I spent a lot of the lunch standing up and looking in the window. I had just done a window check and watched Sam climbing up the big plastic steps when I hear Liam crying, not his whiny I got a toy taken cry but his I am really hurt cry. I get up and walk quickly over. Before I can get to the door though I hear Sam screaming crying, I start running. I fling open the door and two moms who are standing right there say to me "Oh no I think he got them!" Liam appears pushing himself down the ridiculously unslick slide sobbing while Sam climbs back down the steps this time bleeding from several locations on his face. Apparently there was a little boy sitting at the top of the stairs kitting kids with his shoe when they came up. He had hit my little niece Ashlyn and then turned and hit Liam. Sam seeing this climbed up and pushed the rotten kid off Liam. The child decided a shoe wasn't good enough and proceeded to scratch and hit Sam's face! The moms (who's children had also been accosted) were trying to figure out where in the world this kids mom was while trying also to get him to come down. All three of us expressed our exasperation at parents who simply dump their kids in play places and walk away. I herded the kids back to our table where I showed Chris and Kelly what happened. Chris calmly walked into the play place, crawled up into the big toy and dragged the kid out. He then proceeded to walk around the restaurant asking women if it was their child. When he finally found the neglectful parent he very nicely (to my dismay) let her know he was terrorizing the play place and showed her poor Sam's bleeding face. What does she do she simply says "Oh I guess you don't get to play in there anymore". I thought I was going to scream. This is what happens with passive, neglectful parents you get kids who hit other kids with their shoes! Maybe it is because I have been reading SOOOOOOOOOOO many books on raising boys this summer and working so hard to make Sam and Liam be nice boys that I nearly fell off my chair when I heard her response. (by the way if you are looking for a good book Parenting with Love and Logic is awesome as is Raising a Modern Day Knight.) I tried to get a picture of Sammys face but he wouldn't stop smiling silly boy!

So after that rough day I thought he needed a little something fun, so he had his first sleep over! And it was coed! Lucy came over and they had way to much fun. So much fun Chris had to eventually separate them into two rooms. It is funny because Chris and I had previously discussed how with the world we live in today our kids would probably not do sleep overs, just late overs. But we figure that doesn't include family and hello the Tillmanns are practically family!

(after a long night of giggling)
Speaking of awesome friends we were lucky enough to show Abby off to our good friends the Grady's! They were up in UT for a very busy weekend wedding (Leslie's Brother) and were kind enough to make time to come see us! We had so much fun sitting and eating good food. You really know you are good friends when you can go three months with only texting and brief emails and when you see each other again feel like no time had passed! Hopefully it will be that way when people come to visit us overseas... which better happen!

We also took the kids back to the farm since the weather was to die for and now all the summer camps were over so it wouldn't be so crowded. I figured since I already had a zillion pictures it would be okay to risk shooting in manual mode. While I still need some serious work it was a fun morning of photoshooting. I especially like this one of Lucy, although it does look sort of Grapes of Wrathish.


Liam was getting a little tired of me constantly being all up in his space.

Sam would say cheese but would never actually look at me. He would just say it over and over as he looked everywhere but at the camera.


Kristen and I were pretty excited though because Lucy NEVER looks at the camera and smiles and she actually did today for a few pictures! Whoo hoo break through!

The next few weeks are unfortunately not going to be as much fun. Christophe rs parents leave Monday for the MTC (their farewell is on Sunday along with Abby's blessing, lots of pictures of that especially since I made her blessing dress!). Then the movers come to pack the things we want THERE when we get to DC on the 4th and then come back again to pack and move the stuff we want in storage. It is amazing the array of crud you acquire over just seven short years of marriage! Christophers parents won't even recognize their basement without all of our stuff strewn across half of it. I have been trying to organize it all but am so weirded out by this whole process. We are not allowed pack ANYTHING because they are liable for it if it breaks but we need to have everything organized and itemized. Kind of a pain. We also have to have everything separated into three categories. What we want right now in our apartment (which is already furnished-- making it hard to decide what decor to bring) where we may be staying anywhere from ten days to ten months (that is a lot of seasons we "might" be in DC for). Then there is the going into storage until we have an assignment in DC (basically our ghetto furniture that we may use again in eight years). Finally what we don't want now but want when we move abroad. OH MY GOSH. This is some crazy organization, and I think of myself as a pretty organized person. Add to all this an adorable four week old little girl who believes she will die if she is not being held and we have got some serious work ahead of us!
At least the place we are moving to is gorgeous and has a bagillion grills.

Why on earth would you need that many grills that close together and could you imagine how uncomfortable it would be if they were actually all being used simultaneously by separate people? Awkward. We also have a preschool picked out for Sam. Sure the tuition is the price of my college tuition but it looks amazing and I am really excited for him. Can't wait till the state Dept. starts pickin' up the tab for that one! And possibly best of all there is a huge gym in the basement so I can finally start getting back in shape and it is just downstairs! So see you in a week and a half DC!