I have no idea where to start! What a crazy few weeks it has been.
Let's see...so DH's parents came to visit the first weekend in October. It was fine, they spent the whole time smothering Miss Adele. She is a very independent child and is perfectly happy playing by herself but they rarely let her do that. So it usually takes a few days for her to get back to normal after they leave. She's back to sleeping through the night though we're not sure why she stopped. We thought she was getting a tooth but it still hasn't come in.
So DH went a conference in Woods Hole, MA which started on Saturday October 18th so Adele, Molly & I got in the car at 7:40am on the 17th and drove until 5:30pm. It was a VERY long day and part of the reason for that was we had to make a 50 minute or so detour to pick up the cake for my sister's baby shower. It was adorable but I was positive it wasn't going to make it to my parents in one piece. My sister and the cake:
But it did. Thankfully. So we went to my BIL's football game, he's the coach and my nephew's football game and then Sunday was the shower. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to do something unique so I made these cookies. It was really easy and I'm looking forward to making the Halloween cookies for our party this Saturday night.

So a few family pictures, the first one is me and my sisters, can you tell we're related?

And my larger family, this includes my parents and my nephew.


So Monday we went to Wichita to visit my Grandad in the nursing home. He's doing much better then he was a month ago when everyone thought he was on his death bed. He reacted to Adele more then he has reacted to anyone in quite a while and my Grammy was in tears. I'm so glad that we went because I know even if I don't see him alive again that I got to see him on one of his better days and even though he's already met Adele this visit obviously meant so much more. We also visited my aunt who had the stroke several months ago and while she's had a setback she's doing very well.
The bad news that I found out on this trip is that my little sister has PCOS, the same fertility disease that I have. She is currently on metformin and an estrogen patch to try to regulate it that way because she's not sure she can go through what I went through but we'll see. It was heartbreaking to hear because I wouldn't wish that on anyone but I hope that I can help her without pushing her in a direction she doesn't want to go. I guess we'll see.
Tuesday & Wednesday we did a lot of nothing - we hung out at my parents' house and I let them chase Adele around while I vegged. They were of course thrilled to. We did have lunch with my sister on Wednesday and then Thursday morning we headed to the KC area. I was glad to get to spend so much time with my parents. My mom's health is always a concern for me but she's lost a little weight and seems to finally have a doc that is taking good care of her. She's on some meds and she understands that she needs to make some changes to see her grandkids get married and she has made some so we're optimistic that her health at least won't get any worse.
Thursday our first stop in the KC area was the Jenn's. It was so good to see her and two of her kiddos as well as finally meet Davita and her kiddos. We had a very nice chat for a few hours until we had to rush off to another playdate. There is always so much crammed onto the calendar when we make a trip home. So after our 2nd playdate we headed to my IL's. I've talked before about my rocky relationship with my MIL but it actually went ok. DH and I had told them they needed to do something about their staircase b/c its not safe at all and they did but it didn't work and was probably just as unsafe. So I'm not happy about that and I don't see them changing it before we visit at Thanksgiving so we'll see what happens with that. Otherwise we had a nice visit, MIL, Adele and I did some shopping on Friday and then Saturday I met a friend for lunch while they went to the game and then I went to another friends' house that evening. One thing that I thought was interesting in our interaction was that she mentioned SEVERAL times about FIL not being around as much as other dad's when her boys were growing up and she hoped that DH would be able to find a job that allowed him that. I didn't really know what to say to that so I just kind of agreed and moved on. When I told DH about it when I got home he had to point out that he met a program chairman this past week who had counted that his children had played in 400+ soccer games and he's only missed six. So I guess that is good we just have to find a program like that.
So Sunday we headed home and it was a great drive, Adele was sleeping and/or happy and things were going smoothly until we hit northern Iowa. Snow, yes snow! It was snowing on October 26th - ack! Luckily the roads weren't terrible but the wind was but we managed to get home in one piece. It was not fun at all but was still better then the original drive to KS on the previous Friday.
So all in all it was a great trip and I'm sure there was more I intended to post about but Adele doesn't seem to want to nap and I have a Halloween party to plan for as well as my cake decorating class tonight. I'm taking a frosted two layer cake and we're going to decorate it while we're in class so depending on how it turns out I may or may not take a picture of it and post it. Given how it looks with just the cover frosting on it I'm guessing not.
You can always see more pictures and updates about Adele at her blog: http://adeleem.blogspot.com/