Old MacDonald

Greetings from Charlotte! This past week has been totally nuts as I once again had to pack, clean, do laundry and a million other little things to get my family ready for a week back home in Charlotte. I couldn't say anything about it on the blog though because the reason for our visit was to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary and the weekend of festivities as well as the guest list was all a big, wonderful surprise for them! It has been a fantastic weekend with family and more events (mostly revolving around food) than I can even remember at this point. What added to the craziness of the preparation was my volunteering to bake and transport all of the desserts for a 30 person dinner on Friday night. So this past week had quite a few late nights and early mornings in the kitchen as I pulled together a trifecta of Barefoot Contessa delicacies. It was worth it in the end . . .
Isn't that amazing to think about being married for 60 years?!?! What is even more amazing is how much they still love and adore one another. I'm incredibly blessed to have this (and other) marriage (s) as an example. Congratulations Granpa and Grandma - I love you!

Ok, but now for the funny part of this post. Lately Jake and Ainsley have reverted to their infanthood and really gotten back into the Baby MacDonald video (from the Baby Einstein collection). They are always singing Old MacDonald or The Farmer in the Dell and Ryan and I join in and sing with them. On Thursday night we drove from Clarksville to Charlotte . . . 8 hours in the car with 3 kids . . . it was a long night. When we stopped for dinner Jake got a Batman toy in his Happy Meal that fit on his hand and had a little red laser light on it. So very fun for Jake, so very annoying for the rest of his family. Somewhere in between Knoxville and Asheville and Jake shone the light into my eyes for the millionth time I told him if he did it one more time I was taking away the toy for the rest of the night. Well, Jake loves nothing more than a challenge so about 10 seconds later the light was in my eyes so I snatched it away and tossed it out of his reach. Jake sat for a second and thought then said "give it back". I said "no". He thought for another second and started to sing. The song went like this "Old MacDonald give it back, e-i-e-i-o, and on this farm he gives it back, e-i-e-i-o". Ok, so Ryan and I are dying laughing and then Jake starts to sing again so we get quiet to listen and hear "the cows gives it back, the cow gives it back, hi-ho-the-dairy-o the cow gives it back". Now we are practically rolling. I still wasn't giving it back though. But I was shocked at how clever and quickly that little mind worked. The end of the story, though, is that when Ainsley threw up all over herself and her car seat with about 2 hours left in the trip Jake did manage to retrieve the toy during the ensuing hullaballoo. I decided to turn a blind eye.