Ingram the Conqueror: Thursday and Friday May 30th and 31th, Gotta Love Friends!

The whole crew took a trip to Dr. Sandusky's office while Madison got on her bottom braces. Normally Ingram and Lindsey are running around the office trying to pester Madison, but that didn't happen today. They were on "Dismuke Lock Down" and were so quiet that even the rest of the staff didn't know they were there until about 30 minutes later when I let them go say "Hi!" to Madison. They behaved very well and even played together quietly too. The total opposite happened around 9pm when they were in the middle of the street with Daddy doing their daily soccer drills. They were already loud, but when we had some unexpected company drive by, I'm pretty sure we woke up some neighbors!! Big Dog and Mrs. Jackie stopped over and Big Doggie (Ingram's new name for him) and the kids got into another ice fight; this is not the first time ice chunks have been thrown from Big Dog's truck, but they always go the same way...everyone throwing ice at each other then Big Dog finally gets the cooler and starts dumping ice on each of the kids as they go running and screaming with the biggest smiles ever on their faces. We love these kind of drive-by's!

Friday we all, except for Daddy of course, slept in pretty late and it was soooo nice! Our only responsibility for the day was heading to Phebe's birthday party at Sky Zone; this was no regular birthday party either...Phebe, along with Chris and Stephan, were coming back in town for the first time since moving to the Dominican Republic a year ago. Madison was so excited that she made us get to the party at least 30 minutes early because she wanted to be the first one to see the Phebe. Ingram and Lindsey were excited too and passed the time by playing baseball on the steps and the ramp and inside waiting to see everyone. While Madison jumped, I took Ingram and Lindsey and we found a Baskin Robbins and I told them they could get whatever they wanted. Lindsey got two scoops of Chocolate Fudge in a waffle cone with M & M's on the side and Ingram got a side of Gummy Worms and no ice cream; he also ended up stealing some of Lindsey's M&M's!

Once we got home from the party and Baskin Robbins, the girls ran with Daddy while we waited on our company to get in town and the kids were soooo excited to meet them. The guys, Ben, Joseph, Matt, and Matthew, were stopping for the night on the way to Chattanooga and a friend of ours asked if they could stay the night. They were great and the kids were so excited to have new folks in the house. Since the girls and Daddy were sweaty from running (and Ingram riding his scooter while Daddy ran), they all decided to jump in the pool before we headed to dinner. We've never had 4 college dudes in the pool at once and it was crazy how much water was out of the pool from them and the kids and Daddy doing flips, gainers, cannon balls, can openers, and belly flops off the board. The waves alone could be heard over the kids yelling and laughing and announcing what they were going to do. Some days I really feel sorry for our neighbors with our noise level!!

Since it was 8pm already and Ingram hadn't napped at all, we quickly made it to Russo's and the kids ("the kids" now includes the guys) played tag outside of Russo's while the band played on the patio. Lindsey had a mean game of Hangman going on with the guys, but in typical Lindsey style, it was a totally crazy phrase with punctuation added into the dashes for guessing. "Your Odd!" was her phrase that they had to guess which led to a grammar lesson by Joe and lots of laughter by the rest of us! I guess since school's has been out for a week, she's already forgotten everything Mrs. Berry taught her; it's going to be a long summer making sure she remembers everything to be ready for 4th grade. We made it home after 2 pizzas, 3 kids meals, and 2 entrees later to have Madison, Lindsey, and Ingram sleep together in Madison's room while the guys took had the back and Ingram's room...and all his Thomas the Train blankets to stay warm and his stuffed animals to snuggle!