My house is full

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Tonight seemed like old times. James is home from college this weekend with Jenny, a girl from his school. She comes home with him quite often, as her parents are divorced, and often neither parent have time to spend with her if she does go home. This weekend, she has begun to call me Mom, just as the other kids do. I kind of like it. Tyra, my "adopted" daughter came this morning and took Lauren the youngest to her track meet. Lauren wasn't feeling super good...so she didn't run well today. She was disappointed with herself and her times, which were her worst all year. She perked up when she got home and found that Kristen had come in from her Senior trip, and had brought her a new shirt from Florida. Kristen's plane was late, and the airline had slung her luggage hard enough that it broke open a box of crackers and strewed them in her suitcase, and her deodorant was cracked into about 1000 pieces, and had to be thrown away. I didn't quite understand why that was necessary, but I'm certainly glad she's home, safe and sound. I need to put some of her vacation memories down, because they are quite funny. I took Mom to some yard sales this morning. I found one that was having a bag sale. I got the girls 8 skirts and a pair of capri pants for $1. Tyra and I went back later this afternoon and I spent another $3 and got several more bags of clothes for them, including a dress for Kristen to wear to graduation that still has a $49.99 price tag hanging on it. We fixed homemade Lasagna and garlic bread and had ice cream. Tyra's kids are growing. Jace is losing her baby face and has begun to look like a little girl, even though she's only 28 months old. Zane is pulling up and I believe will probably walk before the week is up. He tried really hard to do that tonight. . James called Ben and Andrew and they came over along with Ben's sister Winter, who is one of Kristen's best friends. These three boys are joined at the hip worse than any girls I know. They do almost everything together when James is home from college. I had 10 kids counting the babies, all hanging out in my livingroom, popping popcorn, checking out the fridge and hollering "can I have this last bag of cheetos?" as the cabinet doors slammed shut. The babies love the attention they get from the older ones, so they were content. When Ben came in, Jace came running down the hall screaming "My Ben, My Ben". He scooped her up and tickled her under the chin which sent her into a gale of giggles. Not many 16-18 year old boys pay attention to a little one like these boys do. And she eats it up. So now, it's 10:00. Tyra took the little ones home to put them to bed, and the teenagers have all gone up the road to the bowling alley for their Saturday night madness. It's just me and Mike and the dog. Baby's sleeping in the middle of my bed, Mike is laying beside her watching my Texas Rangers kick the snot out of Oakland (hee hee hee). He turned to look at me a minute ago and said. "You realize that in just a few years, this is just how it will be most of the time? The kids will come in to visit, and it will be noisy and loud and full, and then they'll leave to go back to their own homes, and it will be just us again." Yes, I realize that...but for now, my house is full. Or at least it will be again in about 2 hours when they're all bowled out..and ready to eat.