Adventures of Meebo and Peebo: Mixed Emotions

This weekend has been strange. Emotionally, I've been all over the place. One minute I'm smiling and giggling with my girls and the next minute I'm crying. I was emailing back and forth with my sister and she pointed out that she thinks the day(s) after a funeral are just as hard if not harder than the actual funeral itself because that is when we have to face the reality of the situation and that life does actually go on without that person. And that is exactly how I've felt the past 2 days. I found out my Grandma passed on Tuesday morning and I was doing OK until Friday. I guess work and the daily routine kind of kept me distracted. And then on Friday, all the emotions just sort of overflowed and they kept coming all day yesterday and today. And it's hard to describe all the reasons for my crying. I'm obviously sad about the death, but at the same time, I'm relieved that my Grandmother is no longer suffering and is finally resting peacefully. What I am starting to realize though is that with her passing, I no longer have any remaining grandparents and am feeling like a full fledged adult (you'd think having twins would have gotten that point across to me, but hey, whatever...). And the idea that my childhood is done and over with and those wonderful summers in Indiana are a thing of the distant past has just completely gotten to me. I am mourning what to me feels like the loss of a simple and carefree time. Sure, I know those days were gone a long time ago but I guess maybe I didn't accept it or face it. Accepting that my "growing up" years are gone means accepting where I'm at in life and all the choices I've made to get here - good and bad. So maybe I'm sad that some areas of my life aren't like what I pictured when I was a kid and I can't just get a "do over". Food for thought I guess...

Speaking of food, both my sister and Dad reminded me of 2 other things that were favorites from Grandma and I can't believe I forgot either of them. Grandma made an unbelievable chocolate cake and when she discovered how much us Reinke's liked it, she would make it for all of our visits. And no holiday gathering was really complete without her church windows. We've tried to recreate both desserts over the last few years (using her recipe) and they are just not the same. She must have had some secret ingredients that she forgot to write down! :)

Now on to happier times... Paul and I did get to have some fun this weekend. We took our little marsupials out trick or treating around the neighborhood on Saturday night. Once we had them in their costumes, we let them walk/crawl around the house for a bit so we could take pictures and it was a riot! Amelia got the hang of walking in the costume pretty quickly (once we took off her shoes that she was wearing underneath) but then she absolutely refused to put the purple croc down. I think she has it in her hand in almost every single picture we took. And poor Penelope... I made some adjustments to the koala head to make it fuller and thicker and didn't take into account the weight of 4 burp cloths pinned inside there. It just kept sliding off backward on her. Maybe that's what threw off her walking as she couldn't quite get the hang of it like Amelia did. Anyway, I've included a few of my favorite pictures below. If want to see more, check out our Smug Mug site.

Adorable Koala