A Decade of Fun

This last week we celebrated another birthday! Our second oldest has reached the ripe old age of ten years.

We are so glad that he is part of our family. He adds flavor and spice and we love him so much!

Party Time

Last night Aunt C threw a fun party.


We were excited to come and celebrate with her.






We enjoyed good food,





fun games,




great conversation,






fun cousins,





tasty treats,




and a we had a grand time!





Thanks Aunt C!!

Distracted

I think I am losing it! My mind has been occupied lately and normal/rational thought is somehow escaping me.

For example: I made bread on Tuesday and set the timer for 10 extra minutes...I bake bread every week and I know how long to cook it...who knows what I was thinking??? This week we are enjoying darker, dryer bread than normal! Also...I was showering yesterday and after shampooing my hair, instead of getting conditioner, I found myself lathering my hair once again with more shampoo! My kids come up to talk to me and even though I am looking at them and I can see their mouths moving, I have no clue what they just said and they have to repeat it... Today I got halfway through cleaning the house ( a workout by itself) to discover that I forgot to put on deodorant this morning after I showered. How could I forget deodorant???

So....if you see me out getting my mail and I am missing an item of clothing or at the grocery store with mascara/eyeliner on only one eye...or if at church I ignore you when you say "hi, " just know, I am a bit distracted....I'm not going crazy, at least, I hope not!

Fighting Boredom

Kids get bored easily... if they don't have something to do or look forward to doing, boredom creeps in. Although we are only in our second week of summer, my kids are already asking me to come up with things to do. Yesterday was too cold to enjoy water activities so we headed over to a local park and the kids played for a couple hours. To keep me from getting bored (I don't enjoy playgrounds as much as I did 20+ years ago), I brought my camera and snapped a few shots of them not being bored.


































At least for a few minutes!!!!

Cleaning Day

I have a daily schedule...it helps me keep my sanity. Certain days are laundry days, grocery days, etc. Saturday is cleaning day. After my morning run (which also happens to be scheduled), we all band together and clean our house. The older kids help with the bathrooms and vacuuming while the younger ones are in charge of picking up, straightening, and wiping smudges (kids create tons of those). I take over the kitchen, mopping, dusting, laundry, ironing and overseeing. It works well...we do have some grumbling, but the kids do tend to appreciate a clean house and they take some ownership in keeping it clean.



Recently we have made a change to our schedule. With my husband working crazy hours (11 hour days with a 3 hour commute) we have decided to make Friday our cleaning day. He usually has Saturdays off or at least partly off so that is our only play day with Dad. With our chores done on Friday we get to enjoy Saturday with Dad.



It is now 5:00 and all the chores are done...even the ironing and grocery shopping! The kids are out playing with friends and all of a sudden I am exhausted. I may have to go take a nap so I have some energy for our Saturday Play Day!!

Swim Team

Thanks to a friend's suggestion both our older boys are signed up for swim team this summer. This morning was their first practice and the first thing they both said, was "Wow, that was hard." They enjoyed it, but had no idea that they would be swimming nonstop for an hour. Practice is early so we are all waking up around 6:30 in the morning...which also means that we are heading to bed at a decent hour. They get to compete in two meets over the summer and one big one at the end of the summer. It should be an adventure for all of us!

A follow up from last post...our sick baby is feeling much better, but yesterday we discovered that our Star Wars fan also has an ear infection! When it rains, it pours!!

OUCH!

We just found out today that our cute baby has two ear infections. Thankfully, he is now on antibiotics, but I have earned a few gray hairs before reaching this happy ending. I took him into our local instacare clinic yesterday. The first thing the nurse did is take his vitals which includes measuring his blood oxygen saturation levels. They do this with a little clip-on finger monitor. Our little guy thought it was cool at first, but would not hold his little finger still and they couldn't get any reading. So they clipped it to his ear lobe...no reading, next his other ear lobe...still no reading. They finally tried one of his toes and got a reading of 87-88%, which is not good. So bad, in fact that they immediately sent me to the Emergency Room. I hurried to the hospital a little unnerved because I was expecting an ear infection (he had been complaining that his ear hurt) not pneumonia! The trauma nurse whisked us right in and hooked him up to her monitor, a much nicer monitor, by the way. She quickly calmed our fears with two very normal readings and said that he was just fine. Of course, by this time the clinic was closed and I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for an E.R. doctor to prescribe antibiotics for an ear infection. She sent us home with advice to treat his fever overnight and take him in again in the morning. Again today, the doctor had to try for 15 minutes to get a normal reading...but finally did and sent us home victorious with a prescription! Poor guy had infections in both ears, but seems to be feeling better already...he is very funny and a little loopy when he is feverish, but we will be happy to have him back to his normal self!