It's almost done!

Today was the last full day of school for the boys; tomorrow is only a half day, but the boys have no clue what their teachers have planned for them. All they were told was no backpacks are required and that lunch will not be provided. Great, so they'll come home hyped up on treats (what teacher doesn't allow last day of school treats?) and starving. Lucky me.

Family Home Evening was easy and simple. As usual. We took the kids to Target to buy thank you cards and chocolate for their teachers. We also bought some ice cream to enjoy while they wrote out their thank you cards (M&M ice cream cookie sandwiches, yum!). Afterwards, we pretty much split off to do our own activities until bedtime.

Ugh, and I'm getting impatient for Jeff's top teeth to break thru. He's not really cranky, but teething really throws him off. His naps get shorter and he gets grumpy faster. Note to teeth: hurry up!

Of course, once those teeth come in, it means the rest will probably follow suit. Fun. I hope it's not a repeat of when Vanessa was teething: poor girl had FOUR teeth coming in at the same time. And, as if she wasn't already emotional!

Tomorrow should be interesting. Scott's car is still at the mechanic's, and he probably won't get it back until later tomorrow afternoon. He can take the kids to school in the Armada, but if does that and then takes the car to work, then he'll have to leave early to pick hem up, drop them off at home, then go back to work. Kind of tricky, but I guess I could ask my brother or my parents to pick them up. I'll have to call them tomorrow.

What do you mean your tummy hurts?!

Warning: The following might be a bit TMI.

Both Vanessa and Jeffrey have diarrhea. How do i know? The first thing Vanessa said to me when she woke up was, "Mommy, I'm poopy!" I won't gross you out by graphically describing the "surprise" I got to clean up, but it wasn't pleasant at all, to say the least.

About an hour later, it was Jeffrey's turn. He wears a diaper, so it wasn't too bad. Well, except for the fact that he doesn't like to stay still during diaper changes, so it was a bit of a wrestling match. I still don't know how I managed to clean Jeff's butt while he tried to wiggle around on the carpet.

Ethan is alot better today. He was dry heaving yesterday and just wasn't feeling well in general. So maybe he passed on whatever he had to Jeff and Vanessa? Isn't that how it always works?

Ryan and Ethan have Monday and half of Tuesday left of school, then it's summer vacation! And, next week we leave for our camping trip to Bear Lake. We're all very excited. Well, maybe except for Jeff, who really doesn't know what the heck is going on, lol!

Soaring Eagle Award

Vanessa and I went to the school today for an awards assembly. Both Ryan and Ethan were awarded a Soaring Eagle Award for accomplishing certain goals both at school and home. Ethan got a bronze one and Ryan got a silver. I didn't get any good pictures of the boys actually getting the awards, but after the assembly was done, I did manage to find them and take at least one good picture each.

The assembly was very loud, but, surprisingly, it wasn't the kids. It was the parents. Most of the parents used the assembly as a time to visit with each other, and they didn't do it quietly either. Several times the principal had to ask everyone to be quiet so they could continue with the awards, but that lasted for maybe...oh, five seconds, and then the parents started yapping again. I almost missed Ryan's name being called because the ladies in front of us decided it was much more important to talk about their neighbor's annoying dog. *rolls eyes*

I'm very proud of the boys. They brought home the goals they needed to accomplish to get the award and some were hard. So I'm glad they worked so hard.

Jeffrey and the Paint Adventure

I'm trying really hard not laugh aloud as I write this because Jeffrey is sleeping right beside me. But, it's proving to be a bit of a challenge considering there are still some telltale evidence of Jeff's rumble with a small bottle of paint. Let's recap the adventure, shall we?

Scott was sitting in the living room, working on his laptop, I'm in the bedroom gulping down huge amounts of ginger ale to try and get my stomachache to go away, and Jeff has followed Ethan into the kitchen. On the kitchen table is a small bottle of paint the boys used to paint some wooden cars, but, alas! The cap on the silver paint is not on tight.

Can you see where this is going?

So Jeff pulls himself up, using one of the chairs, and immediately goes for the paint. Which just so happens to be near the edge of the table. Said paint falls off the table and onto the tile floor, but before anyone can register what is happening, Jeff plops down in the middle of the puddle and sticks his hands into the mess.

To his credit, Ethan quickly picks up the paint bottle, then tells Scott what happened. The next thing I know, Scott is rushing into the room with Jeffrey, whose legs, arms and bottom half of his face is colored silver. The warm water in the bath tub takes care of most of the paint, but I end up taking a sponge to the poor kids skin to get the rest of it off. Which means screaming and attempted biting. Jeff biting me, that is, lol.

Afterwards, I have the lovely pleasure of scrubbing the paint from the bath tub. With a stomachache. See how dedicated I am? Yeah, I'm rolling my eyes, too.

Quiet today...and hot!

It's actually been quiet today, which I attribute to the heat. The boys are home from school and Jeff & Vanessa are up from their naps, yet there are no bloodcurdling screams shattering the air. Hmm, a bit "abnormal" for this time of day, but I'm sure I just jinxed myself and will be greeted by howls and cries at any moment now.

Ryan went on a field trip today to the aquarium. We've been there before and it's really small, but it does teach the kids. Someday I'll take the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium; now that's a great place! The class also went to a fire station and then ate lunch at a park. Ryan was insistent that he take a Lunchables pack; y'know, cause he doesn't want to be embarrassed by the food that I attemp to cook, lol.

Ethan had a good day, or so he says. According to his resource & speech teachers, he's been having some "meltdowns" in class lately, so we've been working on figuring out the problem. I suspect it's because he goes to bed late, so for the past few days he's been going to bed really early. And, I guess it's helped because I haven't gotten anymore phone calls from his teachers.

Vanessa, on the other hand, constantly babbles about how she's going to school soon (we're putting her in preschool in September). We promised her that if she would learn to go to the potty like a big girl, that we would let her go to "school." And, she's been doing really well for the last several weeks, so it looks like she'll be going. She's already got it all planned out: who'll pick her up, what she'll take, etc. So funny.

As of right now, Scott is trying to scrub Jeff clean because he got into some paint. Oh, joy. I think I better go help. :-)

Lazy days

Last night we kept Family Home Evening really simple: we went swimming at the neighborhood pool. Well, first we had some pizza over at my parents' house, then we went home and went to the pool. Summer FHE activities are meant to be simple, y'know?

Yesterday we also had the carpet cleaning guy (what exactly are they called?) come over to clean the carpets in the living room, master bedroom and the are under the stairs in the basement. I "locked" myself in the office with Vanessa and Jeffrey, which wasn't really a great idea, but it worked for the moment. Everytime the worker would pass by the door (which had the baby gate locked across it), she'd ask, "Hi! What are you doing?" Didn't matter if she had just asked him that a minute ago or that it was the gazillionth time she'd ask; she did it anyway. The guy, for his part, cheerfully answered, "I'm working!" Each and every time, lol.

So after we'd been cooped up in the office watching endless episodes of Dora the Explorer and Ni-Hao, Kai-Lan, we went over to my parents' house to hang out. And, eat their food. And, watch tv. So basically, to mooch. But, really, they don't mind. At least, I think they don't mind.
Oh, jeez. I hope they don't mind!

Smile!

Ryan has become the sports fanatic. Instead of playing soccer, this year it was another round of flag football. He's also waiting to sign-up for basketball this fall.

Ethan just finished with his soccer season. He's playing alot better and not as scared of the ball as he used to be.

This is what happens when the Princess finds a pair of scissors and tries to style her own hair! Very short, but cute!

Here's Jeffrey, nearly 9 months old and ready to walk. He's already mastered crawling really fast to get away from mommy, and he can now stand by himself for about 10 seconds or more. He's tried to take a couple of steps, but chickened out at the last second.

I feel so smart...not!

The kids had a good laugh today, but totally at my expense (so what else is new?). After church was done, we came home to find the electricity had gone out in our neighborhood. Which meant the garage door wouldn't open. No problem right? I mean, there's always the front door.

Wrong!

Just a bit of background: when Vanessa was about 2 yrs. old, she figured out how to open the front door and go exploring. In fact, one day I hadn't realized she'd gotten out until the neighbor rang the doorbell and brought the little escape artist home. So not only did we install a security system with a chime feature to let us know when any of the doors were open, but we also got a security latch (kind of like the ones in hotels) to put at the top of the door. And, that took care of that.

Anyway, out of habit, I closed the latch when I locked the front door before leaving for church. Which meant when we got home to find the power out, I couldn't open the front door because of said latch. And everything else (windows, sliding door, etc.) was locked, too. No way to get into the house (without breaking a window), so we drove the kids over to my parents' house and spent the rest of the afternoon there.

I was able to call one of our neighbors to ask if the power had come back on, and we headed home soon after he told me yes. So I guess it all worked out in the end. But you can bet the kids aren't going to let me live this down in the meantime. :-)

Why did it do that?

The post "Finally!" is actually for today, Saturday, June 21. I have no idea why it posted it for yesterday.

Finally!

Am I the only one to think that the weekend took its sweet time getting here? Probably. Another day down, just 10 more days of school...and then summer can really begin at my house. The kids have grand plans for their 3-week summer (we're switching from D Track to A next school year), so they're ready to get cracking. It's also getting a bit hotter now, which means sunscreen for the kids, which of course, they hate to put on. It's much easier now that it comes in easy spray form and it's quick and (relatively) painless to cover the kids.

In fact, Vanessa and I just got back from the pool. It's nice to have a community pool in our neighborhood, especially since today is supposed to get up to 96 degrees. We actually went walking around the neighborhood first, looking at the yard sales going on, and we managed to find some great deals (clothes for Jeffrey, Pokemon stuff for the boys, and a Pokemon doll for Vanessa). Lots of different things out there to be sold.

Vanessa is now convinced that she can swim because of her Dora the Explorer life jacket that we bought last summer (but she refused to use it). The little kiddie pool is being fixed, so I had to take her in the big pool with me. She doesn't realize that most of the time she was being held up by her life jacket and not me, but I think I won't tell her until she gets a bit more confident in the water.

Ryan is over at his friend Zac's house for a "Celebrate Summer" pool party. Supposedly, Zac was supposed to sleep over at our house last night, but the two never bothered to mention the fact to me or Zac's mom, lol. They'd been planning the sleepover for the last week or so, so I guess they got so caught up in the planning that they forgot to tell us.

Anyway, Ryan really likes hanging out with Zac, and from what I've seen, they have alot of fun. They're in the same class at school and in Cub Scouts, so they spend quite alot of time together. It's nice that it's summer; they can spend hours outside!

Ethan, at the moment, is still over at my parents' house. Yes, i know I'm a spoiled brat because my parents take the kids every Friday for a sleepover. Wouldn't anyone with kids jump at this offer? Ryan slept over, too, but my brother brought him back to our house this morning, just in time for the pool party. So, I think Ethan is probably out shopping or running errands (or both) with Tutu and Papa.

Jeffrey just got up from a nap, which means he's happy and just ready to go. Where, I don't know, but at the speed he's crawling, he seems to have it under control. I think he's teething again; the drool from his mouth is like a burst pipe or something.

It's a bright and sunny day, the air conditioning is running, and the kids are quietly playing (for now)...life is good. And, quiet. did I mention quiet? ;-)

Do you really wanna know?

So I'm sitting here, reading an email from my sister-in-law Mindy, asking for pictures and maybe a visit because she was brave (or crazy, lol) enough to move to West Virginia. And, it got me thinking about my kids (which you'll see will be a recurring theme in this blog, lol).

I'm fortunate enough to live just five (perhaps less) minutes away from my parents, so my kids are able to see them alot. And, I mean alot. Just ask the odometer on my Armada. Anyway, that thought led to guilt, as I don't make enough of an effort to get the kids over to see Scott's parents...you know, their other set of grandparents? I don't think it's a good thing when the baby kind of just stares at Grandpa and Ama with a "And, you are?" look on his face, you know?

Which is why I created this blog. It's my lazy butt of a compromise, if you will. With technology the way it is, I don't think there's any excuse not to be more "in touch" with family, especially members we don't get to see so often. Plus, it's a way of satisfying Mindy's request for pictures AND to get my mother-in-law better acquainted with a computer and the internet. This means you, Mom! :-)


So if you really wanna know what's going on over here, you've come to the right place. I think my kids are quite hilarious, which usually leads to the escapades of our daily lives, and their memorable quotes and sayings. Of course, it's not always sunshine and rainbows, but the "grumpies" teach us (both parents and kids) all about life...plus it provides some very embarrasing info that can later be used during the kids' teenage years.;-)