Getting Better!

I am almost over my sickness.  My voice sounded so bad in the middle of the week but now it just sounds low.  Doug played his usual church basketball this week and I helped with preschool.  The kids were a little crazy this week.  It just seemed like they were all a little bit tired or something.  

Saturday Doug and I went to TopGolf with another couple.  It was a lot of fun.  The balls have microchips in them and so when your ball lands on the targets it can register where your ball went.  I did better than I thought I would. About half of my shots landed on a target so that was pretty good for me.  Doug got into a rhythm at the end and was just smashing the balls to the very end of the range.  You get a higher score out there - so of course he creamed us all points wise.  The other couple we were with brought their own clubs and I think they used to play quite a bit.  They said they haven't played in awhile but they both did fairly well.  You pay by the hour and you can have up to 8 people in your bay, so I think it would be fun to bring the family.  The girls could just watch or try to hit a few, but Damon and Tyler would probably have a good time.  Doug got this one shot of me, not sure how my swing looks, but at least it captures the moment.  

Other random things this week:

Jenna sleeping funny. 

 I made some popsicle picture puzzles.

 We took the kids to Academy sporting goods store and Toys R Us.  They had fun playing on the excise equipment.  Probably not the best thing but I think they were being careful.  Doug and I were looking at water bottles and bought Damon and new one for school.  All of the kids' water bottles are getting pretty old and gross looking.  They have chewed the mouthpiece too much and it just is time for some new ones.

 Chris bought a small Lego set with his own money.  He was pretty excited to put it together.

Sick, Sick, Sick

So Damon started getting sick on Friday Sept. 11 and stayed home from church.  He still wasn't feeling well so he missed school on Monday and Tuesday.

Tyler started feeling sick on Monday so he also missed school Monday and Tuesday.

Jenna and Kaylee also got sick during this time, I can't remember exactly which day they started, Jenna was last to start - probably Tuesday.  Kaylee was almost better by preschool but Jenna was still sick so they had to miss preschool, they were pretty sad about it.

I sent the boys to school on Wednesday but I probably shouldn't have.  They still had fevers and felt yucky when they got home.  But Thursday morning their fevers were gone and they were able to go to school the rest of the week and felt fine.

I started feeling sick on Wednesday.  I had a fever for 4 days up until Saturday evening.  My throat started to hurt on Friday but not too bad.  It got worse by Saturday and I checked again and it looked like Strep to me.  We have a friend in the ward who is a surgeon doctor.  With it being late on a Saturday we called him and asked if he could call in a prescription for me before the pharmacies closed.  He did and I was so thankful.  It just saved us a long trip to the urgent care and at least $150.

So now I'm on an antibiotic and I just hope it acts fast.  I woke up this morning (Sunday) still in a lot of pain - headache, sore throat, and ear ache.  But I'm feeling a bit better now in the afternoon.  Doug took all the kids to church by himself, I don't think he has done that before. I hope they are good for him.  So I am using this nice quiet time to catch up on my blogging and resting.

I really have felt terrible the last few days, just been laying down most of the day.  I feel bad not getting things done but what can you do.  I would have the girls watch a movie and I would read a book or nap on the couch nearby.  The one nice thing about being sick it having the time to read.  I read 3 books in 3 days.  "Seven Second Delay" "The Clockwork Three" and "And Then There Were None."  I had read the last one in 8th grade but it was fun to re-read it.  I remembered who did it, but not how.

Well, hopefully this next week will be better with us all healthy.  Hopefully the germs will stay away from Doug.

Baby Shower

Two other friends and I put on a baby shower for our friend Denny on Sept. 10.  I wanted to do a cake.  We asked how she was decorating her nursery and she sent us this picture.  

So this is what I came up with: 

 It was fun, but it does take up a lot of time.  I wasn't going to do 3 layers, but we had about 25 people say they were going to be there - 20 ended up coming.  2 layers would have been enough but it was fun to have different flavors.  I did a white/rasberry filling layer, a chocolate/oreo filling layer, and lemon/lemon curd layer.  The lemon was my favorite.  My other friends made some great food, decorated super cute, and came up with some great games.  It was a fun shower.

Labor Day

So we hadn't really decided on what we were going to do for Labor Day.  We still wanted to go to Brazos Bend State Park to see the alligators and we thought about going to the zoo.  We let the kids choose and they voted for the zoo.  We left as quickly as we could and got there pretty close to opening time.  I knew it was going to be busy, but wow - the parking lot was already filling up.  We knew it was going to be hot - but we figured we would survive.  Now I question our good judgement and will make a mental note to not go to the zoo in the summer or when it is going to be above 90 degrees - it was pretty miserable.  

The kids managed pretty well except for Kaylee - she bascially cried/whined the whole time.  I think it was a mixture of being hot and tired.  I had brought snacks and drinks but I guess that wasn't enough.  We rented a wagon, brought umbrellas and hats for shade, and gave everyone a map.  But of course having all of these extras just gave us more opportunity to fight over them.  The wagon wasn't as big as the Denver ones so it was a big harder to fit two kids in there with our lunch bag.  It was doable - but they didn't like sitting that close to each other, sigh, it was a long morning.  

But we tried to have fun.  Damon liked the bats; Chris liked the sea lions; and Jenna, Kaylee, and Tyler had fun in the petting zoo to see the goats.  

I didn't take a picture but we stopped for a snack break at a little outdoor theater for story time.  A zoo employee read the book "A Giraffe and a Half" by Shel Silversten.  The book was pretty torn and he had it memorized.  It made me wonder how many times he had read that book.  He did a good job and had the audience participate with the rhyming words.  

 We had our lunch right before we left.

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 We had to document that we were there-sweaty and all.

 On our way out we saw the elephants close to the fence.  One of them put on a show for us by opening his mouth.  He kept pointing inside - I think he wanted some food.  It was cool to see his teeth.

At home we put the girls down and Kaylee caught a second wind and didn't sleep  - she sooo needed a nap.  Anyway, after quiet time we just chilled at home and we grilled steaks for dinner.  I rarely buy steaks so that was a treat.  I thought this was the last day our pool was open so I wanted to go one last time.  We loaded everyone up and looked at the pool and noticed that we would have it basically to ourselves, then we found out that they had to close it because a kid had thrown up in it earlier.  Agghh!  So we played at the splash pad and the park there for bit then went home for baths and bed. But the life guard told us the pool was open on weekends all through September so we can go again.  

It was a long day, but still fun to be with family.  Certain things will get easier as they get older, but there are some things that are so fun when they are young.  They get so excited at the smallest things.  

2nd week of school

 The second week of school was much smoother.  We started to get a bit of homework but not too much.  I think it's good that they break them in gradually.

The hard part about this week was Christopher.  Monday when he came home from school he complained that he had a headache and that it hurt to move his neck.  He walked around slowly, hunched over, and basically looked stiff.  He didn't want to tilt his head back to drink or turn it side to side.  So we figured he had probably pulled a muscle somehow.  A year or so ago he strained his shoulder and this seemed similar to that.  So it seemed like there wasn't much we could do, just have to wait it out.  Tuesday he was still complaining a bit and walking funny - I started to wonder if the injury was due to carrying his backpack - it's so big on him and he's not use to that weight on his shoulders.

Wednesday he still hurt but I knew there wasn't much I could do besides give him ibuprofen.  However, the nurse at the school called me in the morning saying that Chris was complaining of a headache and was basically in tears because she had been trying to get him to move his head.  Chris had acted like this to us as well, he just really didn't want to be forced to do anything - he knew it would hurt.  We tried to get him to stretch it at home, but he didn't want to cooperate much.

So after I got the girls situated we all went to pick up Chris.  The nurse told me on the phone that he should be looked at.  I was a little bit frustrated because I knew there wasn't anything really wrong with his neck, it just was strained and it would take awhile for it to get better.  But since they wanted me to I called the doctor.  Thankfully Chris is the one out of the five that has seen a doctor here so we could get in later that day.  We did some errands after getting Chris then went home for lunch and quiet time.  I dropped the girls off at a friends and took Chris into the doctor.  He did have a slight fever but the doctor said basically the same thing that I thought - his neck and shoulder muscles were tight.  She had the other doctor come in and take a look as well.  He brought up meningitis which got me a bit concerned - but I guess it was good to know what to look for.  The office wasn't too slow, but it was still pretty late by the time we got home.  I came up with some dinner quick so Damon and Tyler could go to scouts.

Chris got a bath to help his fever, it had been awhile since we had done bubbles.  :)

Thursday was the first day of Preschool for Jenna and Kaylee.  We are doing a mini co-op with some moms.  There are 7 moms with 8 kids (guess that happens when you have twins).  We are having one mom teach and one mom be a helper since that is a pretty big group and they are younger (2 years until kindergarten).  Jenna and Kaylee are the oldest and the youngest boy is 7 months younger.  So it's not a huge time frame but you can definitely tell a difference.  We are only doing it once a week and we are doing the Joy School program.  I haven't look at it much yet since I don't teach for another month but I was the helper for this first day so it was good for me to see how things are going to be structured.  My friend Laisa taught the first day and she was so good with the kids.  We sang lots of songs and tried to discuss some basic rules and introduce everyone.  We made ironed crayon pictures which the girls were very proud of and very excited to show everyone.  We went from 9:30-12:00 this first time, but we are going to try 9:30-12:30 next week and see how it goes.  We basically thought it would be good for them to have a little bit more time to have lunch and have some play time afterwards.  This gives the moms a little bit more time for errands etc.  

The girls were very excited to go - they had been asking all week.  They carried around their backpacks all week and put their lunches inside when I had one made for them.  

 They sure are growing up.  They talk a lot now with full ideas and let us know what is going on.  They love to play pretend - doctor is a popular one.  One of them will be "sick" and the other will be the doctor and fix them right up.  Other times one will be the mom and the other will be the baby.  Kaylee is usually the baby.  The play with their kitchen and food pretty well and they like to do puzzles with me and color with markers when I let them.  The know their letters and most of their sounds.  They know some sight words too.  They like to 'help' me in the kitchen and I try to be patient with them.  They are very good at helping me set the table at dinner time and they eat their food well most of the time.  They do tease each other and still have a hard time taking turns, but over all they are two cute little girls and we sure do love them.

Saturday we did a big house cleaning day and I was even able to get all of my jobs done.  It sure is nice to have kids old enough to really help.  I did some grocery shopping and got back in time to take Jenna and Kaylee to a birthday party.  I think this was their first one and they loved it.  They had planned on playing outside but it started to rain as soon as it started.  Luckily it didn't last too long and they were able to play outside towards the end of the party.

We rented Home from a Redbox.  We all worked hard to get dinner cleaned up so we could watch it (I enjoyed it- cried a couple of time at the end).

Sunday I had sharing time, Doug stayed home with Chris.  He neck is slowly getting better but he caught a virus of some kind and has had a fever since Wednesday.   He went to school on Thursday after I took him to the doctor on Wednesday but I kept him home of Friday.

 Just for fun and a reminder for the future - this is our little frog friend that visits us on our back door every single night.

First week of school

The first day of school!!!

Monday August 24 Damon, Tyler and Christopher started school.  It was a totally crazy morning.  Of course everyone wants to see their kids off on the first day.  We left pretty early, around 7:30 but still had to walk quite a ways to get to school.  We walked Chris to his classroom through the crowds of people.  His class was all set up to let the students play with play-dough.  Chris seemed nervous but excited too.  I was too busy in the morning with the craziness of getting lunches ready that I forgot to take a 'first day of school' picture at home.  So all I've got are their photos in their classrooms.  Chris was giving me a funny face.  

After we dropped Chris off we went down the hall to Tyler's room.  He seemed confident and ready for school.  He had a picture to complete for his first activity.  

By the time we got back to the van the girls were complaining of walking and we still had to take Damon to school, sigh.  It was now around 8:15 so we headed over to Cox Intermediate.  I debated whether to try and park on the street of the school or park in the neighborhood and walk across the street.  I chose the neighborhood and I think it was the better choice.  The streets were so full of cars - it was crazy.  So we walked the few blocks to take Damon to class.  His teacher thought the girls were cute besides how messy their hair was I'm sure - hey at least they were dressed. :)  The desks at Damon's school are similar to middle school or high school - no place to put anything, so that's why they have a locker.  They put their bags in their locker and just carry their big binder, lunch, and water bottle around with them all day.  

On the way back I tried to catch a picture of the traffic craziness but you can't really tell.  There are just cars lined up forever to drop kids off or park.

It was 9:00 by time I got home: 1 1/2 hours to get the boys to school, whew.  The rest of the day went by fast doing laundry and normal stuff.  Then it was time to go get the boys.  I barely made it to get Tyler and Chris.  I parked down the street and walked down to the corner to meet them.  Their school gets out at 3:05 but of course on the first day things were crazy and slow.  Then we headed straight over to get Damon.  Normally his school gets out at 3:45, but for the first week they dismissed at 3:35.  Not sure that the time change helped anything, but oh well.  

Here's the long story about Damon's dismissal:  Such a headache.  There were about 7 moms that wanted their kids to all walk together across the street into the Harmony Creek neighborhood and I had planned to pick Damon up at a friend's house who lives over there.  Well in order for him to walk over there quickly we signed his dismissal to be a 'walker to York.'  York is the middle school that is right next to Cox.  So what the school does is dismisses all the students that have a sibling or meeting them at York walk over to that school as a group.  So that is what I had told Damon he would be doing - walking to York and then I would meet him at that corner.  Well, Cox school sent out an email around 2:00 saying that they weren't going to dismiss walkers to York on the first day because they needed a signed form.  So now all of us moms are trying to figure out how we are going to get our kids and let them know of the change.  We all were calling the office and getting different stories.  We were mostly told that they were going to be defaulted to car-riders.  Well I did NOT want to wait in the car rider line so I asked if I could just physically walk up there and pick Damon up.  They said I could so I let the other moms know.   We friends had the longest group text conversation going - it was pretty funny.   So thankful a neighbor let Tyler, Chris, and the girls play at her house while I went and picked up Damon.  That saved them some more walking and the girls were pretty done.  I met up with some of the other moms and we make it up to the school and started looking for our kids.  Some were coming out of the school and sitting down on the patio to wait for their parents in the car rider line.  We finally asked about them and we told that they were going to be dismissed later, ahh.  They dismiss the kids in stages so that they all don't come out at once.  So the principle just told us to go have them paged.   We gave the secretary the list of names we needed and we finally picked up all of the kids.  What a crazy process.  We walked back and picked up the other kids and finally made it home.  I really didn't feel like cooking dinner so I think we just had pizza or something.  I'm glad that I only had to do that once.  We started a car pool on Tuesday, so now I only have to do one drop off and one pick up, instead of two.  

Damon's school continued to give us problems all during the first week, I'm writing this too late to remember all of the details but Damon didn't go home the same way twice the whole first week.  The school kept telling us changes and we were trying to figure things out.  We suggested to the school to dismiss all the students at the same time and see how it goes - or at least in smaller increments.  They had been doing 15 min. intervals so that the walkers/bikers would be leaving the school 15-20 minutes after school got out.  So now Damon is now considered just a regular walker and he meets up with a mom by the gate to the neighborhood and I pick him up on the street.  Glad we're getting things sorted out.  

I thought my life would be easier once school started, but it is more stressful and busier than ever.  I have something scheduled every morning.  Not all of them are required, but they are things I like to do. Mondays is library story time and laundry, Tuesday is PiYo at the church, Wednesday my friend and I talked about doing a yoga class in town and then I will probably run errands or go grocery shopping.  Thursdays is preschool for the girls, and Friday is play group with the ward.  So we stay busy in the mornings.  The girls don't nap consistently anymore so if they are not asleep I can do things in the afternoon now which is nice sometimes but I miss the longer nap times too.  

A few other things that happened this week.  I went to the dentist for the first time here in Texas.  Our dentist seems really good but I wonder if she is very pro-active/aggressive in treatment.  Doug has had a lot of work done and now I found out that I need 2 crowns done.  It's pretty depressing to find your teeth falling apart.  I have had so many fillings in some of the teeth over the years that by now if the filling doesn't look good or if there is a crack there isn't much tooth left to hold the filling in so they have to put a crown on it.  Bummers!  Oh well, I just keep thinking that after the resurrection my teeth will all be perfect. :)

Saturday Kaylee helped Doug do some yard work in the morning and I made chili and Texas sheet cake for a ward party later that evening.  

Then around 11:00 we went to nearby Splash Town.  It's so hard to remember to take pictures when you are swimming, so I don't have any.  But we all had a good time.  It was bring a friend day for membership holders.  So we tagged along with one of our friends.  Admission is about $40 each, so it is pretty expensive but with the sale it was only $10 for each membership.  They only have 5 in their family, so we had to pay for two tickets.  It ended up being around $130 for all of us, but that's a lot better than $280.  Splash Town is a Wet 'N Wild water park.  They have a lot of fun slides and attractions.  There is a Wet 'N Wild Junior that the girls really enjoyed.  They figured out how to go down the little slides on their own and it was so fun to see them just giggling when they came out.  (the life guard let them go down together).  I waited in one long line with Damon and Chris, it was a fun ride.  Tyler waited in a nearby line with my friend and her two oldest.  Tyler got a bit scared on his ride, it was one were you were in a 4 person circular tube that shot you out into a big funnel and had you slide up the side and then back and forth until you exited the bottom.  He was pretty white when he came out.  Of course later he said it was awesome - not sure about that.  Doug went on a couple of rides with the boys while I watched the girls.  It's hard to keep everyone happy and together when you have different interests and heights.  We did the lazy river and wave pool - everyone likes those.  It was a fun day but we didn't last long.  We left around 3:00.  You couldn't take any food into the park so we all had a bunch of snacks once we got back to the car.  We had eaten an early lunch before we went. The girls had some pudding when we got home.  Kaylee made a fun mustache.

The ward party was well attended and the kids did pretty well.  The ward provided some BBQ pork and grilled chicken then everyone else brought side dishes, chili, and desserts.  There weren't enough side dishes but there was too much chili.  Most of the desserts were gone as well.  It's amazing how much a ward can eat.

Sunday I got in the mood to do something different with the girls' hair.  I tried to do the waterfall braid on Jenna but I couldn't get it to work, so I just did a one sided french braid.

I like this one of Kaylee, it is super easy and looks pretty.  Next time I think I will try flipping the top elastic the other way so that the bumps are all going the same way.

Busy busy week!  Now for the second week of school - ahh!