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!

Last Week of Summer

Just for remembering - we had a couple of base boards get some water damage.  One was from a valve leak and the other we think leaked in from the door opening somehow.  The door is covered by the patio roof, but I guess enough rain must have splashed in through a crack to get the board wet.  It's all under contract so for the past month we have  had the plumbers come to fix the valve, then some other workers come to put new sheet rock in to patch the hole.  Then the carpenter came to put in new base boards, then the painters came to finish it.  So now it's all fixed and I'm glad I don't have to try and understand the workers who usually know more Spanish than English.

This week we found out our teachers for the year.  Tyler has Mrs. Gomez who team teachers with Mrs. Frantzen.  When we met them on Tuesday night and dropped off Tyler's stuff they seemed very nice.  Tyler has one church friend in his class so that is nice. Right after that I had a little meeting for the preschool I am doing with the girls.  We just have a group of 7 moms with 8 kids.  We are going to meet just once a week since this is really a pre-pre-school.  We talked about what curriculum we were going to use and times etc.  I'm glad we are all pretty easy going - I'm not stressing about it too much. Then after that meeting I had a primary presidency meeting.  We were assigning parts for the program, so that took awhile.  I think I got home around 10:30.  It was a long and busy day.  

Damon will have 4 teachers this year but his home room teacher is Mrs. Everill.  We went on Thursday to drop off his things and figure out his locker.  It took a couple of tries but we got it.  It's hard to communicate the craziness of the population size at both of these schools.  There are so many kids and not nearly enough room for people to park.  I parked in a neighborhood and Damon and I walked a couple of blocks.  It was a bit of a pain since we were carrying quite an armload of school supplies.  But we managed then I had to hurry home to take Chris to his meet the teacher night.  We again had to park blocks away and I was carrying a large box with a couple of reams of paper - I was sweaty with tired arms when we made it inside. They talked to all of the Kindergarteners together in the cafeteria first then we went to their individual class rooms.  Chris will have Mrs. Powell this year.  We have heard lots of good things about her and that she has received the teacher of the year award several times.  Chris didn't know anyone in his class - but he will make friends.  It was cute, Chris thought that he was going to be starting school that evening.  As we were leaving he said something like: "Now do I start school?"  

This week was also a cake week.  I did a wedding cake and groom's cake on Saturday but it takes me all week to get it ready.  Tuesday I made the frosting, Thursday I baked the cakes and worked on the fondant parts.  Friday I made more frosting, made the fillings, and base frosted the grooms cake.  The cake was a 8/10/12 inch square cake.  I rarely have had all three layers cake - most have done styrofoam for at least one layer.  So I had a lot of cake to make.  It ended up being 15 cake mixes for both cakes.  The groom's cake was a double layer cookie sheet size.  

Lots of boxes, oil, and eggs.

Friday we went to Pump it Up one more time with some friends.  The girls collided heads really bad at the end and that expedited our departure to say the least.  

The boys have been spoiled with their screen time and play time over the summer.  I really should have had them earn it more - but I guess I don't mind letting them be kids.  Once school starts they will be in screen time withdrawals.  

 Saturday morning I got up at 5:00 to get some of the cake done before I had to be 'mom.'  I was able to get the wedding cake layers assembled and base frosted which was what I was hoping to do.  Then we did breakfast and got some of our jobs done.  At 9:30ish Doug took the kids to the park and McDonald's to give me some space in the kitchen.  I didn't want to do the fondant with little helpers. :)  So I was grateful for that and I was able to get the fondant on the three layers done by 11:30.

We did lunch and sadly while we were eating Chris was curious about the cake in front of him and left his mark.  I was quite upset, but I didn't get too mad at him.  It of course was partially my fault, I should have moved it.  But this cake had gotten a crack in it and moving it would make the crack get larger.

 I was able to repair it, but it of course didn't look quite as good.  I was so grateful that I hadn't put the boarder on yet, that would have been far worse.

 The groom was obviously a proud Texan.  In case you don't get the 'Not Texas' part, Texas is Texas and everywhere else in the USA is 'Not Texas.'  This was done in buttercream and heat and humidity are just not friendly to cakes and frosting.  The colors were starting to bleed and the frosting was almost melting. Not fun.

 The wedding cake went really well.  I bought the fondant this time and I was so glad I did.  It handled much better than mine usually does.  The royal icing for the lace was fine and the pillars assembled nicely.  The ribbon was a bit tricky.  I didn't have perfectly straight sides, so the ribbon buckled a bit and it absorbed some of the grease from the buttercream so it started to darken in spots. When I went to set it up I put on new ribbon and put some wax paper on the corners to hopefully prevent the absorption.  I didn't get to see it with the flowers on it, but I asked the mom to send me some pictures, we'll see if she does.

They had the church gym decorated as nicely as I have seen.  They had fabric and lights covering the whole ceiling and poster pictures along the walls with spot lights.  It was very nicely done.

It's fun decorating cakes, but it is a long process and hard when you have to be a mom at the same time.  It just means staying up late and getting up early.  I think I tracked spending 21 hours on these two cakes.  I'm sure others could do it quicker, but it was a lot of clean up and baking time.  Glad I get more practice and try some new things but also glad to be done.

Fun Hair and Fun Forts

This week we did the normal laundry on Monday and Scouts on Tuesday.  I think we went swimming during the week - I can't remember, writing this a couple of weeks late :(

Wednesday was Relief Society and we had a bunch of mini classes to help get ready for school.  Some of them were tips on eating healthy and crock pot meals or make-ahead ideas.  Another was on time management.  They asked me and a friend to do a class about hair, so we demonstrated a few ideas on her little girl.  I had looked online for some ideas and these were some of the ones we tried at home.  

After the classes we did a get to know you game.  You had to tell a neighbor all about yourself in 30 seconds and then you switched, then the line moved down one and you did the same with the next person.  We two big lines so it took awhile but it was fun.  We all stayed quite late visiting.  They served cinnamon whole wheat waffles, they were very tasty.  

We made a fort in the middle of the week and then kept adding to it.  The boys wanted to sleep in it so we kept it up and slept in it on Saturday night.  Damon didn't last on the couch and went in and slept with Doug.  I moved to the couch, but Tyler and Chris seemed to do fine.  

 Thursday we went to Pump it Up.  It's a bouncy house place.  They have quite a few inflatables to jump and slide on.  The kids only last about 1 1/2 hours, but it is fun.  We bought a Groupon so it only ended up being $2 each, so that was good.

My friend owed me some babysitting so Doug and I went out to eat with another couple on Friday night.  We went to a place called Bernie's Backyard.  It basically is a bunch of food trucks lined up, but they have a raised deck with ceiling fans and TVs.  They had a guy playing the guitar and singing too - so that was fun.  The food was a bit pricey for being from a food truck but the hamburger was very good.  We had a nice time visiting and just getting out of the house together.  

Saturday we were going to go to Splash Town (our local Wet 'N Wild swim park) but we realized that Chris had a bad rash - probably had Fifth Disease.  It's starts with very red cheeks - sometimes it's called 'slap cheek' for this reason.  Then the rash moved down to Chris's arms, neck, chest, and legs.  It didn't bother him too much and there aren't any really bad problems with the illness, just cold symptoms and the rash - but it's pretty contagious and we weren't sure if the girls were infected - it spreads before you get the rash and the girls had fevers and stuffy noses.  So we stayed home with sick kids.  

We were also invited to a friends house for dinner, but we had to cancel that too.  I still took over some rolls since that is what I was supposed to bring and they were nice and gave us some of the brisket that they had been smoking for over 20 hours.  It was really good - very strong- but good.  

I stayed home with the girls on Sunday.  They never got a rash, but they still seemed to have colds or something.  Very slight fevers, stuffy noses, and a cough.  

Summer rolls on

Another week of summer over, crazy to think we only have 2 more weeks.  I'm going to miss my sleeping in (if you call 6:30 sleeping in).  

Monday was a busy laundry day and just taking care of things around the house.  We have started having FHE on Sunday evenings and that has worked well for us.  Jenna helped give us a lesson on smiling and being happy.  I made a new cookie recipe that was like a short bread tart.  I thought it was yummy.  Monday evening I started working on some fondant decorations for a cake I was going to make later in the week.

Tuesday we went to the Woodlands early and checked out some books from the library.  We hadn't been in awhile so it was good to get some new books.  Then we went to the dollar movie.  This week was The Nut Job.  Damon's friend Drew came with us.  I went to scouts in the evening and got to watch Damon test his spaghetti bridge.  It was 3 layers thick and ended up just bending through the tables but still didn't break.  One of the Bear leaders owns a boa constrictor and brought it for den meeting.  I got to hold it, it was pretty cool.  I worked on my cake project in the evening again. 

Wednesday we went swimming with some friends and Doug and I had a date in the evening.  We went to a dinner/presentation for the Life Vantage company.  Doug and I decided to join this company about 2 months ago and we are getting excited to start sharing the information we have learned and start building own our business group.  The babysitter did a pretty good job while we were gone.  It's never quite the same as when we are there - guess it's hard to replace 10 + years of parenting experience :)

 So we have a local Facebook page that the mom's around here join.  It's a place where people post things they want to sell, kind of like our own Craig's List.  Anyway Tuesday evening I was checking my email and saw a post for a small metal cabinet/drawers used for storing Legos and it looked like the Legos were part of the sale.  I showed it to Doug and he said sure.  While we were talking another mom had posted a question "Are the Legos included?"  The picture was of this shelf rack with Legos inside.  It was selling for $50 and for that many Legos the price seemed too low.  The other mom posted "Would you take $40?" and I posted "I'll take it."  So it seemed like a race.  The other mom posted back that she would take it for $50 and Doug and I just waited to see what the seller would say. All of our posts were listed as the same minute.  I was actually surprised that she gave it to us.  I felt kind of bad since the other mom had started looking at it first but we did say we would buy it as is first.  We don't really need more Legos (it is a TON of Legos), but I am hoping to start a Lego club at Damon's school and these would be great for it.  I asked the principle and she said that a teacher needs to sponsor the club and no one has volunteered yet, but we will see as school continues. 

Thursday morning we drove up to the Woodlands - to a very nice area with a guarded entry- to pick up the Legos.  Damon wasn't that thrilled when I told him what we were doing, but once he saw what the Legos were he was so excited.  So all the morning the boys played with the new Legos and I started sorting them.  The seller hadn't given us any instructions or said what sets were in there, but Damon and Tyler could recognize a few from the pieces.  They were able to make a few Bionicle sets and they have been working on a few other.  This was a huge lot of Legos and it came with this cart for only $50!  I sorted all day on Thursday and we are still sorting today (Sunday).  I told the boys that they could build what sets they could and pick out any cool pieces they wanted, then I was going to put away the rest. - That hasn't quite happened yet.  The Legos are still all over the floor in the office :)

 Random picture of Texas tortilla chips, it made me smile :)

Friday I baked the cakes I needed.  I was doing birthday cakes for my friends two girls.  We went swimming after dinner - it is the best time to go because part of the pool is in the shade then and it isn't so hot and bright.  Doug joined us after he got home. 

Saturday morning I finished the cakes. I think they turned out pretty well.  It was a fun design to do and pretty easy.  

Damon and Tyler went to a special Cub Scout activity from 8:00-12;00.  They worked on part of the STEM award.  They talked about codes, cryptography, computer programming and a few other things. 

Doug got this picture of the girls during screen time - he thought it was cute their feet were in the same position.   

Today I had to conduct and do sharing time.  I've had to do that before a couple of times and it always seems so crazy and that I'm trying to run a 3 ring circus.  The junior primary was very noisy today.  I wish I was better at getting control of a large group of kids.  

Over all a good week - we still deal with fighting and craziness everyday.  It will be really quiet when school starts.  I think the girls will miss their brothers.  They miss them when they are gone for scouts.  I think we find out who their teachers are this week, I hope they have some friends in their classes. 

Last Week of July

Monday Chris went to the dentist for the first time.  He did a pretty good job.  He was nervous and cried a bit during the x-rays but overall I would said it was a success.  He didn't have any cavities so that was great news.  There is a doughnut place next to the dentist office (appropriate right?) so I bought him a doughnut.  He got a cool stealth fighter jet toy from the dentist so he was pretty excited about that too. 

In the afternoon we went swimming at a friend's house.  They have just barely moved into this house, and she is excited to have a pool.  It has a slide and some rocks you can jump from.  I'll have to take pictures the next time we go - it is a fun pool.  

Tuesday we didn't go to the movies and the boys just wanted to stay home and play.  And amazingly they played together very well all morning - it was great!.  They pretended they were bounty hunters and had fun playing Star Wars stuff.  

We had scouts in the evening.  Tyler earned his Bobcat rank and Damon received some Webelos pins and a belt-loop for his first adventure in the new program.  

 We had the Rain Gutter Regatta after the awards.  The boys all had a lot of fun.  They just formed two lines and you raced whoever you matched up with.  It was nice to have a more casual feel and not so much of a competition.  The winner did get 2 starbursts, where the other only got 1.  They each got to race a few times and we even had Doug and Tyler race and Chris raced Damon.  Damon was such a good brother and let Chris win.  I got it on video and it was so touching to see how excited Chris was and I could tell Damon felt good serving his little brother.  Such a good example for our family.

Wednesday morning Tyler had to go get his expander fixed.  It had broken loose from his back molars on one side.  I felt bad for him.  They had to really tug on the other side to get it to come off, then they had to clean it off, clean his teeth, and then glue it back in.  The other kids love it when Tyler has an appointment.  The orthodontist has an arcade room where they can play all sorts of games.  Of course I have to let Tyler play for a bit when he is done. :)

Since we were already out and about we went to McDonald's for ice cream cones and to play.  It's good to have some indoor activities to do in this heat.

 Thursday morning my visiting teachers came - we are all good friends so it is fun to visit.  We had some friends come over and play at our house in the afternoon as well - so it was a fun play day.

Friday I watched my friend's kids in the morning, then we went over to another friend's house in the afternoon.  We did a lot of stuff with friends this week :)  I tried a new Thai curry rice dish that was good.  Doug and I watched a bit of the Sherlock series in the evening.  I stayed up and finished it, but Doug didn't quite make it.  The relaxing couch was calling :)

Saturday was a lot of fun.  Two friends and I headed up a community swapping event.  We invited everyone to come and drop off stuff and then everyone was welcome to take home anything they wanted.  We had a pretty good turn out.  People brought lots of stuff and we ended up taking two van/truck-fulls to Good Will.  But I had a blast.  I love finding things for me and the kids and things for the house.  I even got a guitar!!  We have been having fun trying it out.  I printed out the fingerings and managed to pluck out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

This is the stuff I got rid off - it felt so good to clean out closets and de-junk a bit.

 There were a lot of clothes (in the very back).  I found quite a few things for me: 3 shirts, 4 light sweaters, a dress, and a skirt.

After we dropped the stuff off at Good Will, my friend Kari and I went out for lunch.  It was so much fun.  We really get a long and it was great to get out of the house and do something fun.  We ate a burger place call Moo Yah.  It was soooo good.  I will definitely be going back.  We were going to get shakes too but we were too full.  We shared an order of small sweet potato fries and we didn't even eat it all.  At home I realized that I had planned to make turkey burgers for dinner, oh well.   I was still so full from lunch that I didn't eat one anyway. 

It was a good week, but felt so long.  We only have 3 more weeks until school starts.  I am mostly ready.  I still have to get some supplies of glue sticks and some paper.  I'm getting excited - I don't know about the boys though!