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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Look who's going to Kindergarten!

Today has been a much awaited day for someone in our house. The excitement could barely be kept in! Miss Emily got to go to the "big kids" school and get registered for Kindergarten for the up coming school year. She has been so EXCITED about this for several days now.

This will be Emily's teacher, Mrs. Chamberlain. I think these 2 will get along pretty easily.

Emily will be asked to bring a treat to school to share with her classmates once a month. She's already talking about all the different possibilities. On her birthday it's also O.K if she wants to bring in cupcakes to share. Ooh my my! What a lucky little girl and mom we are! After we met Mrs. Chamberlain and filled out a few papers we were asked to visit the school nurse in the gym for an eye exam. Emily quickly became apprehensive when learning about this. We watched a few kids go first and her fears quickly vanished. I got to sit right next to her and hold a paper over one eye while she answered the nurses questions. She did great!
After visiting the nurse we dropped off a copy of her birth certificate and immunization records to the school secretary. Now that all the "business" was taken care of we spent a few minutes outside getting aquainted with the school's jungle gym.



Emily thinks the time spent out here will be the best part of the day.


Too much fun!


Looking over the "what your child should know before kindergarten starts" paperwork I think Miss Emily will do just fine. The one thing that we do need to work on his her name. At the moment she writes her name in either all capital letters or all lower case letters. For the life of me I can't get her to write it with just the E as a capital letter. Mrs. Chaberlain sent home "homework" for each of the kids to practice writing their name correctly and asked them to practice this over the summer. When we got home tonight Emily immediately sat down to practice writing her name the way her teacher asked her to. She kept telling me she had to learn how write her name the right way now. It just made me laugh cause I've shown her this a bazillion times. I've written it out for her to copy a bazillion times and in Preschool each day I have asked her to write her name this way. I guess now that a real teacher and not just mom has asked her to she's willing to make a commitment of it. Her homework she did tonight was just perfect. I'm anxious to see how she will write her name tommorrow during preschool when it's just mom being the teacher again.
I'm glad she's excited to go to school. I hope her excitement lasts that 1st day of school when she gets on the bus and mom's not there.

1st Pine Wood Derby

Last night was our family's 1st Pine Wood Derby. This big event has been the main subject being discussed around our house for the last 2 weeks. With Kory's crazy work schedule saturday's are the only day he and Hunter are home at the same time. This made the past 2 weekends all about the special little car the 2 of them made together. It hasn't been as easy as I thought it would be. Two saturday's ago the family sat around the computer looking at ideas off the web of how "we" should design his car. There are some awsome designs out there! There were several that Hunter "loved" and wanted to replicae. However Kory kept telling him he needed to decide if he wanted the "coolest" looking car or the fastest car and win the race. In the end he decided he wanted to win this year and make the "coolest" next year.
Hunter's car is #3.


While waiting for everyone to arrive the boys took advantage of the track for a few "practice" runs.


This was the start of one of the many races Hunter's car participated in. Each car ran against everyone else's. It didn't matter the age of the boy.

They did it!

Not only did Hunter's car win the race out of his den but his car also came in over all 1st place.

On Saturday, April 14 we now have the priviledge of going to Kanab and having him participate in the regional Pine Wood Derby.

Besides the racing there were also 2 awards being given out. The "coolest" car and the most "unique" car. I couldn't help but laugh when Hunter won the "coolest" car award. I guess he got the best of both worlds this time around.

The fastest and the coolest!

The best part of the night was that Kory was able to take an extended lunch break from work and attend the activity with us. It's been over a year now with him working the night shift which causes him to miss most church/school/scout activities. It was so nice to have him be able to participate with us last night. Hunter enjoyed the spotlight he had with his dad.

Good Job Hunter and Daddy!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

28 weeks

I am trying really hard to have my monthly pregnancy pictures taken the same way each month so that I can see the difference each month makes. Having my 7 year old be my photographer is making this rather difficult.

That being said this is the best of the 20+ picts. taken.

You can tell by Miss Emily's face that by this picture she was done!





When I compare today's picture with the 24 weeks pict. I feel a little frusturated. I don't see a difference at all. I felt this way last month when comparing the 20 week pict. to the 24 week pict. If there was a difference it didn't seem very noticable to me.



However, seeing the difference the past 8 weeks have made (20 weeks to 28 weeks) makes me feel a bit better. There is a difference. There is a reason that some of my shirts that I use to wear on a weekly basis is having a harder time covering up that hideous maternity pant panel. I am getting bigger. It's not all in my head!


Pregnancy Facts

I still crave those dark green vegetables, paticularly broccoli.


I don't crave eggs like I use to but I still like them for breakfast a few times a week.


I get the shakes if I don't eat anything between breakfast and lunch or lunch to dinner. I've got to snack between meals. At the same time I can't eat as much as I use to during the main meals during the day. If I eat to much I just don't feel good. It gives me the desire to lay down and not get up for a few hours. I feel like I'm going to be sick when I eat what I would consider my pre pregnancy "normal" amount. This is so contradictive to the fact that I need to eat every few hours or snacking between meals to keep the shakes abay. This is kinda irritating. I guess it's an inconvienience as we are not a snacky family.


I continue to take my multi vitamine on a daily basis. I'm not nearly as tired as I use to be.


I get headaches on a daily basis. It started about my 23rd week. At my 24 week doctor's appt. I mentioned this. I was told that pregancy headaches are pretty common. These headaches are usually a cause of dehydration or sleep depreviation. I was told to monitor my water intake and keep track of how much sleep I was getting. If it wasn't enough I needed to try to increase it. I came right home and started keeping track immediately. I drink anywhere from 10-12, 80z. fluids a day, mostly being water. I'm getting anywhere from 9-11 hours of sleep a night. Now true I get up 2-3 times a night to pee. Could it be due to all the water I'm drinking??

Anyways this wasn't always the case at 23 weeks but it was really close. Since monitoring daily I make sure to get what I'm suppose to be getting plus some. Unfortunately this is not making a difference at all. I also started to swell. I couldn't wear a pair of sunday shoes 2 weeks ago because my foot wouldn't fit. I had to take my wedding ring off about 3 weeks ago because of my swolleness. My fingers and feet almost feel numb or maybe a better way to describe it is that they are always tingly. During a 7 day period one-two days usually ends in a migraine. A few weeks ago not seeing any difference I started researching to see what else all these symptoms could be.


This past saturday and sunday I ended up with a mirgraine during the 48 hour period that I could not get to go away. Oh how I hurt! I was going to call my doctor 1st thing monday morning because my research showed that swelling and daily headaches/migraine CAN be a sign of preclampsia which if not careful will turn into toxemia which is known to cause placenta deprevia (something I had with Brayden but didn't know it till after his birth). I feel like I have been keeping myself hydrated and getting enough sleep and it's not making a difference. Could it be something else?

Monday morning came and seriously I felt like a miracle had taken place. No migraine and no headache all day long. I didn't call my doctor. Tuesday came along and once again no headache or migraine all day long. YEAH!!! Wed. a headache didn't make it's presence known until the afternoon. Unfortunately today has been a normal "headache" day but no migraine. Despite the migraine this past weekend I felt like my swelling was going away. This morning wanting to see if I was just imagining my swelling disapearing I tried on my wedding ring. It fits easily. My feet still feel a little swollen but each days seems to be better.


I have been concerned with the thought of being diagnosed with preclampsia. What research I've done shows the signs up preclampsia as the following:


high blood pressure

swelling

rapid weight gain

daily headaches or high amount of migraines

lack of urination

blurry vision or seeing dots

protene in the urine


I don't have what it takes to take my own blood pressure but at my previous appt. nothing was said about my pressure rising or being too high. I'm going to assume all was fine 3 weeks ago.

I have had the swelling for several weeks but it seems that's going away now. Will it come back? Time will tell.

I don't have a scale to weigh myself but I don't feel I've had rapid weight gain.

I do have the daily headaches or a high amount of migraines. It's when I have a headache that my vision does get blurry. When I have a migraine I have seen dots and almost feel like I could pass out if I wasn't careful.

I don't seem to have a lack of urination.

As of yet nothing's been said about having protene in my urine.


From reading what other's have said it seems that the swelling, headaches, blurry vision and the protene in the urine are the 1st signs of preclampsia. I guess being I have 3 of these 4 that I know I have for sure is whats causing some concern. But I don't have any of the other symptoms that I'm aware of. So maybe I've just got the normal pregnancy headache that I've never had with my other pregnancies and the regular edema that's just starting a little earlier with this pregnancy than what I'm use to. Could our high elevation have anything to do with the swelling?


Having a 3 hour commute to the doctors is whats keeping me from going in. And the fact that we've already discussed the daily headaches and swelling. I don't want to go in just to be told everythings normal and have wasted my time and money. At the same time I don't want to have a serious complication. From what research I have done there isn't much a doctor can do for preclampsia except to put the mother to be on bed rest. If it turns into toxemia and it becomes a severe case the mother could be hospitalized. Reading other's experiences being on bed rest didn't seem to do much good. If preclampsia is an issue doctors seem to take the baby at 37 weeks or earlier if it's turned into toxemia as this is really the only thing to make the preclampsia/toxemia go away. Preclampsia doesn't seem to effect the baby, just the mother. Toxemia however shuts down organs in the mother which will in turn effect baby. This is why in many cases babies are taken before 37 weeks and end up spending sometime in the NICU.


For the past 3 weeks I've been trying to be very careful. I have quit doing house work during the week and have saved it all for saturdays to much delight of my family. I no longer vacuum, dust or clean the upstairs in anyway at all. Kory keeps on top of the kids to clean the upstairs by themselves on saturdays. Kory's been helping with the cleaning downstairs, sweeping, mopping and bathroom duty, etc. I don't know if this is helping at all but it puts my mind at ease knowing I am trying to be careful, just in case. I don't want my symptoms to turn into preclampsia and be put of bed rest or worst. We've still got 12 weeks to go. Having the experience with Brayden that we did I am really hoping that I will make it to 38 weeks. If I go to the full 40 all the better. I can say this now but once I hit 38 weeks I'm sure I'll have the feeling of being done and wanting baby girl to come ASAP! Seriously though, what's another 2 weeks at that point. Being I've only made it to 39 weeks once and the the other 3 came at 34, 38 and 37 weeks it will be interesting to see at how many weeks this baby will be born at.


If more symptoms arise or my headaches and swelling continue I will call my O.B. Until then my next appt. isn't for another 2.5 weeks.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

St. Patrick's Day 2012

After Emily made her leprechaun trap she wanted to take it upstairs. I wanted her to leave it on the table but she refused. That night when tucking her into bed I asked her why her trap was on her bedroom floor and not her bed. She said that even though her jammies had green on them she didn't want to take the chance of the leprechaun pinching her during the night. She felt that leaving her trap on the floor by her bed the leprechaun would still come but not climb on her bed while she was sleeping. I guess that thought is a little creepy. To Emily's dimay her leprechaum came but he didn't stay traped. He must have had rope to help him climb out of the buckett and then walk back down the stairs she says. Next year she's not going to have stairs. LOL

The leprechaun did leave treats for all the kids.
Both my kids bedrooms have there own bathrooms. The leprechaun must have had lots to drink during the night as he visited both bathrooms.


I think the toilet was there favorite part.


When they came down stairs they were quite excited to see our St. Patrick's Day decor.


I made a rainbow out of balloons and tissue paper. Our leprechaun left us a big pot of "greens" at the end of our rainbow.


Despite the terrible pictures I was quite pleased with the way everything turned out.

We also did our traditional meals through out the day. By breakfast I ended up with a migraine and taking pictures was the last thing on my mind. So glad I went around the night before snapping what I did get!

Breakfast: green waffles with green cream on top

Lunch: a skewer with green fruit

Dinner: corn beef and cabbage, green jello and green dinner rolls.
Emily was just to cute to watch during the day and hear her different thoughts about our green friend that visited during the night. She definetly made the day worth all the work that was done the night before.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Leprechaun Trap

This afternoon Emily with a little help from mom made a leprechaun trap for tonight. She took our St. Patrick's Day book we have and tried to copy one of the traps from the story. She started off by using an old ice cream buckett. She had me draw different shapes to construction paper and then she cut them out and taped them to the sides. With some help she made blue stairs for the leprechaun to climb to the top and then slide to the bottom where she has filled it with objects that are yellow (closet things we have that are gold). She even added a rainbow for more enticement for the little guy that will be coming to play tricks on us tommorrow. Her note says Lucky Leperchaun Slide. Will the leprechaun be caught or will he find a way to escape??

I guess tommorrow we'll find out!

Baby Chicks

This morning we recieved our much awaited 6:30 am phone call announcing that our day old chicks had FINALLY arrived. They were suppose to be here last week but had to be pushed back an extra week. We then were told they'd arrive yesterday but..... they didn't get here until this morning. Thankfully there were no casualities with the extra shipping day. Brayden is "loving" his new friends. All 25 of them.
All day long I've heard nothing but, "mom my baby chicks want me please and thankyou give me them" coming out of Brayden's mouth. He has played with them numerous times today. Sometimes he wants one and sometimes he wants two.


This afternoon after much warning I finally had to take these 2 chicks away from him before he was ready to put them back in their box. These poor little defenseless creatures were being treated too much like toys. He was having them talk to each other and play together. He was moving them around like pawns. He didn't like it when they started to wander off on there own and not stay where he had placed them. I felt like his little grip was getting a little too hard on them.


He was moving them around and treating them a little too much like his toy animals.


He loves them and isn't scared of them at all. I hope he will keep his love for them as they start to get bigger and uglier. It would be great to have one kid not be scared of chickens. Why not let that kid be the baby of the family? We'll let the 2 year old show em' how it's done!

Parental Guidance

Living in Alton for these past few months hasn't been easy. I hate it when I am asked "how do you like living in Alton?" I don't know how to answer that question. I don't hate it here but I don't love it either. If I had the chance I would move tommorrow, almost anywhere. I don't know if Alton will ever be my home! But regardless of how I feel we are here. Kory's job is here and so we will stay here. And every day I wake up I get to choose whether it's going to be a good day or a bad day living here. For the most part we have good days and I'm O.K here living this life that I am so not use to.


One of the "things" that bug me the most and that I have the hardest time with has to do with what I consider a lack of parental control/guidance whatever you want to call it. It seems like every couple of weeks something comes up that just shocks me. The people who live here do not know who or what CPS (child protective services)is! It is not uncommon to hear that children under the age of 9 have been left at home for hours while there parents are shopping in St. George which of itself is a 4 hour commute. It is not uncommon for a mom to run an errand around town having left there sleeping toddler at home by themselves. When the weather permits kids are driving quads around town with no adult, children are riding their horses around town by themselves.

Kids are playing at the park hours after dark with no parental supervision. Kory tells me this is small town life. He's right, it is small town life. He and many many others consider these kind of things the "benefits" of living in such a small community.


There are many people in our community who think that I am an overprotective mother. To a point they are right. However every couple of weeks we seem to have an incident that just floors me. The biggest that comes to mind happened this past January. Every year in January the Heaton Family (immediate and extended) gets together to slaughter, and cut up several heads of beef (18-20). The family then splits the beef between all the families. We have participated many years in doing this and then reap the benefits of having a freezer full of good meat. This past january some of the kids, aged 2-11, boys and girls went up on a near by hill and started there own fire. Some of the kids would then run down to the shop where ALL the adults were and grab handfuls of raw meat to take back to their fire and cook it. Kory was at work and I was at the kids school with my own kids when all this started. When our family later that afternoon got to the shop to "help" my kids of course ran off to find there cousins. After some time I noticed the smoke billowing up into the sky. I grabbed Kory and pointed it out to him. He and I were about ready to take off up to this said hill to investigate when one of the other adults over heard us and stopped us. The adults present knew what was going on and didn't seem to have a problem with it. Kory even stated that the kids had picked a bad spot to host their fire with all the dead weeds and trees around not to mention all the flammable garbage around. Kory asked who had started the fire and was told that the 11 year old had. Kory asked if any of the adults had gone up to make sure the fire was in a safe area, of course no one had. He asked if there was at least a buckett of water up there or something that the kids could use if it got out of hand. It wasn't a suprise to hear that there was no water near the fire.

Really???

What suprised me the most was the lack of concern from all the adults present. The mentallity was "kids will be kids". Being the overprotective parent that I am I of course made my kids stay close to the shop for the rest of day. They all knew they were not allowed any where near that fire. That night on the way home Kory talked and talked and talked to the kids about how wrong it had been for that fire to be started in the first place. How lucky everyone was that no one had been hurt. How that fire could have easily gotten out of hand and started a much bigger fire and done some damage to someone elses property. We don't play with fire! After all this talk my kids then tell us that while they were up there one of the kids had put his coat on the ground to close to the fire. Sparks and ash from the fire landed of his coat and actually started it on fire. The 11 year old up there jumped on his coat to put it out. That's great the 11 year old was able to put the unexpected fire out but seriously???


I try very hard to dress my kids nicely. We don't have a lot of money and I shop a year ahead so that dressing our children isn't as expensive as it could be. A few weeks ago Hunter's jeans (that he's had for over a year now) started getting holes in the knees. I was able to fix some of them but others were just to big! After a short time it seemed that this kid only had 1-2 pairs of jeans without holes. Being I don't allow my kids to wear holey jeans to school I felt like I was constantly washing his pants. Our local school doesn't seem to mind the holey pants but our school in AZ and even the school in Hurricane the kids went to last year states in the handbook no holes as part of there dress code. So the no holey pants to school isn't just a me thing. After weeks of searching I found JC Penny having a great sale and was able to buy him 5 new pairs of jeans for about $7 a piece. Hunter was so excited to have more than just 2 pairs of jeans to wear. It seems like all my kids are becoming extra hard on there clothes while living here. They just get more dirty and it's hard to get it all out of their clothes. Their clothes just aren't staying as nice as they have in the past.


I got a little upset with Hunter when he came home 2 weeks ago with a rip in the knee of one of his new pairs of pants. He went out with cousins after school and was climbing through fences when he got snagged on barb wire. It ripped from seam to seam. It was a clean enough cut that I was able to sew it up and you can hardly notice but he doesn't like wearing them anymore. This pair of pants is the last to be worn all week. He doesn't like the feel of the seem on his knee. To him they are ruined. This past weekend he once again was out with cousins and just came home completely muddy from head to toe. They were all on bikes and found a few mud holes to drive through. His new $80 boots that we gave him for christmas was just caked with the mud. I reminded him how much we had spent on his new boots. Kory even got after him to take better care of his new clothes and boots. His boots were so expensive he needs to make them last cause he's not getting a new pair any time soon. Kory suggested that when he gets home from school he change his pants into an older pair that I have patched up even though he doesn't like them. He also suggested to him to wear his old tennis shoes if he wants to play hard outside and get dirty just to keep his new boots new.


I guess today was the straw that broke the camels back. It's going to sound so silly but it's had me in tears for over an hour now. Hunter was once again out playing with cousins in one of the cousins barn. They all got into a can of paint. He came home with white flicks on his hand that caught my attention first. When asked what it was he told me about the paint war they had . On further inspection his shirt had white flicks of paint all over the back of it. One of his new pairs of pants he was wearing also has paint flicks all over them. As if this weren't enough his new boots are covered in paint too. I was fit to tied. I feel like I held my anger in check. I pointed out all the paint covering his body head to toe. I pointed out his new boots that he likes to wear to church on sunday's. I reminded him that his dad told him he could wear these boots to church as long as they stayed nice. He took off upstairs to change his clothes, like thats going to do anything! After several minutes he came back downstairs and was on his way outside again to go play. I noticed he still had his paint covered boots on. I told him that maybe he should try to scrub the paint off. When he turned around his face and eyes were all red. He said he couldn't get the paint off that he had tried to scrub it off already. He then left the house in tears. I was still so mad that I just let him go and of course burst into tears myself. I'm glad he was in tears. He must be feeling horrible knowing he's ruined another pair of pants and now his boots too. I'm so mad! What makes me even more mad if it were possible is knowing that the parents of the other kids involved DON'T CARE!!! Their kids go to school with holes in there shirts and pants. Their clothes always look stained. They don't have "nice" clothes to wear. I'm told that kids are kids. All kids are rough on there clothes. Kids aren't expected to wear nice things. Really?? Since when??? I've been trying to think up of a consequence for Hunter for playing in the paint this afternoon. I mean come on! Since when did playing in paint become an after school activity? He know better! The more and more I think about it though I don't know if I need to say or do anything more. I think the ruined boots is going to be enough for this little guy!


Earlier this week there was an incident on the bus where Hunter and another cousin was being blamed for something. Hunter was at scouts at the time I recieved that lovely phone call so I asked Madelyn about it. She told me her version of what had happened and said Hunter wasn't involved. Madelyn then had a friend come over a little while later. I asked for her version of what had happened on the bus. It was basicly the same as Madelyn's. When Hunter got home after scouts I asked him what had happened and was again told the same story. To me it sounds like Hunter was sitting next to his cousin who was causing all the problems and he got blamed too. Madelyn asked me if I was going to punish Hunter. I told her no being that I had been told the same story by three different kids all at different times. I believe all three of them. Madelyn then asked what would happen to the cousin who had caused the problems. I replied that I didn't know since I wasn't his mom. She then tells me that nothing will probably happen becuase they never get in trouble. They can do whatever they want and mom and dad don't care. She's even seen them do something they were told not to and not get into trouble for doing it anyways. Like I said, I really, really, really, struggle with the lack of parental control around here. And then to know that it's not just me seeing it but that my 7 year old can see it too!


Can I just ban this kid from playing with his cousins? Why he has to follow in what ever everyone else is doing is beyond me.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Kory's Ticket

We have a little green car that I do believe is on it's last leg unless Kory can figure something else out. When he drives it he has to unhook the battery cables and then rehook them for the headlights to turn on. When he gets to his destination the lights won't turn off unless he repeats the process of unhooking/rehooking the battery cables. It's just a complete nuicanse. (This is just one of the many issues our car is having).

For several months Kory's truck has been in Beaver at a mechanics getting fixed. So unfortunately driving the car was the best way for him to get to work.

The weather here has been quite sporadic as it seems to be all over our country this year. It just hasn't been a "normal" winter for anyone. It will snow for 3-4 days here and be bitterly cold, not getting much higher than 30 degrees. Then for 2-3 days we're in the high 50's and nothing but sunshine. This is causing nothing but a lot of mud. Kory's got about 5 miles one way of dirt (muddy) road to work each day. Having just gotten his truck back and not wanting to deal with the hassle of the car he took his truck to work and this is about what it looked like the next morning. Just one day going to work!!!!!Two weekends ago we took his truck to Hurricane for some much needed shopping looking like this. It was kind of funny to hear people's comments of how dirty his truck was. Before returning home we went through a car wash which was kind of a waste of money. This truck needs a good rub down not just water spraying at it in different directions. Not having a car wash any where near home or having a hose that would reach where we have park ...the truck stayed dirty. Well this past week during one of our high 50's day Kory again took his truck to work causing it once again to become absolutely filthy.
This past weekend he went to Prescott again to pick up his trailor to bring home. While in Prescott just a few blocks away of poicking up his trailor he got pulled over and given a ticket. His ticket is one of those "fix it" tickets. The ticket says he has 5 days to fix his illegble license plate. Kory called me after the cop pulled away and all we could do was laugh about this. What a silly reason to be pulled over. The cop must have been bored! Thankfully there's no fine involved (unless he get's pulled over after the 5 days and it hasn't been fixed in the state of AZ). When he got home he kinda sorta fixed it. Being he was pulling a trailor home he couldn't exactly drive through a car wash so when he got home he "dusted" his license plate off. Signed the ticket that it had been fixed and mailed it in. He drove his truck to work the next day and once again it looks like the above. At the moment I'm glad we don't live in AZ or we'd have to give the truck a daily wash so as not to get pulled over again and be fined!

I don't think a local cop would pull Kory over for this. I say this because the majority of the "local" trucks on the highway around here look very similar to this. Local cops would understand the mud issue we have going on right now with all the unpaved roads we've got around here. I just find it incredible that his truck looks like this after one day at work! Kory says until spring is here and the roads have dried out so all we've got to deal with is the dust issue he's not washing his truck again. I was really, really, really hoping that Spring was on it's way, that the snow we have will soon be gone and no more will be coming. I was quite disapointed that another storm is coming our way this weekend. Looks like snow for sat/sun and mon.

Rainbow/St. Patty's Day

For Preschool this week we are on the letter R (for rainbow) which I though was just perfect with St. Patrick's Day this weekend. Our letter project of the week was litteraly making a rainbow R. I think it turned out pretty cute. Making our rainbow project ended up being a big headache for me. Monday afternoon as I started compiling everything together for Preschool I realized that my box of Froot Loops was missing. I had just bought a box the previous weekend with this rainbow project in mind. I searched and searched and searched but to no avail. I have no idea what happened.... I'm thinking we either didn't leave the store with this paticular bag or it fell/flew out of the back of the truck on our way home. Not having a grocery store close by I started calling around to see if anyone had a box I could have and then later replace. After calling one of my sister-in-laws her husband answered the phone and said that they did indeed have a box and yes I could take it. I told him I'd be by later that night to pick it up. Well...... this said husband didn't think to mention it to his wife and so as an afternoon snack the mom had allowed her kids to basicly eat the entire box of froot loops. When I showed up a few hours later to pick up the box she had no idea I was coming and felt bad that the box was basicly empty! So what to do now when it's 7 o'clock at night and walmart is a 3 hour commute away???

I pulled out what colors I had in crepe paper. I talked my bigger kids into helping me cut many, many, many square strips and used them for our rainbow the next day. The kids had fun crumbling the paper and gluing them to their rainbow. It was something new for all of us!
Hunter had a hard time accepting that this was the best I could do. I know that grey and pink are not a color of the rainbow. I know the colors aren't in order but seriously, the preschool kids were lucky they got this much.
Do you know the colors of the rainbow??? And in the correct order??? Last year Hunter taught me something I did not know that he had learned from school. The colors of a rainbow makes a guy's name...
ROY G BIV
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Idigo
Violet

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day we read a story about a tricky leperchaun who was caught in a trap and how he escaped. Afterwards we of course had to make our own leperchaun.
I was a little taken back that my Emily was the only one of the 6 preschoolers who knew what a leperchaun was. I explained to the kiddo's that he comes every year to our house and causes nothing but mischief. We must wear something green or we'll get pinched. The leperchaun turns our milk green, he hides our shoes, etc. After reading our story the kids talked about making their own leperchaun traps non stop. When mom's came to pick em' up I warned them all about what we had talked about today. Not one of the moms have ever done anything for St. Patricks Day. Hopefully the kids will either forget by saturday or the moms will come up with something so as not to disapoint their preschooler. I did have one grandma call and thank me about our preschool day. At first I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic but in the end she was serious. She always did something for kids on this day but her daughter never has. She was babysitting this afternoon and was already helping her grandkids make there leperchaun trap for this weekend. I'm glad they learned something today during preschol!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Barbie Storage

Last week was the first week all semester long that I didn't have to fight my Quick Books instructor for a better grade on homework. Hoping that her and I now understand each other and our both on the same page I decided I'd try to get ahead a little bit. I finished 2 chapter's worth of homework and completed my mid term that is due this sunday. After doing all this I figured why stop there. I went ahead and did 2 chapters worth of assignments in my other accounting class too. My next assignment isn't due until March 22. It feels so good to be ahead. I feel like I can now make the time to do something that I want to do instead of always doing homework or the other things in life that must come first!


I have a few sewing projects that I would like to do soon. Two of them being for our baby that is due in 12 weeks. Last week I pulled out some fabric and was going to start on one of these said projects but got distracted by my girls bedroom. The 2 girls share a room which isn't always easy. Madelyn is my "clean freak". She gets it from me. Everything has a place and she expects everyone else to know where that is and to put things back where she has placed them. Emily on the other hand quite frankly could care less about having a clean room. Several weeks ago I discovered that when this little girl was asked to clean her room her solution was to shove EVERYTHING under her bed. After this happening to many times in my opinion I threatened her. I told her that ANYTHING I find under her bed would be thrown away. And I mean anything. If it was a toy it would be gone. If it was a sunday shoe it too would be thrown away and she could then walk to church shoeless in the snow! I know I'm a mean mom. Needless to say I was fed up with her way of cleaning or lack there of.


Two weekends ago the girls were cleaning there room. Madelyn complained to me that once again Emily was shoving "stuff" underneath her bed. I had Madelyn remind Emily of the consequence of her actions by doing that. Long story short these two were not getting along so I told Madelyn she was done cleaning and Emily had to finish by herself! When Emily told me she was done I peeked in her room, underneath the bed and it all APPEARED to be good. Then early last week while she was off playing at a friends house I was putting some things away and climbed up into there loft to do this. Oh my heck!!!! Can I say disaster??? Instead of putting everything away or shoving it under her bed she threw it up to her loft. There were dirty clothes, trash, drinking cups, popcorn bowls, orange peels, etc. Let's just say this mom "freaked out". Emily soon came home from her friends house to discover mom throwing everything away that had been thrown into her loft. After 2 garbage bags out to the garbage can her and I "spring cleaned" her bedroom. We got rid of another 2 garbage bags of clothes, toys and just crap that has accumulated.


We put all the toys into bins I had recently picked up and was able to move there now "old" toy dresser into the closet where we will eventually put baby girls things into. It just opened the girls room up a bit. We were able to organize the loft so that for Madelyn's sanity everything has it's own spot. The only toy we couldn't fit into the loft due to it's size was the barbie house. Seeing something like this on pinterest several weeks ago I decided to copy it. It's kind of like a shoe holder but I made mine custom fit for all the barbie paraphanelia the girls have. To Emily's delight there's room for more. Yeah!!!
Each barbie has it's own pouch. On the bottom I made the pouches big enough so that all the clothes and horses would fit too.


The girls have played babies more this week then they have in a very long time. Madelyn is in love with this new organization for all the barbies. She wants me to make more like this for Emily's babies, the ponies and the LPS. Madelyn's been wanting to give Barbie's house a make-over since Christmas when she was given some new furniture. I told her that we will do it over her Spring Break that's in a few weeks. She's got plans of painting the rooms different colors and mod podging scrapbook paper to the walls to look like wall paper. I'm hoping my parent's still have some left over linoleum and carpet that we could take a few pieces of for flooring. It's exciting to hear her talk about her plans. We'll have to take pictures of our progress through Spring Break! She is too cute and makes me laugh! For now though we are LOVING our new Barbie spot and it's perfect being so clost to the barbie house!