Saturday, May 30, 2009

Some Kindergarten "Lasts"

We had a few kindergarten "lasts" this past week:

- Last project (he had to choose an animal and create a project about the animal, its habitat, food, etc.)


- Last show-and-tell (it's always the last Friday of every month; this month he showed his Bionicle)


- Last homework packet (at the beginning of the month, his teacher gives out a homework packet for language arts and a homework packet for math, with a daily assignment in it, to be turned in at the end of the month)


And next week will be his last week as a kindergartener!

Here comes summer!

Friday, May 29, 2009

The W* Bites

Warning: Gross leg picture below:









Day 7

Mike went to the doctor this morning, and showed him his legs.

The doctor was horrified.

Which says something about how bad his legs were. Because doctors have pretty much seen it all.

He has a bad case of cellulitis, which is an infection of the soft tissue under the skin, which came about from an infection to the insect bite. He's on 2 antibiotics for that and a strong dose of Benadryl. The doctor also said that the rings around the bites on his arm look like Lyme disease. Which doesn't make sense because of where we live. So, who knows what's going on with his arm.... but, whatever it is, the antibiotics should take care of it.

I'm actually getting a bit worried. Even after a few doses of antibiotics today, his legs look bad. Just from this morning they've gotten way worse. The doctor said to go straight to the ER if they spread at all (they have), but he wants to wait until tomorrow and see what they look like. It's crazy to compare how they looked last night versus tonight.

And in other biting news here, Grace jumped off the chair tonight and bit clear through her lip in 2 spots. Fortunately, they are small and don't require stitches.


We're crossing our fingers and praying that Mike's legs look much better in the morning, and we can celebrate his birthday this weekend!

Because being in bed on your birthday bites.

(Sorry, had to do it).

Memorial Day

Swimming


Barbecuing


Sparkler-ing


Celebrating (our 8th anniversary!)



It was a fun day.

Bedtime Reading


I have always loved reading.

I remember being in 2nd grade and finding a Nancy Drew book on the bookshelf in the living room. I stayed up really late that night, discovering the wonders of mystery books and reading in bed at night. And, that love has never gone away. Every night before I go to sleep I grab a book off the shelf and read for a while.

And it really makes me smile lately when I've walked past Adam's room at 10:30 at night, hours after he was put to bed, and have seen him reading.

He LOVES The Magic Tree House books, and is rarely without one these days. For the past few weeks they've gone on car rides, to the park, to the grocery store, church meetings, and even on the overnighter with Mike.

And there's always one tucked under his pillow.

For bedtime reading.

It's one thing that he got exclusively from me (Mike's not a fan of the whole reading in bed thing).

And it really makes me smile.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Father & Son's Campout / Girl's Night!

(After I posted that blog this afternoon... our computer has been working. Maybe it just needed to be tattled on? Who knows).

Mike and Adam went to on our ward's "Father & Son's" campout last Friday and Saturday. They went to a really cool campground that the church owns about an hour from here, that had a swimming pool, nice camp sites, and a field to play ball in. They had a lot of fun swimming, eating junk food, and playing baseball. It's the first campout that our ward has had in years, and there was a lot of confusion, but they had a great time! I sent the camera with them, hoping for some fun camping pictures. Instead I got this:


They had forgotten the flashlight, and when Adam had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, they used the flash on the camera to light their path.

Only Mike. :)

And after a while, the batteries died. So, I got no real pictures of their campout.

However, I do have some great, random shots of the forest/their feet at night.

Because they had the camera, there are no pictures of the fun that Grace and I had, either. We dressed up, painted our nails, had a tea party, watched Eloise, and Grace crashed around 8:00. This left plenty of time for my imagination to run wild, as I listened to the police helicopters flying above our home with their big searchlights. At one point, I was huddled on the couch under a blanket, just sure that the criminal was looking at me through the window.

I watched too much Unsolved Mysteries as a child.

And, I have an over-active imagination.

It was a long night.

The next day, after I woke up and happily discovered that I hadn't been stabbed to death in my sleep, Grace and I went to Target and spent two hours looking around at the toys and books and clothes. We bought some more nail polish, and came back just before the boys. They pulled up, dirty and smelly and tired, but had a GREAT time together, and we spent the rest of the day getting everything cleaned up. Mike's legs started itching that night, and we discovered he had over 40 insect bites on his legs, feet, and hands. He's been miserable throughout this week, but tonight when he came home from work, his legs looked really bad.

Day 3

Day 6

He's very swollen, has black dots in the center and circles around the bites, and the redness is still spreading after almost a week.

Everything I read tells me that this isn't normal.

So, he's headed to the doctor tomorrow morning, and hopefully he will get his bite issues resolved.

And not to be all "I'm right, you're wrong", but I sent 2 bottles of insect repellant. That he wouldn't use.

So, if a situation comes up in the future where he's wondering if he should listen to me, I will have documented this forever. Just saying. :)

Computer Issues

Our computer is having issues. It shuts down after being on for a few minutes, and then won't turn on again for hours/days. It's crazy. And it makes blogging impossible.

And I'm just not all that talented in the computer-fixing department.

I've known that we have needed a new computer for a while now. We got this computer almost 6 years ago. Four of those years were spent with one (or both) of us in school full-time... needing to do a lot of homework, research, and projects.

And then when we first moved to Las Vegas, I missed family so much that I checked my email/blogs about every 5 minutes, to see if there was any news.

Sad.

So, it's pretty much been on 24 hours a day, for five years.

I really don't blame it for not doing well.

But, I'm still kind of angry with it, because new computers are expensive. And crazy confusing. I went to Best Buy just to look around and see what prices were, and, wow! Turns out computers have changed in 6 years.

I have much to write about (Father and Sons camp out, Memorial Day, etc.)... but it's going to have to wait until we figure out what's wrong with this thing.

Just wanted to let family know that we're alive. :)

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Fun Field Trips

Adam's gone on lots of fun field trips this school year:

- Renaissance Festival-September

Please don't be jealous of my awesome photo editing skills

- Albertson's Grocery Store Healthy Food Tour-October


- Lied Discovery Science Museum-March (forgot camera... ugh!)

- Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay-May


- "KA" (Cirque de Soleil) Theatre Tour at MGM Grand-May


Adam's LOVED getting to go to so many fun places and learning so many new things. And because we have to drive him/chaperone (there's no buses at his school), we've gotten to go to some pretty fun places, too. Something really nice is that they've all been free. The different places haven't charged admission, which makes it even better!

It's been a great year, and we can't wait to see what fun field trips he gets to go on next year!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Adam's Pic of the Day

I can't decide:

If I should stop leaving the camera on the counter where he can get to it...


... or, if I should leave it out more often.

This picture just cracks me up.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Our Family Fun Night


A while ago, Adam and I were reading my sister-in-law's blog. She wrote about how every Friday they have a "Family Fun Night." He said, "How come we don't do anything fun like that?"

Which is just plain rude, because every night is a family fun night around here.

;)

Anyways, he didn't mention it again until the following Sunday, when we had the missionaries over for dinner. Adam told them how we were going to start having a "Family Fun Night" every Saturday and how incredible it was going to be.

The missionaries were mucho impressed with our family-bonding skills, and kept going on and on about how families don't spend enough time with each other and how great we were for doing so.

Mike and I kind of muttered, "Uh-huh" and "Yeah", and Adam smiled gleefully knowing that he had us.

So, we got sucked into having a weekly family fun night, too.

It's actually been a lot of fun. We take turns rotating what to do, with the requirements being to keep it cheap and something the whole family can do (as in not Lego Star Wars :) ). And we normally try to get out of the house. Because I spend all days on Saturday cleaning it and want it to stay clean at least until Sunday morning.

Last night was Mike's turn. His family fun nights are the best, because he gets all creative and finds different things for us to do. He found out about a fun parade and fireworks show happening downtown, and that's where we ended up going. The parade was really fun (Grace is determined to be a cheerleader someday) and we were SO close to the fireworks!


We all had a great time!

And even though I was a little stressed about having an official family fun night on Saturday nights (which can be crazy getting ready for church and all), I'm so glad that we got guilted into began doing this. It's been a lot of fun.

Friday, May 15, 2009

The Way To Adam's Heart

Tonight, I made Chipotle Cashew Chicken for dinner. It's really yummy. While we were eating, Adam and I had this conversation:

Adam: Who made this mom?
Me: I did.
Adam: I mean, who made up the recipe? Where did you get it from?
Me: I got it from the Internet from a cook called Rachael Ray.
{pause}
Adam: I LOVE Rachael Ray! She sure can cook!

I know how to get to his heart now...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Happy Mother's Day?

For Mother's Day, the men/young men made cookies and treats to put in takeout boxes for all of the women.

Mike spent hours baking after he got home from work on Saturday, and when I went to bed late that night, this is what my kitchen looked like:


All of my friends had similar situations and we all agreed that next year we needed to steer them in a different direction.

A direction that doesn't leave us messy kitchens to clean up on Mother's Day.

:)

(Don't worry, Mike did help clean up later. I just thought it was pretty funny.)

Some Fun Stuff This Week

- A fun Mother's Day on Sunday.


I got just what I wanted: homemade cards proclaiming my motherly awesome-ness, chocolate, and Adam singing in church to me for the first time ever. Mike was going to make dinner that night, but crazy church stuff didn't allow for this. So I ended up making these yummy sandwiches.

- A fun time cooling off at the park on Monday.


A lot of the parks here have a water feature, and it's just the thing to cool off on a 97 degree day.

- A fun surprise visitor on Tuesday.


My brother, Doran, came up to Las Vegas to deliver some stuff for work and we met up with him on Tuesday night at his hotel. The kids were thrilled to see him!

- Some fun photography by Adam on Wednesday.


It's shaping up to be a pretty fun week so far!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Bully

Yesterday, Adam came home with red marks all over his back/chest. The bully at school had lashed him with a jump rope and when Adam ran away, he tackled him to the ground and threatened him.

Nice.

This is exactly what I was trying to avoid by putting him at a non-ghetto school.

This kind of stuff has been going on with this kid for a month: hitting, punching, shoving, etc. And, honestly, this situation is seriously probably the hardest thing I've gone through as a mother.

On the one hand, I want to march down to the school and give the kid a taste of his own medicine, because he's hurting my baby. A part of me wants to yank Adam out of school and shelter him in our home so he will never get hurt again. BUT, being picked on and fights are a part of growing up and life. At some point, everyone gets picked on, and I know that he needs to learn how to stand up for himself and deal with this, and that me stepping in isn't really helping.

We've talked a lot about what to do with this situation (trying to befriend him, ignoring him, telling a teacher, and even yelling at him to 'Go Away!'). Nothing has helped. Yesterday, when he came home crying and I looked at him, the red marks everywhere escalated this to a whole new level.

I really didn't know what to do (talk to his mom?), and finally decided to talk to Adam's teacher first. I wrote a note to his teacher and we talked after school today. She talked to both of them, disciplined the boy, and the situation has (hopefully) been taken care of and is over.

I'm glad that it's over. I'm glad that I didn't lose my temper. I'm glad that Adam's teacher listened and resolved the situation.

I'm mostly glad that it's over.

I still feel a little weird about stepping in, but I think it was needed. I'm his mother and one of the job requirements is that I keep him safe. And I'm doing my best to do that.

But, I'm thinking maybe a karate class is in order.

To help with the self-esteem and to encourage him to be able to stand up for himself.

And it can't hurt to know how to chop a board in half, if by chance the bully picks on him.

Right?

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Thinking About Summer...

summer '08

Adam gets out of school in a little over a month. Crazy. I can't believe that soon I will have a first grader.

I've been thinking a lot about summer: what I want to do, how I'm going to keep Adam from forgetting everything he learned in the midst of the break, and the fun holidays.

I'm trying not to think about the heat, however.

We have no major vacations planned... Mike's job is too busy and we're trying to save. Sorry Phoenix fam. But, I would like to do some fun, little things as a family. Like camping and a day trip or two.

I'm getting kind of excited for summer, though, something that I doubt has happened before. I think it's because I miss Adam so much while he's at school and want to take advantage of our time.

This summer, I'm looking forward to:

-swimming
-Adam (hopefully) taking swim lessons
-the 4th of July
-barbecues with friends
-going camping together
-Grace being completely out of diapers (she's SO close!)
-play dates at the water park
-lots of library trips for reading material and storytime
-monsoon storms (the few we get here)
-hunting for cicada shells
-having some fun learning time everyday (colors/alphabet for Grace, reading/math/science for Adam)
-strawberries: eating them and making freezer jam
-picnics
-bug catching
-craft projects
-staying up late and watching movies together
-doing another ant farm
-participating in the Barnes and Noble summer reading program
-eating lots of basil dishes... I LOVE basil and our plants are doing great!
-Pioneer Day (if Mike gets the day off, we're heading up to St. George for the day!)
-Adam's Birthday
-Grace's Birthday
-early morning/after-dinner walks and bike rides

There will probably be some Lego Star Wars thrown in there, too.

:)

Adam has a lot left to do in this last month of school: 2 field trips, 2 projects, field day, tests, and homework (his teacher PILED it on this last month of school). So, I can't lose focus, yet. BUT, so excited that soon I'll get him all day.

Before having to let him go back to first grade all day.

:(

We're just going to focus on the fun summer part and not think about that yet.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!


We went to the Las Vegas 51s baseball game tonight (with the tickets we won) and we had a GREAT time!

Our seats ended up being "dugout" seats so we were on the ground, just to the left of home plate. I've never sat so close before, and it was awesome. And everyone was really nice. There weren't too many people there, so the 51s workers down in the dugout let Adam and Grace roam around into different seats, and gave them lots of suckers. AND to make it even better, it was free t-shirt night.

Does it get any better? Seriously.





The only real disappointment came from Grace, who thought we were going to play baseball, and yelled "MY TURN!" about every 2 seconds. Once she discovered Cosmo, though, she was okay with just watching. She loved that ugly alien. Adam notsomuch. He thought he was creepy.

We had so much fun cheering for our team who, unfortunately, lost 4-0.

Adam was a bit bummed that no foul balls flew our way (I was happy... worried about getting hit on the head). But, he was THRILLED when he saw our TV news weather guy sitting a few seats down.

It felt very celebrity-ish. :)

It was so fun, and I'm so glad that we got to go!