Our Family: Week of 6/2-6/8

On Monday Grace had a field trip to Mount Charleston for the Lee Canyon Challenge Course.

It was an all-day field trip with lots of climbing, jumping, and fun.

She came home happy (and exhausted).

***

On Tuesday, Adam had his "Crossover" from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.

It was a sweet ceremony.

I can NOT believe I have a Boy Scout!

After his ceremony, he spent his last Webelos activity learning about circuits.

***

On Wednesday, Josh, Sam and I went to Target to get some essentials...

... and happened upon some 75% off jackets and pullovers for next winter.

Which, obviously, needed to be worn as soon as they got home from school in the 108 degree weather.

;)

***

On Thursday we wrote a whole pile of "thank you" notes to the amazing teachers and staff at the kids school.

Adam with his advisory teacher, Mrs. Sanchez:

Grace with her advisory teacher, Mr. Ocasio:

I could NOT have asked for better teachers for my kids this year.

They have grown sooo much.

Good teachers are amazing.

***

On Friday, the kids had field day for their last day of school!

Followed by an after school sports banquet/swim party.

Followed by our "Summer Family Party."

Followed by an epic water war with their newly acquired water balloons.

Followed by donuts (it was National Donut Day, afterall)...

... followed by some serious sleep by some exhausted kids.

***

Last week Sam discovered he could grab his toes.

He spends every waking moment, when he's not eating, with them in his hands.

Pretty darn cute.

Adam had a basketball game Saturday morning.

He scored 2 points and had a lot of fun playing "full court" (they usually are half-court because other teams are playing at the same time).

That afternoon we held our lemonade stand for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation with my Activity Days girls.

We had a fun time, made $37, and drank a whole lotta lemonade in the crazy-hot heat.

(I think next year we will try morning again... cooler AND we made more money).

It was an awesome last week of school.

Bring on summer!

Our Family: Week of 5/26-6/1

On Monday, we celebrated Memorial Day.

Grace's ears were still hurting, so we gave her lots of fluids, ibuprofen, and warm rice packs.

She was doing better by the evening, so we had a yummy barbecue dinner and drove out to Southern Highlands, for the fireworks show.

On the way there, Grace threw up in the car.

We got her cleaned up, and watched the fireworks from the car while we drove back home.

***

On Tuesday, Adam headed back to school.

Grace stayed home.

Her ears were still hurting a little, so we didn't want to take any chances.

That evening, Adam received his Arrow of Light award.

We are so proud of his hard work in Cub Scouts!

***

On Wednesday Josh shared his chair with Sam.

These boys are so cute!

***

Thursday was a pretty busy day.

We started off the morning watching Grace's presentation on Alexander Graham Bell.

She did a great job!

We raced home from her presentation to feed Sam and pick up the house before heading back for the school talent show.

Grace's class performed a song from "Grease" and performed her "Pompeii" dance with the rest of the cheerleaders.

She did sooo good!

Adam played "Demons" by Imagine Dragons on the piano.

The kids were pretty restless (it was a long talent show), but I loved how the room became dead silent as he played and they all listened.

(My video of the actual performance isn't so hot... a tired/bored 4-year-old and a tired/bored 4-month-old on my lap made video taking tricky).

:)

So we recorded it again at home for ya.

He did a wonderful job, too.

***

On Friday Josh painted me a plate, like he had seen Grace give me a few years ago for Mother's Day.

Of course, Grace's was on a ceramic plate specifically made for painting...

;)

It was a sweet thought.

He has been having a rough time lately.

I think the excitement of Sam has passed and he's missing not getting as much of my attention.

Luckily, his best buds will be out of school soon, and he will get plenty of playtime with them.

***

On Saturday we went to Adam's basketball game.

He scored 8 points.

I am so thankful he was able to participate in basketball this season (just 2 more games!).  It's been so good for him.

***

On Sunday, we headed to the other side of town for our nephew/cousin, Noah's, baby blessing.

(These pictures are shamelessly stolen from my sister-in-law Kristi).

Afterward, we had lunch at their house together.

It was a great Sunday.

It's so fun to have family in town!

Our Family: Week of 5/19-5/25

On Monday, Mike went into work for a couple of meetings he had to take care of (it was his day off).

The school called, and I didn't hear the phone.

So, they reached Mike at work (who, luckily, happened to be there).

Grace had gotten sick at school, and needed a change of clothes.

She felt fine, and didn't have a temperature, so the nurse said we could keep her at school.

So we did.

It ended up being the beginning of a weird week-long virus for Grace.

That afternoon Mike slept.

We went to Sam's Club (our mysterious membership is still good, so we stocked up on the bread and milk).

Ate an afternoon snack of samples.

And came home to wake Mike up so he could grill for us (aren't we nice?) and eat with us, before he went back to bed for a few more hours of sleep.

We love him (and his awesome grilling skills).

***

On Tuesday, Mike took the new van to the hotel to work... and it broke down on him on the way home.

We are so thankful for our awesome roadside assistance!

We got him to work (and made him promise not to drive his new van until it was fixed).

Adam surprised me that afternoon with a new read he borrowed from a teacher:

It has nothing to do with wimpy kids or Origami Star Wars characters or underwear.

I have been begging him to stretch himself in the reading area... and he willingly did.

And he's loving it.

Score for classic books!

***

On Wednesday Grace had her last cheer practice.

I am so thankful she got to be on the team this year... she learned so much.

They have one more performance at the talent show, and it is so bittersweet, as her cheer instructor is moving to Colorado next year.  Her cheer instructor is a 7th grade teacher at their school who was a cheerleader in high school, and wanted to continue with her passion, so she spent her after school time 3 days a week making a cheer team.  There's a good chance there won't be a cheer team next year, so I am thankful she got to be a part this year!  It's been sooo good for her!

That evening, Mike got to go to several of his young men's spring choir concert.

He had a great time listening to those super-talented guys.

After school, Grace started feeling tired.

She came down with a high temperature that evening, with no other symptoms, and went to bed early.

***

On Thursday morning, Grace was still fever-ish, so she stayed home from school.

While she slept, the rest of the family woke up to healthy carrot-oatmeal-whole-wheat-Greek-yogurt muffins for breakfast.... in Christmas wrappers (it's how I roll).

They tasted... very healthy.

:)

Several hours later, Grace was back to her usual self.

And making my favorite baby boy smile.

The check engine light had come on in our van (again) so Mike checked it out, changed the thermostat, and took it on a test drive.

It worked great.

Yay!

We had a fun evening together as a family, until Grace started complaining about not feeling well, and she came down with a fever and sore throat again.

***

On Friday morning, our doorbell rang bright and early at 6:30.

My brother, Morgan, was at the door.

He had gotten to Las Vegas in the middle of the night and slept in our backyard.

The kids were super-excited to see him.

We hung out and began getting ready for our trip to Phoenix.

Grace was feeling fine... until that afternoon when she broke out with a weird rash on her face.

***

On Saturday, my brother noticed that our tire had a huge bubble in it.

And it needed to be changed.

So they took care of it.

It made me start thinking about Phoenix.

Nothing just was going right; we had $500 in un-expected car repairs this month.  Everything just seemed to need replacing.  Grace was having the world's weirdest illness.  I couldn't find a sub for my Primary class. And I had an insanely painful clogged milk duct that I was worried was bordering on mastitis, so I spent my time pumping/nursing/sanitizing the pump like crazy trying to get it un-clogged, taking away from packing time.  Nothing was working out.

But, we hadn't been to Phoenix for 2 years, and wanted to see Mike's family and attend my brother's wedding reception.  Grace had been fine all day... no fever, sore throat, or cough.  Her rash was going away, and we thought she was doing better.

So, we decided to leave at 3:30 in the morning, early Sunday, get to Phoenix in time to go to church with Mike's family, and have a great weekend with family.

***

At midnight on Sunday, Grace woke up screaming that her ears hurt.

Her neck and chin were full of swollen lymph nodes, and both ears "killed."

We decided that Phoenix just wasn't meant to be.

Mike and I celebrated our 13th Anniversary on Sunday.

And by "celebrated" I mean we took care of a sick Grace and scraped together a random assortment of food for dinner.

(We had planned on being in Phoenix, eating dinner with Mike's family, so I hadn't made a grocery trip/menu plan).

We had been hoping to sneak in a date while in Phoenix, because the last one was in October.... but that plan got scratched with us staying home, too.

But, that's real life, people!

And, honestly, I will take real life with this guy by my side, any day.

Our Family: Week of 5/12-5/18

On Monday, Adam went with his advisory class to a field trip to the "Lion Habitat."

The MGM hotel here used to have a live lion show.  They ended it a few years ago, but the lions that were a part of it live on a farm here now.

I let him take a camera, and he had a great time with his friends watching the lions get fed, watching them play, looking at some new baby cubs, and learning about them and other animals.

***

On Tuesday, I took Sam and Josh to the dentist.

Sam's tongue tie is doing great.  We have one more re-check in 3 weeks, and hopefully he will be good-to-go after that.

Josh had his check-up and he did great.

We love our new dentist... she is so fun and patient.

They had some dinosaurs for him to brush and examine while he waited.

And some cute sunglasses to wear, so the light didn't bother him.

He had perfect cavity-free teeth, and got a treasure from the treasure box.

Yay, Josh!

Afterward, we cleaned out the car and went through the car wash.

It had been way too long, and it's on my list of things to do before we leave for Phoenix for Nate's wedding.

***

On Wednesday, Grace was in her school Spelling Bee.

She knew the words (we had practiced like crazy) and was doing sooo good!

On the 4th round, her word was "shadow."  She got too excited, because she knew it, and went too fast, and mixed up the "d" and "o" in her haste.

She was sooo bummed, but is determined to get the trophy next year!

***

On Thursday Adam and Grace went on a school-wide field trip to watch the school's play, "The Most Epic Birthday Party Ever."

(Their school is too small to have everyone in one room, so a church let them use it for the performance.)

While they were off having fun, Josh and I took Sam to the doctor for his 4-month well check.

Baby boy is determined to be the world's biggest baby:

He weighed 20 lbs 14 ounces and was 26.5 inches long.

Josh wasn't that big until he was 15 months old!

After school, I found out we were in charge of taking home the class tree frog, Cosmo.

Again.

I think Adam volunteers extra because he just loves this guy!

That evening, I held Activity Days at the park, so we could work on our physical fitness.

Josh quickly found the water feature, though.

The rest of us ran and played volleyball.

And Sam slept.

Those shots just wore him out.

***

On Friday, Mike's co-worker gave us a van.

He had been given one, and wanted to pay his old one forward.

It has 200,000 miles on it and breaks down spontaneously while driving.  Mike is determined to fix that thing so he has his own vehicle.

And, man alive, it would be soooo nice not to have to drive him to/from work every day.

He only works 5 miles away, and it's on the way to the kids school.  Which is a huge blessing.  But, we have to wait for him to get done each day.

And sometimes things come up, and after we wait outside for 30+ minutes, he comes out and tells us to come back in a few hours.

So, while I'm not complaining about it (really!) it would be a huge convenience for him to drive himself.

Because, waiting in a car with 4 kids is no bueno.

(We are so thankful for his kind co-worker, Bond.)

***

On Saturday, we picked up our Bountiful Basket.

I only order one if Mike works late on Saturday, because there is no way I am hauling 4 kids across a parking lot, carrying a heavy basket of produce, at 7 in the morning.

Ain't nobody got time for that!

(Sorry.  I had to.)

We love getting Bountiful Baskets, so I am so glad that we were able to this week... this kids go through a lot of fruit, I tell ya!

That afternoon, we went to Adam's basketball game.

He did great, and made 9 points, including an awesome 3-pointer.

***

On Sunday, Sam started sticking out his tongue!

He was all ten kinds of jealous of his cousin, Noah, who sticks out his tongue all of the time.

But, Sam's tongue tie prevented that.

It is sooo cute how he keeps playing with it and sticking it out.

That evening we had a wonderful dinner with our good friends, the Chidesters.

I am so thankful for good friends.

And babies who can stick out their tongues (finally).

;)