Weekly Wrap-Up - July 14

What a week!

Sunday, E & J were both down with a stomach bug, so didn't come over to join us for school. In the afternoon, Rodney suggested that we go check out the farm stand we'd driven by on our way to Sesame Place. It is a WINNER!!!! It's actually the farm that was one of my favorite stands at the farmer's market I used to go to, woo-hoo!!! We had a yummy supper Sunday night of roasted veggies!!! (baby potatoes, candy onions, and yellow squash) YUM!!!!!!

Monday Rodney took the girls to his mom's for the day. I love my children dearly, but I thoroughly enjoyed having a day all to myself! :) It was expensive though LOL. While shopping for a wedding present for my cousin's wedding, I stumbled upon matching twin and full size quilts for a not-horrible-for-quilts price. When we moved here, and decided on a full bed with a twin trundle in the girls' room, we got coordinating duvet covers for the beds. But we've found that 2 wiggly girls in a bed with a duvet = a comforter crumpled in the bottom of the duvet cover. The original plan was for Sassy and MiniMe to alternate sleeping with Little Bit in the double bed, but it's fallen into a routine of Sassy and Little Bit in the double bed and MiniMe in the twin. A couple of weeks ago Sassy completely gave up on the full duvet, and it's now in a pile in the corner of my room (waiting for me to wash it and pack it away LOL) she was just using blankets from the basket of throws in the living room on that bed. So . . . I was trying to decide what to do about that. When I found matching full and twin quilts for a reasonable price AND they're  pink and purple, I went with them. The girls are THRILLED and LOVE IT!! And we're back to having the bed made and looking nice, so it was worth it!!! (I'd take a picture, but Little Bit threw up last night so everything's in the laundry today, sigh . . . )

Tuesday, Penny came down with the stomach bug that the boys had over the weekend, so we kept the boys all day.



Our preschool unit is on weather/seasons (and frogs), so we've been doing a week (or, more accurately, a week's worth of lessons, since we miss days for Sesame Place and sick kids and trips to Grandmom's and such) focusing on each season. We started with summer, and Tuesday was our first day of "Autumn". So, what can be more autumn-like, and still fun (and possible) to do on a hot summer day, than bobbing for apples?!?!


The kids had a blast!!! I love that Little Bit figured out and put her hands IN the water, to brace herself better!

In the picture of Sassy bobbing for apples (above), you can see one of my new "sanity savers" in Little Bit's hand. Something that was driving me batty with the little kids, was the constant arguing over "me first" or "I want the straw", so when I was looking through my frog-theme printables, I found some number cards. I printed out 1-5, colored them, cut them out and laminated. Now anytime we need to know who gets to "go first", I just shuffle and pass out the cards, things have gone SOO much smoother, and I had to laugh, when we sat down to watch tv for quiet time on Tuesday, I said that E could choose first since Little Bit and J had chosen last week, but E asked to "use the frogs" to choose instead LOL. Ok, works for me :) (he did still get to choose a tv show, so it all worked out).

Wednesday we did school in the morning and ran errands in the afternoon.

Thursday was music lesson day.

Friday morning when my alarm went off I REALLY felt like turning it off, but I'd promised MiniMe that she could walk with me that morning, and I figured I was just "being lazy" wanting to sleep in, so I got up anyway. By the time I got home, I went to pour coffee and my stomach churned at the thought, and I still felt exhausted (usually walking "wakes me up"), so I sat down in the recliner and took a nap, I continued to feel "off" but couldn't say for sure that i was "sick" vs. "tired". When the Penny and the boys got here, I went outside to greet them, and the weather was GORGEOUS!!! Not at all "hot" just practically perfect in every way! So I figured that, combined with me not having ANY energy, aligned nicely for a "play outside morning". Even so, by mid-morning, I knew for sure that I was getting the stomach bug that had been floating around, sigh . . . told Penny I'd be spending the rest of the morning near a bathroom, but she was welcome to let the boys continue to ride bikes and such here if they wanted. She opted to go home, but invited Little Bit to go home with them, which she did.

She invited the big girls too, but by that time Rodney had started working on the swing set, and they opted to help him with that. Awhile back someone was getting rid of a swingset and Brian found out about it and took it off their hands BUT they already have a swingset at their house, so Penny asked if we wanted the extra one. We've all been busy, but Brian, Rodney and the big girls finally got as far as moving it from leaning against a tree in THEIR yard to leaning against a tree in OUR yard a week or so ago. Once it was in OUR yard, Little Bit was REALLY antsy to actually SWING on it, she LOVES LOVES LOVES swinging! So, that was Rodney's Friday project. He said the big girls helped a LOT. They didn't get it ALL done before the afternoon rain set in, but they got a good bit of it up (It's a BIG swingset!) and to the point that Little Bit can swing, so she's happy LOL. (the picture doesn't show the slide that will go on one end).

Sabbath, I was feeling better, but still drained and nauseated if I moved around too much, so I decided to stay home while Rodney took the girls to church. By Sabbath evening, I was feeling better, but as we were getting ready to go over to Penny and Brian's for supper, Rodney commented that Little Bit felt "hot", we took her temp, and she had a low fever, so she and I stayed home. She mostly slept and watched TV while they were gone.

Rodney had gotten a pack of fireworks (small ones) for the 4th, but between weather and people being sick and "dark" being past bedtimes if little ones have to get up at a certain time in the morning, we hadn't found time to do it that worked for all of us, so we were planning to do them Sat. night. We decided, since we were going to do them  at our house anyway, to go ahead even though Little Bit wasn't feeling good.  It was GREAT! They weren't "big" fireworks, but the kids loved them. E definitely loved them the most. It was fun to watch his face :) He was disappointed that there were ONLY 3 sparklers per kid (and that was more than there would have been, we had 12, but Little Bit was afraid of them, so that left 4 kids). I told him that SOMEWHERE in our garage there are more, but I don't know when I'll find them in the unpacking. I think he thought I should go unpack the whole garage that night LOL. So I know there will be much excitement if/when I DO find the sparklers that I know were in our basement at the old house.

We had a less than ideal end to the week, with Little Bit throwing up right after I'd tucked her into bed, sigh. I got her cleaned up, and put her to bed in our bed (with MiniMe to keep her company (and a bowl to make sure she didn't throw up on MY bed)) while I at least semi-cleaned up the bed upstairs, though I left the vinegar to dry on the mattress pad, and told Sassy to just make herself a bed on the floor for the night.  Little Bit didn't throw up any more during the night, and today she was "touchier" (more likely to melt down at the drop of a hat) but otherwise seemed to be fine, whew! Now I'm praying the big girls and Rodney can avoid the stomach bug, we shall see . . .