Spring Break Plans

Monday:


Piano lesson, IF (music store, scout office, WinCo), Dentist      appointments for Brienna, Zane, Callum & Emmalee; get Brienna's back x-ray.  Family Home Evening


Tuesday:


Rexburg for Rusty & I.  Attend the temple, pick up Rusty's new lenses for his glasses, get Ethan the Microsoft Office 2010 CD to re-install in his computer (that is if I can find the CD)


Wednesday: 


Prepare the kids (threaten them with their lives) to be home without mom & dad, go on overnight date with Rusty!!!!!!!!!!!!!  


Thursday: 


Come home from overnight date (hopefully the house will be standing and sparkling clean, & the kids all alive & getting along like angels!).  Sort/dejunk/organize books.


Friday:  


IF for Brienna's back doctor appointment (the back specialist from Boise comes every few months), any shopping needed, more sorting/dejunking/organizing of books.  Pamela arrives for the weekend.


Saturday: 


Gather swim suits, towels, & goggles, pile in the vehicles, pick up friends, drive to Rexburg & pick up Ethan (& maybe Austin), drive to Green Canyon Hot Springs pool for a day of swimming!!   Drive back to Rexburg, pick up Little Caesar's pizza, drop off Ethan, drive back home.  

Skiing

Friday morning I got up & did the Wii Fit.  I was just about done when the kids started coming in the living room.  And they each wanted to pick something for me to do.

So I did a few more routines.  Then Callum asked me to do the bicycling on the island.  I had done the 2nd level on Thursday, but couldn't figure out how to get to 2  of the flags.  So between Zane & Callum, they finally got me to the last 2 flags (a total of 22).  But when I finally crossed the finish line, I had "biked" 5.333 mile!  I was tired.

But I decided we had better try cross-country skiing again.  The days are getting warmer & the snow is melting quickly.

So we bundled up (this time I put on my snow pants just because the snow is so wet & I fell a "few" times last week) & headed out to the land.

It had rained Thursday and the wind had blown, so the snow was either hard & slippery, or soft & I sunk 6 inches (or more).

The boys (Zane, Rusty & Zeb) all went ahead (since I am still a slow poke).

I think this picture was when Rusty fell down (or did a nice somersault) after skiing down one of our little "fort" hills.

Zane

Rusty & Zeb

Zane

And finally--(YAY!!) a picture of Rusty & I on our skies.  (and of course, Zeb)

After Zane took our picture, we headed back to the truck.  The boys decided to go the "hilly" way (so they could ski down hills, and I took the "easy" way--back towards the fence on more even ground.  I was doing just fine--skiing on some harder, crusty snow, when all of a sudden I skied into really soft snow.  So instead of going forward, my skies just stopped and sunk.  And down I went.

Thankfully Zane didn't have the camera!  I almost got up, but then one ski slid forward & I went on my back.  (alright family--you can stop laughing now!)  I couldn't quite get up (my left knee hasn't been bugging me, but it is weaker & I have a harder time even getting up from the floor using that knee).  

And I couldn't quite get my skies off because I couldn't put enough pressure on my boots and then push with my ski pole to release them.  I'm sure it was a funny sight.  Thankfully my wonderful husband came to my rescue & released one of my skies.  He then helped me up & I finished skiing to the fence.  I decided I was wiped out from all of my exercising of the morning, so I just climbed over the style & walked on the side of the highway the rest of the way back to the truck.

Zane said he enjoyed watching me "make snow angels for 3 minutes"  

I'm glad I could entertain him!

Benjamin is Growing Up!!!

I think we're in a bit of trouble!  Benjamin can now climb back & forth over the baby gate.

We have it in the back hall--blocking the doors to our bedroom & the addition that has the kids' (Zane, Callum, Brienna & Emmalee's) room.  The food pantry, water bottles, food storage & containers are also back there.  Ben can open the kids' doors (they are newer & "easier).  Our bedroom door he sometimes can open if he has a stool to stand on.

I wonder how many messes I will be cleaning up the next few weeks??  

Benjamin & Potty Training

Benjamin enjoyed licking the pudding off the whisk.  

So how can I get mad at this cute little guy when he decides to go potty on the floor?????

He had just taken off his pull-up (we are in the beginning stages of potty training) when he ran to the other room (to get his own pull-up).  He stopped by the washer & dryer & started going potty!!!

The little stinker!!  (But at least he did NOT go on the carpet!)

More Sickness

I can't believe I've had so many posts without pictures.  


But I just wanted to update my family (& friends) about all the illness in our family.


Rusty woke up this morning not feeling well. And after stirring the summer sausage meat mixture he is making (we are cleaning out our freezer & trying to use some older meat) combined with driving Brienna to seminary (he gets car sick quite easy), he ended up being sicker than sick.  He spent almost an hour in the bathroom & couldn't stop throwing up.


After I got the kids up, dressed, fed, hair done & out the door to school, I wrote Rusty's sub plans for him while he laid on the bedroom floor.  (He didn't have the energy to get up into the bed until later)  Then I went to the school to gather everything for the substitute.  (Rusty had plans, but just not detailed plans for a sub.  And he knows where all the papers/books/assignments are & a sub. doesn't).  What I did (and also did one other time when he was sick) was talk to him on the cell phone while he explained where everything was.


By the time I got everything gathered, school had already started.  The sub. had to drive from Monteview (about 1/2 hour away), so an aid was getting things started for the class.  I got home about 8:15, and that is usually when I am almost done with my workout (usually on the Wii Fit).  So needless to say, by the time I started a load of laundry, changed into my workout clothes & exercised, it was late in the morning.  I didn't even fix breakfast until almost 10am!


Rusty finally was able to sit at the table and eat a bowl of chicken noodle soup about 1 pm.  And he felt better by the end of school, so he went to the school for a little bit (after the kids had gone home) and then he went to Cub Scouts at 5 pm (he is the Wolf den leader).  And he was able to eat dinner (chicken pot pie).  He was tired by then, but I hope he wakes up feeling good. He really needs to get to school because tomorrow evening is the elementary education fair (where the kids display their projects they have been working on for the past month).


I am hoping (and crossing my fingers) that I will have a "normal" day tomorrow!!!  please, please, please!!! 


I helped the girls (well, mostly Emmalee) go through their clothes over the weekend.  I told them for every bag (grocery-sized) of clothes they give away/throw away, then they can earn a row of "bees" (Caught Bee-ing Righteous/good).  So Emmalee gave away 1 bag to DI, 1 bag of tights to friends, and 1 bag of garbage.  She was excited.   Brienna got rid of a couple of bags too.  And since I want the boys to do just as much, I decided I had better go through MY clothes.  The plan was to start on Monday (wrong--trip to town), and then today (wrong again--sick hubby in our bed most of the day). So I really need to Wednesday!

Sugar-Free

I just have to make a clarification (for my blogging buddy, Jenny).


I have actually been sugar-free for over 11 months now.  My 1 year anniversary is April 5th.  (I cut {cold-turkey} sugar out of my diet the day after Easter last year.)  This started out as a 2 week goal, and then a month goal, and then I didn't really miss the sugar, so I decided to make it a 1 year goal.  But now that the 1 year is almost here, I think I will just continue.


And by sugar, I mean white-refined-granulated sugars.  If a food has 1 gram or less of sugar per serving (and sugar isn't in the top 5 ingredients), then I usually will eat that food.  But when I bake/cook, I do not add sugar.  I use honey & have used Stevia  a little bit also.


Then in January, we (the family) got talking about drinking pop--and Brienna didn't think I could give up my diet pop (which has been my "sweet" treat since giving up sugar).  My 2 favorites:  Shasta diet root beer & caffine-free diet Dr. Pepper.  So of course, I had to "prove" to Brienna (& myself) that I COULD give pop up.  So I decided to give up pop for 1 month--but I'm going strong and have decided to see how long I can go without my diet pop.  


So in January, I drank all the diet pop that I had bought, and my first day without pop was February 1st.  I do have to say that there are times (especially when I'm driving back & forth between IF & home) that I really miss my pops, but most of the time I don't even miss it.  And I am saving $!


So I guess I should thank Brienna for the "double-dog dare" to quit drinking pop!

Callum's Ear ache

Callum woke up last night/this morning about 1:30 in a lot of pain.  He said his ear really hurt.


Thankfully, my children haven't had very many ear aches and it had been so long since any have had an ear ache, so I got the computer out Googled home remedies to soothe ear aches.  I remember my mom putting oil-soaked cotton balls in my ears, and come to find out--that is still a good solution.  (I asked the doctor today & she agreed).  It also suggested to put a heating pad or heated rice sock on the ear. (again the doctor agreed that heat helps soothe the pain)


So last night/this morning, I stumbled around in the bathroom "looking" (as much looking as you can do with only a night light--I didn't want to wake Rusty up) for a cotton ball.  I couldn't find one (with my hands) so I pulled out some cotton make-up wipes (that I rarely use since I rarely wear make-up).


Then I heated up a little olive oil, dipped the cotton in it, carefully put it in his ear, placed the heating pad on his ear & gave him Tylenol.  Soon the moaning & groaning of pain went away & Callum fell asleep.


So this morning I called the doctor to get an appointment.  I decided that I would go to Rexburg to pick Ethan's computer up.  His computer crashed last Friday--and won't turn on.  (I was going to try to take his computer in on Thursday, but today was better!)


We left before lunch, and when we went to pick Ethan's computer up, he decided to go with us.  (Callum was excited to see Ethan's apartment!)  I was relieved that his computer is still under warranty so it will be covered.  They will have to replace his hard drive & we hope it will be done by the weekend.


After filling out all the paperwork for the computer, we had just enough time to get to the doctor's office for Callum's appointment.  They got us in quickly, the doctor came right in, and confirmed what we  all knew--he has an ear infection.  So we went to Wal-Mart and finally at lunch (around 3!!).  Thankfully I had enough snacks for the boys so they weren't starving.  The prescriptions were going to take about 1/2 hour, so we did our shopping, got the medicine & discovered we had just enough time to get 1/2 price drinks from Sonic.


I didn't get a  drink since I am still sugar-free, and as of Feb. 1st--pop free also.  We had forgotten to get Ethan's milk, so we made a quick stop at WinCo & then headed back to Rexburg.  We got Ethan's groceries /shopping items unloaded, he grabbed his backpack  & I drove him to his science class.


I'm thankful that Callum got some medicines to help him, and that Ethan's computer is under warranty & we won't have to pay anything to get it repaired.  I would have liked to get a little more housework done, but amazingly, the mess (and a bit more) was still there when I got home.


On the positive side:  Brienna made dinner for us--homemade macaroni & cheese & hot dogs & I made a salad to go with it.

Silly Emmalee!

I don't know if any of you are familiar with this book:

Silly Willy wears shoes on his hands and pants on his head--and gets things a little backwards.

So the other day, Emmalee said a few things that made us all crack up.  We said she was just like Silly Willy!

All 7 of us were getting eye drops for pink eye (it worked like an assembly line--except I kept washing my hands in-between each child).  So we used:

EYE DROPS

And we use cotton balls for taking fingernail polish out & for Callum's ear ache. 

COTTON BALLS

So last week we had Chinese food for dinner.  We had fried rice, chicken with orange & General Tao's sauce, and:

EGG DROP SOUP.  But Emmalee kept calling it:

EYE DROP SOUP!  

And yesterday, Zane made some yummy popcorn balls.  

They were quickly gobbled up.  And what did Emmalee call them....???

COTTON BALLS!!!! 

She L♥ved her "Cotton Balls"

Cross-Country Skiing

 Rusty and I went skiing (at our land) last Friday, and today.  (and we brought Zeb, too.)

 I am still a beginner at skiing (a NEW beginner!) and this was the first time I actually didn't fall.  I really can't contribute that fact to my skiing skills, but to the fact that it had snowed about an inch the night before, and it was lightly snowing (and blowing) when we were skiing (see that I am all bundled up!)

 So I wasn't skiing on "ice" or frozen slick snow!  Zeb always loves having a big, big "playground" to run around and find "things" (usually horse pooh or some other gross thing).

 I looks like I am posing for my picture, but I'm really trying to figure out if I can make it up the hill slight incline without falling backwards.

Today (Friday, March 4th) Rusty and I (and Zeb) went skiing again.  But in the past week, it has rained, melted and the sun has come out.  So the snow was crunchy & "crusty" and the snow kept "grabbing" my skies.  I didn't take the camera today, so no pictures.  And it was probably a good thing, because I fell down--just once, but I caught myself many, many times.

By the time we got back to the truck, I had shed my coat & sweat was rolling down my back.  It really wasn't hot outside, I just had a good workout in the softer snow!

I hope to go out again tomorrow--before we know it, there won't be enough snow for skiing!

Emmalee and Benjamin

I have some fun pictures of my 2 youngest (I guess most of their pictures are always fun!).

I was cleaning the house last Friday (it actually stayed clean for about an hour!!) and Emmalee wanted a snack.  I told her she had to eat it in the kitchen since I was vacuuming.  So I turned around and found the 2 kids sitting on my (clean) counter.

 I asked her what she was doing, and she said she wanted to keep the floors clean (since I had just swept the kitchen) so she decided to sit on the counter.

Then she would only spill on her lap!  (good thinking!)

 Benjamin's newest past-time (if a 2 year old can have a past-time) is putting the 24-piece puzzles together.

 He has spent almost an hour putting the puzzle(s) together, taking it apart, and putting it back together.

I asked him what he was doing and he showed me the puzzle piece.

 Emmalee found some hillbilly teeth in the dress-up, so she spent half the day "scaring" everyone with her smile!

I have to say she's still too adorable, even with those ugly teeth.

I just sent her to brush ;)