Upgrade Needed

Almost every morning I find Emmaline and Maxton like this:



Now they each have their own beds, but they seem to prefer snuggling up together to sleep. Sometimes they sleep in Emmaline's bed (which is the one in this picture, which is also just a toddler sized bed) and sometimes they sleep in Maxton's bed (which is the old crib converted to a toddler bed).

I think I need to get rid of both toddler beds and just upgrade them to a full or queen sized bed so they aren't quite so squished every night!

Upward Sports

This year, Adrianne and Riley are participating in Upward Sports. Adrianne is playing basketball and Riley is Cheering.

So far they have really enjoyed themselves. We are about half way through the season and they have both improved SO much from when they first began.

These pictures were taking during their first game.

Emmaline With Old Man Beard

Just a goofy picture of Emmaline with her "beard".

Resolutions

Normally I don't make New Year resolutions. But in reflecting back on the past year I do have some goals that I would like to work towards in the upcoming days. I'm sure that I will come short on many of these, but I hope that putting them out there will give me some extra incentive to succeed.

1. Make Housework Manageable. I know I went into this one in my last post, but I really DO want to do better with this. When we got back from traveling, I took the opportunity of Matt having an extra day off (we had to cut our OH trip short due to an upcoming storm that would have made the drive difficult), to clean out the closet in Emmaline & Maxton's room. The closet in their room is mainly just used for storage. We have boxes of books, DVDs, some school supplies, and other random items. It's also the place where I stash things away that I intend to donate until we get around to dropping them off at either Goodwill or the Crisis Pregnancy Center. The closet was a wreck. Things piled everywhere. But I cleaned it out. And the very act of cleaning it was cathartic. It felt SO good to get it looking nice and organized. I can WALK in there now. I can FIND everything. I want to continue working on the rest of the house, little by little, and get it all in the same shape. We have SO MUCH STUFF that just needs to find a better spot in our home or find a new home altogether!

2. Start Running Again. I used to run cross country way back in high school. That seems like ages and ages ago. The thing is that I really ENJOY running. It's nice to just be alone with your own thoughts for a while. I'm not even wanting to do it really so much for the health benefits (although that is definitely a bonus), but rather just to get a little bit more "me" time in each day. I have no intention (at this point) of running marathons or anything like that. Just running for the love of it.

3. Read More. I used to read. A lot. I DEVOURED books. But as I've become more and more busy I find that I don't often pick up a book consistently. But I want to change that. My goal is to read at LEAST one book a month. Hopefully more, but like with the cleaning, I want something manageable. Right now I'm reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It was a random splurge "purchase" I made when I was picking up some books at the library for the kids to use for school. The checkout line was long and I got stuck into one of the fiction aisles, saw it and decided to bring it home too. I've always been intrigued by polygamy (like why any women would consent to share her husband and psychological impact it must have on those women). So far, I'm enjoying it.

4. Advance in Sewing. I want to learn new techniques and in general get better at sewing. I really enjoy sewing. Immensely. So it's no surprise that I want to do more of it. However, sewing can be an expensive hobby, so that's why my goal is to attempt new skills rather than just do mass projects.

So that's my resolutions for the year. I feel that there should be a 5th, but honestly I only want to add one on for balance, so I purposefully won't! In overlooking them, it appears that the common thread between most of them (all but the first), is doing more things to make ME happy. But I think it's about time that I had a "selfish" year.

New Year, New Routine

A very happy New Year to you and yours!

Yes, I realize I am only 9 days behind. We traveled over the holidays, visiting family in SC, NC, and OH and it takes a while to get settled back into the old routine!

Only we're NOT settling into the OLD routine. We're busy starting new ones.

This year, I am DETERMINED to get my house under some type of control. I am ashamed to admit it, but housework is the thing I always slack off on when there is too much to do in a day. But NO MORE! I know that my girls are totally old enough, and capable enough to really lend a hand and help out around here. So that's exactly what I'm trying to teach them.

In order to not overwhelm everyone, each kiddo has ONE morning chore that they must finish before noon. It's already written down for them and I don't remind them what they are supposed to do. If they don't finish it before noon, they loose a toy (something we have in plentiful supply).  Then they also have ONE dinnertime chore to do. Because I have three kids who are old enough to help out (Max gets a pass for this year), I'm amazed at the amount of work that has been accomplished and I DIDN'T DO IT! But I didn't leave myself out either. I also have scheduled myself with one big morning chore to do. Again, it might not be much, but it's a manageable and realistic amount to keep up with day to day.

Then in addition to our new routines, there's the normal schoolwork, laundry, dishes, shuttling to basketball/cheerleading & choir, etc.  Yup, I can already confirm that it's going to be another busy year around these parts!

Family Visit: Friday Swimming and Fall Fest!

By Friday EVERYBODY was feeling good. No one had puked in over 24hours and I was relieved to think that we might be close to putting all the sickness behind us. Matthew, Linda, Micheal, Riley and I all seemed to have squeaked by without getting too sick (both Matt and Mike felt "off" a bit, though). I must admit I was patting myself on the back for my aggressive cleaning and sanitizing of every common surface used (door knobs, light switches, etc.) as well as liberal use of bleach in the laundry.

We decided to head out and go SWIMMING! We packed up a picnic lunch and headed out to the pool. I think we stayed out there for like three hours before coming home. Micheal even attempted to teach my big girls how to dive. Riley was getting the hang of it, but Adrianne, well not so much!

After swimming we headed home to rest up a bit before we headed back out to Matthew's school for their Fall Festival.

Every year his school hosts a Fall Festival fundraiser where each grade level sponsors a carnival type booth. There are lots of games for the kids to play and they collect tickets to turn in for little prizes. My big girls went last year and had so much fun, that I thought the boys would enjoy it as well.

While we were at the Fall Festival, Mike and Bethany decided to take advantage of the free babysitting and head on out for a date! I think they went out to dinner (at least they had take-home boxes with them!). I don't know how it was though because I just realized I never asked them where they went or how it was! I am a bad host!

After we all got home it was time to get the kiddos off to bed and for the adults to start packing.

Just like that our week was already over. :(

But Riley was acting funny. I asked her several times if she felt okay and she kept insisting she felt fine. But my mommy instinct told me something was up.

And sure enough, I was right. Shortly after everyone else had headed to bed, Riley came out and informed me that " SOMEONE" had puked in their room. After a few more hard questions, I determined that the "someone" was in fact HER and she was just "too scared" to tell me. So after doing a bunch of clean up (she had made a BIG mess) I got her set up to sleep with me and spent the night taking care of her.

The next day was of course Saturday and our family was all up bright and early to make their flight. We dropped them off at the airport, said our quick goodbyes and just like that our sick and fun week came to an end.

Looking back, the week was a blur. I still feel terribly that everyone was so sick and hate that we didn't get to have as much fun as we usually have together. I hate that they spent all that money to come all this way to be sick, but we DID try to take advantage of the time we had together and felt GOOD.

Luckily for us, Christmas is right around the corner and hopefully everyone will be HEALTHY as horses for that visit!

Family Visit: Thursday Children's Museum

On Thursday the weather wasn't cooperating and my kids were still sort of sick. Adrianne was for sure on the rebound but Emmaline took a while longer to nurse back to health.

But I was still concerned with them overdoing it, so decided it was best for them to stay home.

But the healthy people were getting cabin fever and it would have been silly for them to sit around the house bored all day. So they decided to take some of the kiddos and head out to the Children's Museum.

I didn't go on this outing. Bethany, Michael and Linda were kind enough to take Riley and Max along with them.  Meanwhile the girls and I stayed home and watched more movies. (We always rent a bunch of movies to watch whenever someone is sick. It helps them to have something to "do" while keeping them resting on the couch).

I think they had a pretty good time at the Children's Museum though. For dinner we had PIZZA! YUM!

Happy Birthday Maxton!

My "baby" turns two today.

It's always surreal to think how much he has grown and changed in those two short/long years.  In some ways the two years were a blink of an eye and in other ways, it's like he has ALWAYS been part of our family.

I will do another post about all the birthday festivities later. I just want to enjoy the day with my little dude today.

Family Visit: Wednesday Nature and Science Museum

Wednesday started off badly.

Trevor was feeling back to his normal self and so awoke to make the kiddos breakfast just like he normally does whenever he visits. He made eggs, sausage, and toast.

Shortly after finishing her breakfast, Adrianne got sick. And Emmaline had a rough night to boot as well. I decided that they both needed to stay home and rest.

Michael was also feeling under the weather this day. He never actually got sick to his stomach, but you could tell he was feeling less than stellar.

Since we still had so many people feeling bad, but also a mix of people feeling good, we decided to split up and have some people stay home and others go to visit the Nature and Science Center. They have some cool exhibits for kids to explore as well as some animals to look at and a dino pit!

Grandpa Trevor, Bethany, Oliver, Riley, Maxton and I all went out. Riley had so much fun looking at all the skeletons and things under the microscope while the boys had a BLAST at the dino pit!

Family Visit: sickness strikes! Monday and Tuesday

On Sunday night is when we started to get an idea that this wasn't going to be a normal week.

Actually Saturday night was the first clue.  That night shortly after he went to bed, poor Oliver got sick. But he only threw up once so we didn't know if it was just traveling or something funny he ate that was bothering him.

But on Sunday night poor Bethany was very ill. I know she had a very LONG night and I felt so badly that she was so far away from home and feeling crummy.

I later learned that grandpa Trevor was also feeling quite awful during the night.

Needless to say, we had several adults who just needed to rest and recuperate on Monday.

Linda, Michael and I did take the kiddos over to the playground at the shopping center close by (Southpark Meadows). They have one of the best playgrounds and my kiddos always really enjoy going there. We also made a small trip to the nearby Sam's Club to pick up some things for dinner as well as the regular Walmart to get supplies for our sickies.
 
Unfortunately, I don't have a single photo of this day. I promise the kids had fun though!

Monday night, Emmaline didn't really want to eat.  

Tuesday was also a bit of the same  Even though Bethany and Trevor were feeling much better, being so sick had really taken a lot out of them. Emmaline actually ended up throwing up  and acted a bit puney and off, but she did play some.  Matt also had to work late (tutoring) so we couldn't have his car. We needed to stay closer to home.

We spent most of the day around the house. In the afternoon, I took Linda to Costco. When we got back, I worked on getting dinner together (we were having Greek food!) and then took Oliver, Maxton, and Emmaline on a LOOOONG wagon ride.  The kids had fun and we got to see a lot of the fall/Halloween decorations around the neighborhood.