What We've Been Doing

What a busy & fun time we've been having. Last Tuesday I worked as a substitute teacher at Anna's school. This was my first time to ever sub. I worked as a "float" so teachers could attend a meeting. I had four classes throughout the day. Three were 3rd grade and one was 1st grade. I got to do several things- playground duty, taking a class to PE, worksheets, reading, showing a movie, etc. I enjoyed it except for feeling lost because I didn't know where everything was or how things were supposed to work. But I winged it and must not have done too bad because they called me Wednesday, Thursday & Friday to work again. But I wasn't available on those days. I didn't get to sub in Anna's class (which she really wanted), but I did get to see her twice. I saw her in the lunch room and then walked her class from PE to their room after dropping my class off at PE. She was so excited to see her mom at school. She told me that she wanted me to get a job there.

Thursday evening Kevin & Anna attended an event at her school. It is a program for adult men (dads, grandpas, uncles, etc) of elementary students. They call it Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students). They had pizza for the men and kids. Then the kids watched a movie while the men learned about the program. Kevin will go to the school one day this year to be an "extra set of eyes" and be involved at the school. I think it is a great idea and know Anna will love having her dad at school for a day!

Friday Kevin & I dropped Anna off at school and then Mason off at daycare. Then we went to the fairgrounds for the livestock show. Kevin showed cattle when he was younger and still enjoys being involved. We hung out talking to friends and watching the show until finally leaving for a late lunch. After lunch I dropped Kevin off at the fairgrounds and went to pick up Anna from school. Then we picked up Mason and headed back to the fairgrounds. The cattle show was still going so Anna & Mason got to watch their first cattle show.

Anna said that she wants to show a calf when she gets a little bigger. It didn't take too long for Mason to say "I'm done!" (I admit it is a little slow paced. Not exactly my favorite thing but sometimes we do things we don't absolutely enjoy for the ones we love.) Once Mason was done, we walked around to look at all the sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks and rabbits. Mason is so afraid of pigs. Kevin had taken Mason a couple of weeks ago to a guy's house that had pigs. Kevin had told me then about how much Mason was afraid of the pigs. At the fair he wouldn't even walk by the pig pens. He would say "I cared (scared)" and want to be held. After looking at the animals we went to the petting zoo. Then we walked through some of the exhibit booths. We didn't ride any rides because we were saving that for Saturday night.

Saturday morning Kevin and his friend worked on the electricty for the shop. Ethan came over with his daddy and played with Anna. They had a great time like always. That afternoon we went to the fair. We met Anna's friend, Brianna, and her family at the fair grounds.

Anna, Brianna & Kenzie (Brianna's school friend)

Anna and Brianna rode rides for about 3 hours. We definitely got our money out of Anna's arm band!

Mason & Anna riding the train.

We had been at the fair for a while when we ran into Paige, another former DI kid. Paige and her family were about to leave but she got to ride a couple of rides with Anna & Brianna. They were so excited to see each other.

Mason loved these Jeeps!

Although the fire truck was designed for three people in a row, they all four piled into the same seat. Mason had to share a steering wheel with Anna. I don't think Mason was real excited about being crowded in by three giggling & squealing girls!

Mason rode the Merry-Go-Round with the girls. But as soon as the ride started he started crying. Kevin finally picked him up and held him during the ride. That seemed to be fine with Mason. He apparently just didn't want to sit on the horse. Kevin said when the ride ended that Mason said "That was fun!" He may be one of those people that would rather sit on the bench than the horse.

We really thought Mason would like this motorcycle ride- WRONG! When the ride started it kind-of jerked him out of normal riding position and he never recovered. He was starting to cry so they stopped the ride and got him off.

After all the riding and walking around we were all starving. So we ended our trip to the fair and went to eat at Crackies (Cracker Barrel).

Sunday after lunch Anna and I dropped Kevin & Mason off at Mimi's house and headed to Playhouse Disney. We met her friend Brianna and her mom there. The girls really enjoyed the show. They got to see Little Einsteins, Pooh, Tigger & Darby, Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.

After the 1:00 show ended Anna & I ran to the mall. (We had to buy some new earrings because the 6 weeks after piercing was almost over and she was ready to wear some new ones.) Then we ran to pick up Mason & Kevin and headed back for the 4:00 Playhouse Disney show. Yes, Anna and I went twice. We had bought two tickets for the 1:00 show so Anna could go with Brianna. Then Anna won 4 tickets from the t.v. station through a coloring contest for the 4:00 show. I'm glad she won because Mason got to go. We weren't sure if he would like the show, but he loved it. (I actually think he liked it better than Anna. I decided Anna is almost too old for these kind of shows. She asked lots of questions like "Are they real?", "Is that people making that happen?", "Are they really talking?" So I think the magic is wearing off for her...which makes me a little sad.) But Anna still had a great time. We ran into our friends, Kevin and Angie and their children Ethan & Caleb. (This is the Ethan that comes to our house.) We found some empty seats where we could all sit together. So Anna got to watch the second show with Ethan.

Mason wearing Ethan's Handy Manny construction hat.

Once the show ended we hurried up and took off for church. We didn't have time to make it to our normal church so we were going to visit at Liberty Church of Christ. We pulled in the parking lot about 10 minutes after church had started. Anna needed to potty and Mason needed his diaper changed. So the plan was to go in and I would take the kids to the restroom. When I grabbed Mason his shorts were soaked! His diaper had leaked everywhere, including his car seat. By that point we were so late and it would have taken a while to get him cleaned up. So we loaded back up and went home. I told Kevin that I hope we got points for trying (although I know it doesn't work that way).

Anna was bothered all day on Sunday by a loose tooth. It was her first loose tooth on top. She worked with it all day and by Sunday night Kevin had to pull it. I now call her "snaggle tooth". Her other front, top tooth is loose too. So it won't be long until she is missing both front teeth. I told her that she won't be able to eat corn on the cob and will be singing "All I Want For Chirstmas Is My Two Front Teeth"!

Snaggle Tooth

Yesterday Anna brought home her Five Week Progress Report from school. She was satisfactory in all areas (Behavior, Literacy & Math). Her teacher also made a comment about her already knowing all letters and sounds and "LOTS" of sight words. We are so proud of Anna! She and I made a book out of magazine pictures and wrote sentences using her sight words. She loves to read the book that she made. (This was a suggestion the teacher made at Parent Info night. She showed us a book that the class had made together.)

Today is Kevin's 36th birthday. Anna & I are making him a birthday cake this afternoon. This week is turning into another busy week too. Someone asked me if I get bored being at home. NO WAY! I'm really not at home very much. Kevin said that I "keep the roads hot." I don't know how I ever had time to work...there is just so much to do...and it's a lot more fun than a job. I'm having the time of my life!

Staying Busy

We've been busy since the last post. Tuesday afternoon was the first PTO meeting at Anna's school. That afternoon we brought Katelyn home to play with Anna and then met her mom at the school for the meeting. Kevin watched Anna, Mason & Katelyn while we attended the meeting. I kind-of got volunteered for one of two treasurer positions, but that's okay because I'm going to let my co-treasurer (Holly) do most of the work (just kidding). After the PTO meeting we attended a Book Fair in the library. Anna picked out a pointer for playing school. Then I told her to pick out one book. In the meantime I got to feeling bad and went into the hall. When she & Kevin came out she had the pointer and three books! And they say women are the shoppers!!??

Wednesday evening we were so excited that a family that we are friends with attended worship services with us. Anna was so excited because Ethan was going to church with us. The first thing she asked when she got in the truck after school that day was "Do you remember that Ethan is going to our church tonight?!!!" We hope that they will go with us again and again and again...

Back to my not feeling well. I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago for a sinus infection. I never felt like I totally got over it. For about a week I've had horrible headaches. Then Tuesday evening in the school library I felt like I was going to pass out. I thought it was because it was hot in the library and I hadn't eaten much that day. But then Wednesday night while sitting in Bible class at church I had the feeling again. After that episode Kevin said that I had to go to the doctor. So Thursday morning after dropping Anna off at school I went straight to the doctor. I walked in and there were all these people wearing masks. I thought great, I'll come in here for one thing and possibly leave with the flu. But I knew I needed to be seen. After two hours and some bloodwork, I was told that the prescription prescribed to me at the last visit wasn't strong enough and I was "inadequately treated". I got a much stronger antibiotic and pray that clears up my problems. (So far it seems to be working.)

Friday afternoon Kevin went to a Men's Retreat at church. My parents came over to visit the kids and me. We had a great evening with each other. Anna & Mason love their Papaw & Grammy. They played so many things: haircut, hide-and-seek, read books, and whatever the kids wanted to do.

Anna had another great week at school. She got a stuffed bunny from the treasure box for her good behavior and having all smiley faces. We are so proud of her! Mason had a good week too. Once again Anna and Mason have been learning the same songs about colors. Mason started singing a song Friday afternoon that Anna used to sing (from daycare) about all the colors. I had no idea that he knew it. He is learning so much and growing up so fast.
Mason wearing bat ears that he made at daycare while learning about the color black.

Saturday night we went to the NEA District Fair Rodeo. We met some friends there, and Anna & Ethan got to watch the rodeo together. It was a normal rodeo until the bull riding when a bull decided to jump over a gate into an alley with people and horses! Another family that we are friends with had a daughter on a horse in the alley. This girl's mother was holding Mason at the time the bull jumped. She gave Mason to us and took off. Thankfully Sara was okay. However another young girl was injured. It was a frightening experience.
Boots on & ready to rodeo!

Our boots.

This afternoon we had a K-3rd Grade Youth Group activity. After morning services we gathered for pizza and a card project. The children signed Thinking of You cards for the sick, shut-ins and nursing home residents. We had a great turnout. I pray these cards will brighten the day of those that receive them! Mason didn't have such a great time at the event. He fell out of a chair face first on the concrete floor. His lip and nose were bleeding. It didn't take long until his lip started swelling up. But he is a tough little guy. Within 20 minutes he ate some pizza. I felt so sorry for him because I know his little nose & mouth had to be hurting so bad.

Changing of the Seasons

This week everyone returned to normal (thank goodness). Monday was Labor Day so no school or work. Since we had been confined to home for so long with Hand, Foot & Mouth, we finally ventured out Monday afternoon. We went to the mall and a few other places to shop. I'm working on building up the kids' winter clothes. They each had a few items but needed more. So we bought a few more things and will get more as the weather begins to cool down.

Thursday evening was Parent Information Night at Anna's school. We got to meet Anna's teacher again and she explained what they do during the day. Anna's teacher seems really interested in making learning fun for the kids. That is great! They do mostly hands-on learning. She said that she doesn't believe in all paper and pencil learning. I think that will make learning a lot more fun. It felt good to have contact with the teacher again and learn more about Anna's day at school (since we get very little info from Anna.)

Anna had another great week at school. She has continued to get smiley faces every day for her behavior. She got another treasure from the treasure box- a princess wand. (She already has about 10 of them!) She had school pictures on Friday. I can't wait to see them. We've already ordered a yearbook, t-shirt, truck decal and there is a book fair this next week. We may not be paying for daycare anymore, but they are getting our money in other ways! : ) Anna had her first negative experience at school this week. Someone kept stealing her afternoon snack from her cubby. Friday I told her to leave her snack in her backpack until snack time. I guess this kept the stealer from getting hers but apparently he took someone else's. Anna said that the little boy that got his snack stolen on Friday saw another kid eating it and told on him. So at least the teacher now knows who the stealer is. It is the same child that Anna thought she saw eating her snack one day. But she was too kind to tell the teacher.

Mason had a good week at daycare. No time outs were reported on his daily sheets. So I guess his behavior was calmer at daycare this week than at home last week. For that I am extremely thankful! His daycare is raising money for Make-a-Wish. This month they are collecting pennies. The class with the most pennies will get a pizza party. Mason is taking pennies every week for his class. But if they win, I bet they would rather have a chicken nugget party.

Since the temperatures haven't been bad lately, especially of the afternoon and evening, our family has been spending more time outdoors. The kids love to play outside so much.

Here Anna is teaching Mason how to ride her old battery operated 4-wheeler. He can't understand the concept of taking his foot off the petal to stop.

Friday we took the swimming pool down for the year. I think Anna & Mason enjoyed this process almost as much as swimming. As the water flowed from the pool and made puddles on the ground, they took off their shoes and had a blast. When we were finished with our project we were all soaked. The kids on purpose from playing, and Kevin and me from working.

Playing in the pool water one last time...on the ground.

Saturday evening Kevin and I had a church function to attend. The kids went to Timmy & Debby's house to play. Timmy & Debby took them to DQ to eat and then to a playground. The kids had a great time! We didn't get home until past their normal bedtime and they were exhausted. Thank you Timmy & Debby for keeping them and wearing them down for bedtime!

One more thing that is a reminder of Fall coming...the NE Arkansas District Fair is one week away! Anna can't wait!

Vote for Princess Anna

I entered Anna in a Disney contest. If you have time, please go to the link below and vote for Anna. The website does require that you have a login for their site. It's free to sign up!

http://family.go.com/princess-picture-contest/who-is-the-fairest/princess-anna-14976/

Thank you if you take the time to vote for Princess Anna!!!

Hunger & Memory Issues

One of the funniest (and most disgusting) events of the past week involved...you got it... MASON. One afternoon Kevin found Mason in the cat food. We thought he had only had his hands in it. I marched him to the bathroom to wash his hands (never even looked at his face because he was walking in front of me.) Kevin was picking the cat food up off the laundry room floor when he discovered some of it was wet. Kevin said "I think he's been eating it too!" I looked at his face and sure enough he had cat food crumbs all around his mouth. (YUCK!) I asked him if the cat food was good and he said "Yeah". We had a discussion about not eating cat food...we'll see if he listened!

Anna said the funniest thing this morning. We were watching the cartoon Arthur and it mentioned checking out Arthur books at your local library. I asked Anna if we checked out any Arthur books this summer (I honestly couldn't remember) and she said "Yes, we got Arthur Loses a Friend." That's right, we did check out that book. I was impressed by her memory. I asked how she could remember that (it happened over a month ago) but can't remember at the end of the day what she ate for lunch or who she sat by at lunch. She replied "Maybe my, my, my, my...what's that word?" I said "Memory?" She said "Yeah, maybe my long-time memory is better than my short." Now how about that for a 5 year old observation??!!!

When It Rains...It Pours

This has been a crazy week. I have been fighting allergies for several weeks and by Monday I finally went to the doctor. I had a sinus infection, of course. Then Monday night about 10:30 Mason started having a croupy cough. I ended up taking him outside (3 times) into the cool air to open up his airways. We also had an inhaler from a round of croup in March, so I used that on him too. After about 2 1/2 hours he finally settled down and was able to sleep. He even ASKED to go to his bed. (I guess sleeping on me in the recliner wasn't very comfortable. He flipped and flopped about every two minutes.) Tuesday morning he woke up with blisters on his hands. I immediately thought "Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease" but took him to the doctor just to be certain and to make sure his chest sounded okay after the croup. Everything was confirmed- croup & HFM Disease. The doctor did say that his chest sounded good that morning so she wasn't going to give him a steroid. By Thursday morning Mason's cough was still going good (only it changed to a wet sound), and he had green junk coming from his eyes & nose, and he said that his ear hurt. So back to the doctor we went. Sure enough he had an ear infection, so this time he got an antibiotic. (I'm just hoping we didn't pick up something else from sitting in the waiting room...like Swine Flu!)

I was hoping that Anna wouldn't catch the HFM Disease. But that was wishful thinking. Thursday evening I noticed bumps forming on her hands, feet and in her mouth. I prayed that it was just my paranoia and she would be okay Friday morning. Didn't happen! So Friday Anna missed her first day of school (and we are only 2 weeks into this thing). I never expected that she would have perfect attendance (look at our track record), but I didn't expect that she would miss this soon. Thank goodness this is a 3-day weekend for Labor Day. Hopefully she will be able to return on Tuesday!!

Things other than sickness happened this week too. Monday Anna came home with her paper where she had learned about the color blue. Mason came home the same day with a paper about the color blue. I was singing a song about blue that was with Mason's paperwork. Anna went "Hey, how do you know that song?" I explained that it was from Mason's school and she said "We sang that song today!" How ironic is that? My Kindergartener and my 2 year old are using the same curriculum!

This week Anna's class started a new rotation of taking home the Bearcat. Apparently her class has a stuff bear (bearcat) and each week the teacher draws a name from the class list. The name drawn gets to take the Bearcat home for the night. Anna said the Bearcat brings home a favorite book for you to read to it, a journal to write down what the Bearcat did with you and that the Bearcat is "allergic to smoke". She is so excited and anxious for her name to be drawn!

Tuesday afternoon Anna had her first 4-wheeler incident. Kevin was outside fencing, and Anna was riding her 4-wheeler. I looked out the kitchen window to see Anna standing off her 4-wheeler crying. Common sense told me that it wasn't too bad since Kevin was getting on her 4-wheeler and taking it into the shop. (If she was really hurt he wouldn't have bothered with the 4-wheeler.) But I still ran outside to see what was wrong. Here's what happened. Kevin had a string running along the fence line so he would get the poles in a straight line. Anna knew the string was there and had been avoiding it. Apparently with her 5 year old attention span she eventually forgot about it and went flying into it and cut and burned her neck. I'm so thankful it wasn't anything worse! That 4-wheeler really scares me when a 5 year old is driving it. I gave Anna (and Kevin) a "talking to" about her riding habits and grounded Anna from the 4-wheeler for a week. I'm also going to make her watch the safety video that came with it again.

Wednesday evening while I was cooking supper I noticed Mason playing with buttons on our deep freeze. I looked and he had turned the temperature setting down to 1! I'm so thankful that I noticed and all our food didn't thaw out and ruin.

Thursday night while doing laundry I went to turn the dryer on and it wouldn't work. Kevin tried to work on it but couldn't get it going. It went to the repairman on Friday, and I had to hang wet sheets on clothes hangers in the kids bathroom. Thankfully it was repaired and came home Friday afternoon. Oh how I'm spoiled to our modern appliances!

Friday was a wild day with both kids home and not feeling well. (Actually Mason acted like he felt okay but Anna wasn't quite her normal self.) Mason was a mischievous little guy that day. That morning he spilt milk on the living room carpet (on purpose) and threw his Fishies (snack) in the floor on purpose (and I had vacuumed earlier). Later in the day while I was on the phone he went to his room to play. I realized it was too quite and went to check on him. He had shut his door (with him in his room), taken the door stop out of the wall, unplugged his monitor, half-way unplugged his fan, and gotten his Bible down off his chest. Obviously he was taking advantage of my being on the phone. By the end of the day I felt like a horrible mother for all the spanking, yelling and discipline I bestowed on him that day. Being a parent is a difficult job!

Today Kevin left early and went Dove hunting with a friend. Mason got up around 6:00 a.m. and Anna was up around 6:30. With all the sickness I intend to keep the kids at home this weekend. (Although I'm already feeling a little cabin fever. I haven't been out much this week other than doctor appointments.) I don't want to take any chances of sharing this with others. I seriously doubt Mason is still contagious but I'm not so certain about Anna. Anna is going to miss a friend's birthday party this afternoon. She is upset about it, but I don't want to give Ethan and his baby brother HFM Disease for Ethan's birthday!

The reality of this week is that I know it could be worse! It has been worse before and could be worse again! (My saying when things are not going well is "We could be in Little Rock!", referring to Arkansas Children's Hospital.) But still, I'm praying that next week is a little better!