Back again

So I know I haven't posted for two weeks, but what a two weeks it has been. I'm hoping I can finally take a breather and sit back and get my life back to a manageable speed. After my birthday, Grace's birthday, Grace's party, end of year school activities, visit from Kathy, Max & Joey, Grace's "graduation", swim parties, swim classes, the dance recital today, we are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

For those that haven't heard yet, we did get approval for the transfer for Grace to the public elementary school we wanted her to go to, so it looks like she will NOT end up being a Catholic school girl, which also means our pocketbook will get some relief. Of course, now I need to try to get some signatures from various school administrators on Tuesday and Wednesday to make the transfer final, so I'm not out of the woods yet.

Now I'll try to catch up with a few pictures. Here's some from our family trip to the Ranger game on my birthday.

Ahh, the view from our seats at the game. They were just at the other end of the row from the season tickets Kim and I share with my parents, so this is the view I normally have. It is high (300 level), but it is directly behind home plate so you have a great angle on everything except high pop ups, which look like they are home runs until they land behind the 2nd baseman. You do get great breezes up here.


Alex enjoys his first baseball game. He did really well - we lasted until about the 6th inning in our seats. All you need are hotdogs, french fries, cotton candy and fun music to keep a 2-year old's attention.


Grace in her new pink Rangers hat that matches her pink Rangers shirt. Her butterfly face paint is left over from the school carnival that morning (oh yeah, one other thing to add to the list of activities from the last two weeks).


The kids like to hit the Coca Cola Sports Park behind centerfield before we leave. There's only a couple of the games that they can do. This t-ball one is the first one they hit. They also tried a ring toss, but of course didn't get anything out of it. But the best were the temporary tattoos they got there - my kids kept those things on for a week.


Alex takes his turn a the t-ball game. I think Jim had to finally step in to help him hit the ball in the right direction.


My kids playing at the feet of Nolan. It was a wonderful evening.

Aaahhh

That's what Jim and I sighed upon finally crawling into bed this evening. We had Gracie's "Outer Space" birthday party today, and I think it ended up going over pretty well. The weather gods smiled down on us (for the most part). We got a big shower - 3/4 of an inch in about 15 minutes - but it was close to the end of the party. We had just finished cake and ice cream, so we scooted the kids inside. After 5 minutes or so we realized Grace could open her presents (we were originally going to just do that after everyone left), and everyone was happy.

We had a big ol' bounce house, that excited Alex to no end when the guy set it up today. And kept about 14 kids happily occupied for a couple hours.

I realized that I had the same feeling after this party that I did after having a wedding. I know it happened, but I was so busy the entire time I'm not exactly sure what all happened. Maybe that is why I actually enjoy (to a point) other kid's birthday parties I go to. For the most part I can sit back and watch someone else run around, even if I pitch in and help.

Hopefully pictures to come tomorrow.

My big birthday girl

Happy birthday to my sweet girl. She said it was her "best birthday ever." Probably due to the plethora of Disney Princess dolls she received (result of mom going nutty on Ebay for characters no longer in production). I love my 5-year old girl.

Please pray...

...for NO RAIN on Saturday. I've got probably 17 kids and an equal number of adults coming over for Grace's birthday party. It's raining outside right now, and rain is scheduled through Friday. I don't know what I'll do with all those kids inside my house, since the main activity at the party is a bounce house outside. Yikes!

Happy Birthday to Me

40 - oh my!

And happy birthday to my dear sister.

Easter pics (finally!)

Two kids with their haul on a cold Easter morning. The big coat unfortunately hid the beautiful dress we got from cousin Emma - Grace couldn't wait for the chance to finally wear it. And Alex is as dressed up as he can get - tennis shoes, khakis and untucked button-down is the best we can do with him.


Grace excited about the money in her Easter egg.


Alex excited about his "clock-clock" (chocolate). Much more valuable to a 2-year old than money.

License plate I saw

My guess is that if your plate reads "CLSSY 1", chances are you aren't.

More kid pics

Well, lazy me hasn't yet downloaded any pictures from Easter, but I know Grace will be very happy to see that I finally posted pictures from her latest field trip. We took the class to the Arboretum for Dallas Blooms. Beautiful flowers and neat "treehouses" (still left from the Autumn Blooms celebration, I think). But my friend Karen and I were trying to figure out why we were exhausted after 3 or 4 hours, not walking any more than we normally do when we go there. We realized that it probably had something to do with four of us watching eight 4/5-year olds. You'd think that ratio would be easy, but those kids move nonstop, and usually in at least four different directions.


They had these neat beds set up where the flowers were planted in the shape of butterfly wings with a mat to lay down between them. Unfortunately with the angle of the ground it was hard to get a good picture of the wings. Grace was very excited to take a picture of her like this between her wings - I'm not sure why.


With Brayden's wing picture you could get a better view of the wings.


Grace wanted to be sure I included boyfriend Aidan's picture here.


Cute picture of Grace and Aidan.


The class early on in the day, too excited to pay much attention to picture-taking.


Grace's new "other" boyfriend, Andy.


The kids exploring one of the treehouses. Bit of a misnomer - they are all playhouses build around trees (rather than in them). But very cool variety of styles.


Another treehouse - either a butterfly or dragonfly shape (I can't remember which one). I wish I'd gotten pictures of the rest of the treehouses. Maybe we'll make it back and do just that someday soon before the temperature reaches triple digits.


We thought about just avoiding the frog fountains all together. But then their teacher just sat them down before heading over there and said "You make your own choices. We have no towels and no extra clothes, so if you get wet you have to live with the consequences." Hmm...wonder how that will end up.


Kids playing in the fountain.


A VERY wet class photo. One boy didn't get wet, the rest were drenched. We had to strip off shirts to wring them out before walking on. But the kids sure had fun.


One last photo before we left for the day. I thought it was cute how they naturally posed themselves when I told them to say cheese. A great bunch of kids. Exhausting, but great.

(Rolling eyes here)

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw THIS on the road today:


Jim and I have joked about trucks getting bigger and bigger, and that it wouldn't be long before someone started driving an 18-wheeler as a truck. Well, it has actually happened, at least on a small scale. I saw this stupid thing rounding the corner on Mockingbird as I was coming out of the grocery store parking lot, and wondered what this small 18-wheeler cab was doing turning off of Abrams. Then I realized it was a TRUCK. Most likely some idiot Dallasite trying to one-up his neighbor's Hummer.

I always wonder if the driver of big behemoth vehicles like this convince themselves that I am gazing in admiration at them when they drive by. When in reality I'm usually staring in disbelief, trying to not greet them with a single-finger salute (mainly so my kids won't pick that little bad habit).

NOBODY needs this ridiculous auto. I don't care how much stuff you tell me you need to haul. Maybe they will add some big old gas tax, which will hopefully hit this moron in the pocketbook. Sheesh.

A Little Spring Color

So the Spring rains have finally come, bringing a little bit of color to the yard. Of course, I need to do some shopping at the garden center to add a little more color. Maybe once this freaky cold front passes through this weekend I'll get around to a little yard work.


My irises FINALLY started blooming. Seems like it was at least a week or two later than everyone else's irises in the neighborhood.


A lot more about to bloom within the next week.


Other than my four blue Dutch irises (which I didn't get a picture of), all the irises that have bloomed are yellow ones. Except for this one amazing white one. I love it. I guess my purple ones are gone - I haven't seen them bloom for a couple of years.


Neat blue berries on the leatherleaf mahonia. The poor birds don't have much of a chance at getting these; the kids have too much fun picking them off for whatever imaginary games go on in the back yard.


Neat little birdhouse Jim made and painted with Grace.


Grace next to the rosemary that is ready to be finally planted in the ground. This was originally the little rosemary Christmas tree we had on the table year before last. I can't wait to see how it takes off once it is actually in the ground. Don't know about this pose Grace is doing. Showing off the little super soaker Jim bought her. Kind of like a weird NRA-lite photo.

Catching up

Oh my, I'm so far behind in posting stuff. We went on a field trip today to the Arboretum with Grace's class, and I realized that before I put up some of those pictures I needed to put up a few from the LAST field trip. We took the kids on another trolley ride over to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Grace's class in their tie-dyed field trip shirts, waiting for the trolley to arrive. Two girls and seven boys.

This is Santiago, who recently moved to Houston. Grace was heartbroken - he had just become one of her favorite people in the class.


Grace, Cole and Andy on the trolley.


Brayden and Dalton also on the trolley.


The class and the WONDERFULLY helpful manager of Lovers Egg Roll. He was very accommodating for the class, and the kids had a great time. Everyone came home with a pair of chopsticks and stuffed full of chicken, edamame and fortune cookies.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The annual revelry occurred again today in our neighborhood. Greenville Avenue was turned into a big street party, and since we are two blocks down our street turned into a drunken parking lot. This year must have been a banner one - St. Patrick's Day is actually on a Saturday and the weather was beautiful in the low-70s. The parade starts at 10am further up Greenville, people start coming down here soon after, so by 4pm you've got drunken people roaming back to their cars.

This is the one time during the year that we are guaranteed to get traffic from Greenville (our street is nicely located between two entertainment areas, so it normally is not worth it for people to park along it). Jim and I last attended the street party almost 10 years ago. We decided then we are too old to enjoy crushing crowds of drunk people, plus drinking alcohol starting at 10am (or earlier) has little appeal because you end up wanting to go to bed with a headache by about 5pm.


Grace and I walked out on the porch around 3:30pm to see this. Grace looked at me and said "Mom, is this a parade?"


A picture from a slightly different angle showing the line of cars extending much further down our street away from Greenville.


Cutie Grace on the porch swing. Cousin Joey can note that she wore absolutely no green today.


And my wonderful surprise that arrived today from the mailman. My elisalou bag showed up, created by my awesome sister-in-law. I recommend everyone hopping right over to that website and picking one up yourself. I love it!

Have I just accepted it already?

I was talking recently with a friend of mine about her husband turning 40 in May. He's apparently pretty very freaked out about it. I too am turning 40 in May (less than 2 months away), and I realized it doesn't bother me in the least.

We'd originally planned on having a great evening out. My birthday actually falls on a Saturday, and even though I'll be volunteering that morning at the school carnival (yay - big 4-0), Jim and I planned on dumping the kids off with the grandparents and hitting a high-dollar steak restaurant that night. Yes, even though the parents are going to be getting in that afternoon from a week long vacation, I was still going to take advantage of Kamp Kennemer.

But then we were talking at dinner the other night about my birthday, and Grace said "Well, Mommy, we're going to Cafe Madrid for you birthday, right?". What could I say to that? So now the big night out is no more. I just can't deny my almost 5-year old daughter's wish to celebrate my birthday with the family at out favorite restaurant.

I also realized that I'm not freaked out at all about my impending birthday. In fact, I think I've come to see that I already feel like I'm 40. I don't know when it hit, but the years all seem to blend together now. And I don't know how long I've felt like I'm already 40, but it's apparently been a long time now.

Now don't get me wrong - I do plan on having fun this year. The girlfriends and I have decided to do a weekend away (no kids, no spouses) to celebrate all of us turning 40 this year. But I don't feel like I need this weekend to deal with turning 40. I just like that I have a good excuse to have a girls weekend.

All our love

All our love and prayers go out to Grandma Lu that the surgery tomorrow goes well and the recovery is speedy!

We love you!

Blackberries

Alex surprised me with a new little word that I thought he'd been saying recently but was never quite sure. He was eating breakfast and I got him some blueberries to go with his waffle. Here's how the exchange went:

A: Blackberries too, Mama.
J: We don't have any blackberries.
A: Yes Mama, blackberries too.
J: Alex, we don't have any blackberries. We have to get some next time we go to the store.
A: Get some more blackberries, dammit (fist pumping while saying this).
J: What did you just say?
A: Get some more blackberries.
J: And then what did you say?
A: (very matter-of-factly) Dammit.

Unfortunately he did learn this one from me. So I had to explain how Dammit is not a very nice thing to say and that Mama shouldn't be saying it either and that he should tell me not to say it if he hears me say it.

J: So Alex, what happens if I say dammit?
A: I say "you no say dammit, Mama. It's not nice."

I'm very proud of myself that I didn't laugh through the entire exchange.

The power of the bill

Wasn't sure what to title this one. An addendum to the previous post:

Grace's 101-102 fever continued all Friday night and through Saturday. The only respite was when we could persuade her to take some Motrin, which once it kicked in had her feeling great for at least a few hours. The hives continued itching horribly, and still covered most of her body (seeming to have shifted into areas not previously hit). She would periodically get the shakes, and still couldn't stand to be touched or moved when not under the influence of the OTC drug. I'm pretty certain that even though that flu test came back negative she actually had it.

You know, the thought just hit me that maybe they got the snot swabs mixed up between the two kids, because Grace sure was the one exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

Anyway, early Saturday evening we noticed that Grace's hands and feet were swollen. Called the 24-hour nurse line and were told that since a rash was involved that she couldn't diagnose anything over the phone and we needed to take her to the hospital.

So Jim stayed home with Alex and I bundled Grace up into the car to take her to Children's Medical Center. It was awful - she was burning up with fever and was in pain anytime she moved. Luckily we didn't have to go to the ER; Children's has a "referral center" for cases just like ours where a nurse tells you to go in. We were there for probably only about an hour total, they gave her a big dose of Motrin and determined that everything was still the fallout from the allergic reaction. But we do have an actual medical term - Erythema Multiforme. Which pretty much means multiple rash spots. By now Grace's huge swaths of red welts had changed to these weird red rings with discoloration in the middle, but were still all over her body. They did say she was slightly dehydrated and we needed to really watch that. So I ended up sharing a bed with her again last night, and every hour or so waking up to her whimpering to rub more cream on her itchy spots and to urge her to drink water out of her cup.

Now to the title of this posting. She was still somewhat sick this morning, though not as itchy as she had been. Jim gives her Motrin while I was at work. By the time I make it home at 1pm, her fever is gone and the nasty spots on her are almost faded away. And the fever didn't return once the Motrin wore off. So I figure it was kind of like watering your lawn and then it raining the next day - maybe her body knows I'm going to get stuck with a hospital bill for last night and figured it could finally fix itself. Because it certainly couldn't have healed itself BEFORE we took her in to the hospital.

I don't care. I'm just overjoyed that my little girl isn't sick anymore.

Whew, what a week

Well, after Grace's strep throat diagnosis last week, things have just gone downhill. She had a couple days of 102 degree fever, and Alex started having a fever on Thursday night (much lower than Grace's). When his continued all the next day I decided to take him to the doctor Saturday morning to try to nip what I figured was strep in the bud. His strep test came back negative, so we assume it was a virus that Grace also seemed to catch since she started taking on his symptoms even though she was on an antibiotic.

Sunday grants us 24 hrs fever-free for Grace, but not Alex, so she goes back to school on Monday. I have to pick her up early Monday due to the fever returning, but Alex is now fever-free. Both kids are clear on Tuesday and running around like they feel totally fine, so they both go back to school on Wednesday.

Wednesday night Grace breaks out in HORRIBLE hives. They are covering her entire body. We don't realize it until about 5am the next morning, so she gets Benedryl then. Alex also has a 101+ fever on Thursday, so a visit to the doctors office yesterday afternoon gets us the following news: Grace is apparently allergic to Amoxicillan and needs to start new antibiotics for her strep, Alex tests positive to both strep and flu. Grace was negative for the flu, but they want to treat her with Tamiflu to try to keep it from hitting her (I am told to have my doctor call in prescriptions for Jim and myself too for preventative measure).

Jim picks up $350 worth of prescriptions on the way home. After dinner Alex takes his two doses and then promptly spits up all of it plus his dinner on the kitchen floor. Grace takes her three doses, fighting it all the way, then goes to sleep in our bed for an hour until waking up and barfing there. Today Grace has a 101 fever and is on day two of hives hurting her so much she can't hardly move. Alex acts as if nothing is wrong with him at all and has no fever. Mommy has loads of spit up laundry to do and just wants to run away for a couple hours to escape it all.

Jealous anyone?

Here's a few pictures to share.

Grace on Valentine's Day. I was praising her outfit (telling her how much she looks like cousin Emma when dressing this way). She is such a "dress" girl that I have to do whatever I can during this 30-something degree weather to get her to dress warmer. This was her "cute" pose she kept wanting to do. Don't know where she learned the head-cocked-to-the-side thing.


This is after I made her open-up to show off the outfit. For those of your former dancers out there, don't you just love the pointed toe she has in this stance.


Here is a couple of attempts to show her hives. Of course, it doesn't do justice to the extent of the coverage. She has huge swaths of red on her back and belly, and tons of spots on her arms and legs. The circle on her forearm in the first picture is actually the bruise left over from the bite(!) her brother gave her last week.


Alex today. He's been very reticent lately to having his picture taken, but once I had him show me the Playdoh alien (hair squishes out the top of his head), Alex was all for the photos.


He'll also proudly show off his dinosaur. Is the love of dinosaurs ingrained in boy DNA? Because I sure don't know where it came from.

Sharing the wealth

So we've had two days of no school due to teacher training. Yesterday we had a wonderful playdate with Justin, Sarabeth and Aidan (Grace's "boyfriend"). Last night weekly dinner with friends so Grace got to play with Bella. Today I had to work so Grace and Alex were in the nursery with other church friends. And immediately after work we went by Brayden's house so Grace wouldn't be freaked out when she went home with her tomorrow.

And then we went home, Grace was wiped out, found out she had a fever, and after a trip to the doctor we end up with a POSITIVE test for strep throat. So I got to spend the next half hour or so contacting parents for all the kids we saw over the past two days. It's like we were trying to pass this bug around as much as possible.

Here's a few pics from the playdate yesterday:

The musical parade that started the festivities off. Poor Alex couldn't navigate the stairs quick enough to keep up. Aidan is the one in the green shirt.


Art time after wearing themselves out playing Superheroes outside. We discovered pool noodles make awesome superhero swords.

Cutie-pie Sarabeth.

Good day today

So I had a great day today. Yesterday turned out to be a tough one. Started out with attending the funeral of a friend's mother. That in itself was sad, but it really was a beautiful service - Catholic mass that both mourned the loss but also gave blessing that the pain associated with the 5 year fight with cancer was finally over. I had a nice lunch with two other friends who also attended the funeral, but then the rest of the day dealt with rushing back, putting an hour in at work, taking both kids to the grocery store after school (what hell that is!), laundry, dinner, etc. Just one of those days that wiped me out by the end of it.

Today was quite different. Still busy - work was crazy this morning. Plus when we left school at noon, I had to go get into the safe deposit box which ended up being an ordeal because the bank has switched over to this futuristic hand-scanning system to eventually eliminate the need for 70-something year old Betty who used to have to let you in to open the box. They had to get our account up to speed with the new system, which took much longer than I expected it to with two kids once again in tow. So I treated the kids to Happy Meals, eaten on the picnic table on the deck in the beautiful 70 degree weather we had today. And other than Alex's freak out this morning, there were no major tantrums from either kid.

Maybe it was the weather that kept me calm today. With apologies to the Ohio Kennemers dealing with frigid temperatures, it was pretty much a perfect day today. Hopefully tomorrow will be the same. We have no school, so I've got three of Gracie's friends coming over to play and I'm planning on them spending most of their time in the backyard.

On one last (totally unrelated) note, Grace had to create more "No Alex" signs for her bedroom door to keep her brother out. They crack me up, so I figured I'd share them here.

This one shows frowning Alex next to Grace.

Here is Alex's frowning face in a sea of "No Alex" x's.

And this is the one I like the best. Frowning Alex (wearing bunny jammies), big "No Alex" x's, and a big block of "No No No's" to really get the point across.