Spring Break : Day 2

We opted to day for a cycling adventure! We decided to ride into the metro park down the road from us and have a picnic. Jonathan stayed home to... do something, no idea what. I think he was getting ready for scouts and working on some sort of paper he has due at school. He took a break long enough to snap a picture of us before we embarked on our journey.

Andi lasted about five minutes on her bike before she said she wanted to ride in the trailer. I knew that would happen. Really glad it happened within walking distance of the house so David could run her bike back while I got everyone settled in the trailer.

The ride was a lot longer than I'd anticipated. And hillier. Oh so much more hilly than I'd expected. Poor David was a real trooper and we made it to the Farm Center just under an hour after we'd left. After lunch we wandered around looking at all of the animals.

Pile of piggies! The sow from last time had her piglets on Saturday, seven in all! They were adorable, and the kids were so frustrated that they were all just out of reach. (I think the piglets did that on purpose...)

This little goat gang cracked me up. We weren't the only ones enjoying the sunshine.

Barred rock hens! I miss having chickens a lot sometimes.

Big pigs...

Peter adored this calf:

 Though he was a little confused about what to do with his fingers once she'd licked them all...

We ran around in the grass for a while before deciding it was time to head home. We all got a drink of water and wandered through the barn one last time.

Mothers always make the best beds...

The ride back seemed shorter but harder. David and I were pretty worn out, the wind was against us, and I was hauling an extra 50-ish pounds in that trailer. David found it easier to cycle behind me (of course, breaking the wind) and kept up so well. We made it back home sunburnt, tired, and sore. David has declared he never wants to ride that far again. I would like to do it without hauling the trailer.  But now I really know the trails and am excited to hit them tomorrow for my run.

And just how far did we go? 11.7 miles. Maybe I'll be able to run that someday... :)

Spring Break : Day 1

It was supposed to rain all day Monday. It didn't, but I prepared activities for the kids so that we could be out of the rain but still having some real fun. So of course that meant that I HAD to take the kids to IKEA. :)

I went with a need for ONE thing. And I walked out with that ONE thing: a frame for the mystery dress I found in my tote of Grandma's needlepoint. I can't remember if it something my mom brought up to me when she brought some other things from Grandpa's house, but I found it again and looked into it a bit more, yet have no idea what the story behind this gorgeous dress is. So, for now, it hangs in Andi's room.

Jonathan and I were also talking about David and his need for a hobby recently. He LOVES to build things. He's always finding random things (twist-ties, old bread ties, boxes, rings, whatever...) and building interesting things with them. We wondered if maybe he would be interested in building models. I asked my dad about it and then took David to Hobby Lobby to pick out his first model as a project for the week.

With no help from me David snapped...

 Assembled...

 Snapped and filed....

 And assembled some more.

 In about 20 minutes he had this:

 And I realized that I had no other projects for him for the rest of the week. Great. Scrap book time!! :D

At some point in the day, probably while taking all of the above photos, I realized that David's hair had gotten rather unruly. Hair cut time! And there were NO cuts on my fingers this time. Wahoo!

I think I'm getting the hang of those scissor cuts. Saved me $12 right there! The scissors Emma got for me for Christmas were the best gift ever. Seriously. When she comes to visit next month I'll have her watch me trim up his hair so she can give me a few extra pointers. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have her teach me how to cut Andi's hair... maybe not. I'll spend $12 on a girl's hair!

Peter... again.

So I mentioned how poopy Peter has been lately on a blog a couple weeks ago. Here's an update.

We went back to the doctor yesterday. His skin rash has not changed significantly, and he is still having massive explosions every couple of days with nothing between mess days.

And then a couple weeks ago, right after our initial visit, Peter came down with a cold. I thought it was allergies at first, but it quickly turned into something else. Fever, running nose, horrible cough that was keeping him up all night. I thought it had gone away, but the doctors said yesterday that his lungs sound really cruddy.

So I'm really worried. He lost 1.5 pounds in the two weeks between the initial visit and yesterday, and that's what we were really hoping would not happen. We've moved onto the next phase: we continue with our gluten/dairy free diet for Peter, but we've now submitted a stool sample and are running labs on that. Next step is blood work if nothing shows up on the stool panel.

Peter's immune system has also been pretty weakened. Closed door spaces with lots of exposure to other kids and germs is off-limits. We can still hit up the parks, it would be good for him to get outside, but we need to limit his exposure to other germs so he doesn't get more sick. I suppose it is a good thing my child care plan hasn't gone anywhere yet, I need to get Peter healthy before introducing more kids to the mix!

So all of this may turn out to be a simple fix, and he may be healthy in no time. But Dr. Google has not been helping me feel any better about this situation, and I'm really nervous about my poor, happy little guy. Some prayers would be appreciated. And prayers for speedy recovery and a quick fix. Yeah. That would make it all better. :)

Sunday park visit

Between conference sessions on Sunday David and Andi were going nuts! Peter was asleep and I really wanted to make sure he stayed that way (he's been really sick lately, nasty chest cold that just won't go away), so I grabbed the two bigger kids and asked if they wanted to go to the park. We got our shoes on and got walking!

I made them play for an hour before I even considered bringing them home.

I love having a park so close to home! We got home just as the second Sunday session started and I had much calmer kids the rest of the afternoon. :)

Tiger

Last Thursday was David's last pack meeting with our old pack. They learned about the American Indian culture, wrote stories using Native American hieroglyphics, and then made moccasins! David is pretty stoked to have a pair of moccasins that match mom and dad's.

At the end of the night David was also awarded his Tiger award!

I'm so proud of him. He's worked so hard to get all of his advancement requirements completed. He's learned a lot and happily (for once) completed his various tasks.

This is only the first step in a long life of scouting for me, but I'm already so grateful for the program and how it has helped David grow. It has also been good for the two of us to go together and get to know one another better. It is funny, I've known him his whole life and yet I'm still learning new things about him every day. Can't wait to see who he becomes!

Radio Station Tour

David's last requirement for Tigers was to visit a TV or radio station. No one was planning a trip with our old pack, the pack we are transferring to already went (in fact, all of their Tigers earned their award at their Blue and Gold a month ago), so it was up to me to figure something out. I emailed and called a few placed but had had no luck and was starting in on Plan B: call the local schools. By a great stroke of luck our local home school network managed to set up a tour at a local radio station and we were able to get in on the tour. It was a lot of fun, very informative, and it felt so good to get that last requirement out of the way! (David is in the red shirt in all of the following pics.)

 We toured four different sister-stations all broadcasting under the CBS umbrella. There was the pop station, oldies, sports, and country.

 Each had a dedicated sales team, traffic controllers (lined up ads and made sure competitors never aired next to each other), and lead guy that picked the music (different from the DJs). The guy giving us the tour was the events coordinator for ALL of those stations.

We saw the computer room! It was insane. Just like the super computer rooms in movies. And J didn't have access to the room (very few people do, turns out).

We caught the bosses all in the middle of a very heated round of ping-pong in the network-wide Ping Pong Tournament. It was intense...

 David and Liam (my old piano student) LOVED the oldies station lounge. They had a Pac Man machine and a pinball machine.

 Oh, and a disco ball:

 Groovy... :)

The country station lounge had chairs with denim covers. Totally cute! David wants one.

We got to talk to the country DJs. They were both really nice, told the kids to stay in school and be nice to their teachers. The parents laughed, the kids were confused.

 Guitars signed by famous people... Don't remember who...

Our jolly tour guide gave us a pop quiz on the way out.

We passed the newsroom last where the guy was on air. His studio looks out onto "the hive" where a large team spends a lot of time on computers looking for news stories. 

And then it was done! And David's final requirement was complete. And he had fun to boot. So nice when things that must be done end up being fun, too. ;)

Scrap book

David needed to make a family scrap book for one of his last two requirements for his Tiger award. We collected pictures from FB and printed off photos that family sent, David picked out a stack of scrap book paper and a book, and he got to work.

 A little bit every day he's been working on creating new pages. He really liked how this one turned out:

Every night he pulls out his scrap book and looks at all of the smiling people in his photos. He really misses our family. I didn't know how much 3-year-old David would remember about Texas. Almost 7-year-old David remembers a lot. And he really, really misses everyone. I am really looking forward to our Thanksgiving trip and I'm sure David is, too. He can't wait to take more pictures and see everyone again. He'll have a lot more pages to add to his scrap book during Christmas break!

During conference on Sunday we all worked on our various projects. I'd just finished Andi's Easter dress and was working on my own dress. Jonathan was laminating his new Amateur Radio license. David was working on his scrapbook. I noticed at some point that he was shuffling through his pictures rather quickly like he'd lost something. Then he picked out one picture and asked, "Mom, is this you?" It wasn't. It was actually a picture from a trip to California when David was just over a year old. Emma was holding a very sandy David after a trip to the beach, and I snapped a photo of the two cuties.

"Nope. That's Auntie Emma."

He shuffled around a bit more and then said, rather frustrated, "I can't find the pictures of you!"

"Pictures of me?"

"Yeah. The pictures of you and me!"

"Well, I didn't print any, David."

"Oh. Will you?"

....... "David, I don't have any pictures of you and me."

I actively avoid the camera. I hate pictures of myself. I have terrible body image issues, all of which are totally well-founded and justifiable. But I was struck that no matter what I look like my little guy still wants me in his book of family, in the book filled with people who love and care for him. And why shouldn't I be there?? I gave BIRTH to him, for heaven's sake. I, more than anyone, belong in that book. But I won't put myself in pictures because I'm the last person I want to see in them.

I read an article (blog?) a long time ago about a mom who declared that she would put herself, frump and all, into photos with the kids. At the time I said "More power to you! I'd never ever do that. Not happening." Well. I learned today that I'm pretty dang important to my kids and they want to remember me. David needs me out from behind that camera sometimes and next to him. So I'm swallowing my pride, and David and I are going to be in pictures together more often. And Andrea and I. And PETER and I.

So there's picture one. I think I'm going to find a photo booth this week and get photos with my little guy. Spring break shenanigans will be had!

PS - How do you like my Easter dress? ;)