Can't keep a clean house

This is how I feel this summer with a house full of kids. And yes, I always sing in harmony with myself as I calmly scrub floors by hand. Ask anybody.



Lyrics | Cinderella - Oh Sing Sweet Nightingale lyrics

Summer is Here: The Mega-Post!

The end of school always ends up as blur to me. There is too much to fit in right at the end and everything becomes completely chaotic. So, here's what we've been up to these last couple of months:

Alli was baptized May 1. She did great and it was really nice. She loves being able to go to Activity Days now. The next day Jack was blessed. He didn't make a peep!





Of course, we had to make another trip to the zoo. Hazel is now obsessed with going to see the animals. We met up with Drew and Pyper and so our kids got to play with their cousins Lucy and Kyle at the zoo.
































Alli has been asking to get her ears pierced since kindergarten. We told her we would talk about it when she was at least 8. She held us to that, wanting to get it done for her birthday. Unfortunately, she was in soccer then and couldn't wear earrings for games so she had to wait a little longer. Quinn didn't want her to get her ears pierced because it was an acknowledgement that she's growing up, so he tried to tell her a variety of reason why she couldn't do it: the store exploded, all stores are out of earrings, and so on. She didn't buy it, and although she was nervous, Alli was tough. She didn't flinch, and even said after that it hurt so bad she wanted to cry, but didn't want to cry out at the store! She is so happy to have her ears pierced, and for the first few days she would stop and admire her ears on just about anything that would reflect her image!


Before...














During...













After!












School finally did end, and we are happy to stay up late. Still working on sleeping in...that's okay, the weather is still working on being warm. We're hoping to get it and actually feel like a summer vacation some time soon!



Hazel gets a last-minute snuggle with Alli before a neighbor friend gets her and Mary to walk to school. And yes, Alli is wearing a jacket the last week of school.













Mary's kindergarten class, and her teacher Miss Clegg.
















Alli and some of her buddies on the last day of school.




And that gets us caught up a little for now. More to come, hopefully in smaller, easier to digest chunks!

Camera Thief Srikes Again!!

Mary got the camera again. After deleting countless pictures of random objects in the den (under the desk, the wall, Hazel's feet), I saw these and started laughing out loud. I thought I had better post them, if not just for my own amusement!

Hazel's Giraffes

For the past two weeks, Hazel has been talking about giraffes. I'm not sure what sparked the interest, but suddenly she loves giraffes. Last Saturday, I decided that while Quinn took Alli and Mary to their soccer games, I would take Hazel and Jack to the zoo. Hazel was really excited, and even now four days later, she still is talking about the animals at the zoo. This was Jack's first trip to the zoo. He looked around a bit, took a little from his bottle, and slept.

On the way downtown, I told Hazel I would get her some food to eat at the zoo since it was close to lunchtime. She was very concerned that I meant eat instead of the zoo. That took some explaining, but she finally got it-and was still too excited to eat much. She was fascinated watching giraffes eat and told me over and over again that the giraffes ate snacks! Apparently that was funny to her. We had a fun time, and Hazel is ready to go back, which is good because she has two older sisters who were kind of bummed they missed out. Now I'm trying to use our next trip to the zoo as motivation to start potty-training again....

Alli's 8!

Alli just turned 8, and she has been so excited, because it's a big birthday! Unfortunately, her birthday fell on a Tuesday, so she had to go to school, but after school we went to the mall for dinner and to find a dress for her baptism. Since Quinn had to be out of town on her big day, Alli got a doll from her dad a few days early. I gave her the big 8 year-old present: her own set of scriptures. She was so excited and loved the fact that her name was engraved on them so they were just hers! Not to mention the fact that they came in a little pink carrier... After the mall, we went out to ice cream (good old Delsa's!) with Grandma Cindy.



These are some pictures we took outside our house in Alli's
special dress for her baptism announcements.

Mary is 6!

Mary turned six April 3.  She is quite the character-all she wanted for her birthday was Moon Sand and 10 packs of gum.  She had specific instructions for her birthday cake, too: brownies with six cherries on top.  While she was thrilled to get the Moon Sand (and I was not thrilled about buying it-it is a mess), she loves two presents more than anything: her Zhu-zhu pet and her charm bracelet, both from the grandmas.  We went out to eat and stopped by Pojos for games.

Mary loves to steal my camera and take pictures of herself.  They are always a surprise to me as I'm uploading pictures!  She loves to play on the Wii with her dad, and already acknowledges that I am hopeless at video games.  She still loves her special bear, Cuddly Bear, who she sleeps with every night.  Mary is becoming a real reader; it is fun to have her read books to me.  She is lots of fun-she has a great sense of humor!  She is hilarious to watch wrestle her dad, which she insists they do every day, and she lovingly refers to dinner as "slop".  Life wouldn't be the same without Mary, we're glad we have her!

Not a Good Week

For the last couple of weeks, everyone has been sick.  Last week, it all caught up with Jack, and he progressively got worse until Friday (3/12) I took him in to the doctor.  His oxygen levels were fine, but he wasn't eating much so I was worried about dehydration.  He was clearly sick, but checked out okay, doctor just said to keep an eye on him and push the fluids.  That night he slept the whole night, which is not normal, and the next day he was white and listless.  Worst of all, he wouldn't eat.  At all.  I had to feed him formula from a medicine dropper where it would take me an hour to get almost an ounce in him!  By that evening, it was not improving so I talked to a nurse who recommended he go to the ER.  It's a good thing I did because his oxygen levels were really low.  They took all kinds of tests including blood tests and a spinal tap (which was awful!), and a chest x-ray.  His white blood cell count was really high, indicating some kind of infection, and he had something showing up on his x-ray. 
He ended up spending four days in the hospital, testing positive for RSV and has been pumped full of antibiotics to treat pneumonia.  It was the scariest thing I have ever been through, and I am really thankful that Jack is back home and recovering quickly!  I have never been so happy to change diapers and love it that he is super hungry!  The best part is that Jack was just starting to smile right before he got sick.  He was not smiling at all for that week that he was really not well, but the last few days he has been all smiles!  Unfortunately I have not been able to catch him in the act, so no smiling pictures yet.

Here he is at the hospital.  He did have a tube running across his face and into his nostrils, but I was too traumatized at the time to take pictures.  These were taken after he was showing improvement and I knew he was going to be okay!