Mountain Man Rendezvous 2013

We kicked off some summer fun today.  I got up early & made a quick trip to JoAnn's Fabric to get some items that I needed to finish the Mother's Day gift for my Mother in law that I haven't exactly started yet (oops).  When I got home I got a cake and a batch of cupcakes made for an order.  Travis decided we were going to go to the Mountain Man Rendezvous.  Little did I know he had invited his brother & sister's family to come along.  The kids were thrilled and I was doubtful my caking would be done in time for pick up.

Caleb insisted on wearing his chaps and cowboy hat and cowboy boots and taking his play pistol.  Everyone that saw him that he was pretty cute.  We ended up letting him get a double barrel shot gun (a wooden play one).  The guy we bought it from burned his initials into the gun with a magnifying glass.  Caleb tried to tell the guy he only spelled half his name because he only put CB on the gun stock.  The kids sure liked playing on this giant pile of rocks.

Brooke & Olivia are pretty cute together these days.  Olivia talks so much more and so much better than Brooke.  I'm sure it has to do with the fact that Sam, Nash & Caleb were talking for Brookelyn until I got after them.  Brooke looks bigger/older but when you talk to them you'd think Olivia was much older.  You'd never guess they are only three days apart!

We had to have a family picture while we were up there.  Trying to get four kids to look in the same direction at the same time AND smile...yea, I pretty much have given up on that idea!

This one is the best shot & it's my favorite one of Caleb.  He's all cowboy all the way! :)

You will notice in my hand I'm holding some dolls.  I found the cutest dolls for Brookelyn!  They are called Honey Button Dolls.  You can find them at their website here: http://www.honeybuttons.org .  I know that I could make these dolls - they aren't that difficult to do.  But I love the story behind them.  Every doll that is purchased, the money goes into making more dolls that are then donated to charities/kids in need.  The owner told me they just did a big donation to Primary Children's Hospital.  The dolls aren't super cheap ($25 each or 2/$40) but they are adorable.  I got her two dolls - 1 boy & 1 girl - that are twins (their tops are matching fabric).  Brookelyn loves them and I love that I get to help other kids by buying something for mine.  Go check out their website - I bet you'll love them as much as Brooke & I do!  

When we got home from the Rendezvous Travis invited his brother's family & his sister's family to stay for a bbq.  I had to finish "caking" so the order was ready to pick up by seven.  I made it with about 15 minutes to spare.  No pictures of the cake this time because it was Hello Kitty cake with Hello Kitty cupcakes again.  The bbq was fun and the kids had a great time playing together.  Kash's birthday is Monday and the kids are anxiously awaiting the day so they can go to the jumpzone and play!  Should be interesting.  I'm just hoping no one breaks a limb...because that would be just our luck!

He graduates

Caleb had his preschool graduation tonight.  He's all done with preschool & anxiously awaiting Kindergarten to begin!  He's been dying to go to Kindergarten since about March when I brought home the Kindergarten Readiness bag from Canyon for him to practice with all the things in it.  Goofy kid!

 Don't let him fool you.  He may look all cute & innocent in these pictures, but both Travis & I had to go up to him and whisper in his ear telling him to leave his hands in his lap & quit hitting the kid in front of him on the head & elbowing the kid next to him.  Stinker!

 Getting his diploma from Miss Shannon!

I have to mention (again) how much we LOVE Miss Shannon.  Miss Shannon was Sam's Kindergarten teacher at Lincoln.  She was FABULOUS with Sam.  When I realized she lived just up the street a few blocks & did preschool I was SO excited!  Caleb went to her last year and again this year.  He has also done summer camps with her for the last two summers.  We are very sad that she's moving June 1 and not only will Caleb not get to go back in the fall, but we also won't get to do summer camp with her & our Brookelyn won't get the fun of having Miss Shannon as a teacher either.

The graduation ceremony was cute.  This year she did it in the evening and she did it with the three & four year olds combined.  I was impressed none of the kids feel (or jumped) off the table!  One sibling (not of Caleb) did get a bloody nose on the trampoline though).  I also had two moms introduce me to their kids and tell them that I will be there teacher next year - makes it a little more real (scary!).

The Wellsville Mile

I'm fairly certain the date on this scrapbook page is wrong!  My brother was born when I was in 5th grade, which was 1990.  I'm figuring this would have been my fifth grade Wellsville Mile.  Must not have any photos of my fourth grade Wellsville Mile.   I can't believe it's been 22 years since my last Wellsville Mile run!  Now I get to sit on the sidelines & cheer my own kids on!  I told Sam today that I now get to watch the Wellsville Mile for FOUR years in a ROW!  Then I'll get a short break before Caleb runs it & a short break after his two years before Brooke runs it.  Crazy to think how many years this thing has been going!  It had been around a long time when I ran it!

Sam was in the first heat today.  That means she was in the very first group that ran!  Lucky her, she got to do it & get it over with before it hit 90*!  When I asked her how quick she was running the mile at school she told me she was about 15 minutes because "I walk a lot."  Hmmm....sounds like she takes after her mom a little! :)  Today she bested her best time by a full minute!  She clocked in at 12 minutes 9 seconds!  She was 106th in her heat (and there were still a lot of kids that came in after she did).  Not too shabby for a girl that "walks a lot"!  I think she was pretty proud of herself - as she should be!  When she was asking her friends what their time was they were all around 9-10 minutes.  I think she was disappointed that she hadn't been that quick.  I think she might keep running off and on until school starts in the fall & the official training kicks back up.  For the last month every time we go to my mom's house she jumps on the treadmill and tells my mom, "I've got to train for the Wellsville Mile!  It's coming up soon!"  She cracks me up!  She's more like me every day (now that's a scary thought!).  I sure did miss Grandma Lea today.  She was there to cheer me on at my Wellsville Mile both years.  I think Sam could feel her there as much as I could though. :)

 After the kids came over the finish line Sam said they scanned part of the runner bibs and gave them a print out of their time.  That was cool - technology has improved since my last mile! :)  They also had the kids go through a walkway (reminded me of the stalls they herd sheep through) to have the nurses check them out, get sprayed with water, pick up a drink & an ice cream.

 My cousin teaches fourth grade at Wellsville Elementary.  Sam got to talk to Aleisha as she went through the walkway where Aleisha was stationed.  When Sam got through the walkway she said, "Mom?  What's your cousin's name that teaches school again?"  I told her "Aleisha."  And I got a "Yea!  Her!  I got to talk to her back there!"  She was pretty excited :)  I was impressed she remembered Aleisha was my cousin!  We don't get together with the whole clan too often any more!  Thanks for the moral support Aleisha - Sam thought it was pretty awesome!

 Here she is coming out of the walkway (she's done being a herded sheep) :)

 Sam had lots of friends run today.  There are nine schools that participate in the Wellsville Mile.  Next year should be fun because her cousin Jade will run it too!  Sam managed to snag one of the girls from our neighborhood for a picture.  She wanted a picture with the other kid in our neighborhood but he had left earlier with his mom.

 I took the day off work and stayed for the ENTIRE event - Sam wouldn't let me leave.  We ate lunch together with her friends and did some chillin' in the shade.  I even took a short nap in the sun/shade of a tree and ended up sunburned on the back of my arms!  Oops...

I think Sam's excited about doing the mile again next year.  Running is torture to me but she sure seemed to have fun and that's all that matters.  I'll take all the sunburns necessary for the next three years in a row just to see these crazy kids of mine smile!

Brooke's poor ear

Yesterday I went to pick kids up from daycare.  When I got there Brooke told me she needed her diaper changed.  So, we went through the process & she tells me she needs to potty.  So, we head to the bathroom & then I end up chasing her out and trying to catch her before she escapes too far.  In the process of all that I notice that her left earlobe is quite red and swollen.  I grabbed a hold of her telling her, "Ohh!  Your ear is infected, let me take out your earring."  I take out her earring and I find this:

 

Sister has had these earrings in for at least 2 weeks, maybe longer.  They came from Claire's and they say "sensitive solution" on the package they came on.  At first I thought maybe it was just stuff from the earring on her ear.  I tried to wipe it off & it was as hard as a rock.  At this point B kinda freaked out on me.  :)  My girlfriend & I put some alcohol on it (she didn't have any peroxide).  The alcohol didn't seem to do anything.  I'll be honest, at this point I kinda freaked out.  We all know what kind of history my kids have with their ears.  If something can go wrong.....it will!  I asked Laura if she'd keep Caleb & pick Sam & Nash up from After School Club by 5:30 so I could take Brooke into InstaCare.  She said that she would do that so I put Brooke in her carseat and we were off.

In the last month Brooke has seen an ENT 3 times and has been on 2 different antibiotics.  You would think if anything was amiss it would have been noticed.  Apparently not! :)

When we got to InstaCare I showed the nurse why we were there - she was grossed out - and we had about a 10 minute wait before we were called back (a new record!).  I was telling the nurse that was doing her vitals about it and she said the same kind of thing happened to her little girl, that it was just a reaction to the earring.  I asked if it was a reaction to an earring wouldn't it be n both ears instead of just her left one?  Apparently that's not how it works I guess.

The dr. finally came in to see us and I showed him Brooke's ear.  He was grossed out too.  He put gloves on and felt her ear - which she was not a fan of.  He told me that it was a bad infection.  I told him that she had been on two different antibiotics in the last month - Zythromax & Omnicef & that she had a reaction to the Omnicef.  He decided to put her on Keflex 3 times a day.  He also told me to a do a warm compress every 3-4 hours for at least 10-15 minutes.  Then he told me that when the gray tissue softens up that it will need to be pulled back and trimmed off (awesome, right?).

Today her ear actually looks worse than yesterday.  I can only imagine what it would have looked like if she hadn't had three doses of antibiotics and several warm compresses on it!  The ear lobe seemed to be much more red and it was hot today (wasn't hot to the touch yesterday).  I decided to pin her down and take a straight pin and gently poke at the gray tissue to see if it had softened up and could be peeled away.  The ear exploded like a giant zit.  Not. Even. Joking.  It was nasty!  Poor Brooke cried and cried big old alligator tears and kept saying, "Owie mommy!"  Once it started to ooze pus out I was glad I had grabbed some toilet paper just in case!  I figured I'd better put some pressure on it to get it all out so that it doesn't just fill back up over night.  Once the thing quit draining I realized that the entire area that was gray was just flopping and hanging on by a thread.  Apparently when it exploded it really exploded.  Well, I couldn't just leave the dang thing dangling there and hope that it didn't catch on something and rip completely off & take more of her ear wth it!  I then had to pin her down again and try to cut away as much of the dead gray tissue as I could.  I again had her saying "Owie Mommy!" and crying big old alligator tears.  I felt so bad!  It was almost as bad as when I had to hold Nash down for a spinal tap when he was 2 1/2!

So now we've gone from big nasty dead gray rock hard swollen red chunk on her left ear to this:

This picture doesn't even do it justice.  It seriously looks like I tried to gauge my baby's ear!  There's still a little bit of gray dead tissue but it was connect onto her earlobe still and I didn't want to make it worse!  

She was really good to put a warm washcloth on it after we got it all trimmed off.  I'm crossing my fingers it doesn't heal funky or get infected even more!  That hole is about the size of a pencil eraser!

And in other news....

When Sam came out of dance class tonight she gave me a note saying that her Hip Hop dance took 1st!  Wahoo!  They gave the girls the first place ribbon for their Hip Hop dance and the 2nd place ribbon for their Jazz dance!  Sam was pretty excited.  Travis thought that it should have been switched with their Jazz getting first and their Hip Hop getting second.  What does he know anyway?

Next week on Thursday they are doing a class dance performance, awards, dance off & drill down.  This is new!  They've never done that before.  They always just do the end of the year recital and then do the dance off at the end of the recital.  The note she got also said they want them to perform at the end of the matinee show.  This means dress rehearsal from 11-1, back to Sky View at 3:30 (matinee starts at 3) to perform at the end of the matinee and then the evening performance starts at 6:30 so they have to be there at 6.  This is going to make for a very long day on Saturday, May 18.  Since her dad isn't home I'm crossing my fingers I can find a grandma/grandpa that want to babysit all day long!  After her dance recital on the 18th she will have a break until summer dance starts on June 4th.  This year the summer dance performing team will perform at Seven Peaks, Relay, Logan Aquatic Center & do a family performance.  She's pretty excited about the whole Seven Peaks performance.  Should be yet another new adventure for us!

A Birthday for Nash!

This year I get to share Mother's Day with Nash!  The year he was born, he was born on a Thursday.  How do I remember that?  Because my dad made the comment that if I didn't have him before midnight I'd have to keep him in for another full day because I couldn't curse him & let him be born on Friday the 13th!

Nash is my most verbally caring kid.  He tells me 100 times a day, "I love you mom."  He will always come up and give me a hug with it too.  I won't trade those!  I know it won't be long before he's in fifth grade & saying I love you mom and giving me a hug isn't cool.  I'll take it while I can!  Especially since he wasn't a snuggly baby either!

For Nash's birthday cake this year he wanted Darth Vader (because my mom scored the pan for free for us) and then my girlfriend told me about the Lego Minifigure cake pan she saw on ebay.  So of course he wanted both cakes!  I figured I'd end up being asked to make a Darth Vader Lego Minifigure!  He was good to me though and when I told him I just wasn't going to be able to make both Darth & the Minifigure & Brookelyn's cake he told me he was ok if we just did the Minifigure for the party & saved Darth for Mother's Day.  Who else gets to have Darth cake with their eight year old on Mother's Day?  Probably not a lot of moms!

Since Travis isn't home for Nash's birthday this year we had a family party on May 5th for Nash & Brookelyn.  Nash is such a good kid about sharing his birthday with his little sister.  He let her open presents & blow out candles first.  How many other eight year old boys do that?  Pretty sure he'd be the odd man out here.

For Nash's birthday he has been DYING to get a pogo stick.  The neighbor next door has one & has been kind enough to let Nash bounce on it (I was informed his record was 318 consecutive jumps - until tonight when he reached 510).  Grandma Terri was the hero & found the pogo stick - talk about gift of the year!  He wanted to take it to school with him today to play with at recess.  I think he was pretty bummed out when I told him no.  He was good about it though!  He got another extreme dot to dot from Grandma & Grandpa Reeder (and some cash).  He got a Diary of the Wimpy kid book from the Bradshaws, 6,000 BBs & a target from Grandpa Scott & Grandma Kris, a fun beach bag with lots of fun surprises from the Atkinsons, a new lego set from the Snyders, and cold hard cash from Chad & Shanah's family.  We got him a set of "I can draw" books.  He is my artistic child, hands down!

 

Some things about Nash:

Favorite Foods:

Nash is a GOOD eater.  He inherited his dad's hollow leg.  He is constantly in search of food.  I'm afraid I will be eaten out of house and home when he turns 13 & starts bringing friends over regularly!  He LOVES spaghetti.  He likes most breakfast foods, he loves fruit (especially cantelope, watermelon & strawberries), & his food of choice is probably steak (smart kid!)

Favorite TV shows:

Nash is a good sport & will pretty much watch watever is on TV.  He even watches quite a bit of "Full House" with his sister!

Things to do:

Any & all video games.  He's got pretty good hand-eye coordination (thanks piano lessons?).  He is getting a lot better about telling people he plays with how to do something rather than just take the controller and do it for them.

Legos - the boy will build for hours and hours.  Not just with Legos either.  He got a rickter set on clearance at Hastings & put the entire plane together by himself in no time at all with no help from anyone.

Art - He loves to draw and color.  He has also developed an addiction to these extreme dot to dot books that have 1,400 dots in a picture!  He even colors them after he gets them finished.  I'm amazed at his dedication in finishing them!

Read - much to my delight Nash has finally learned to love reading!  Last school year it was like pulling teeth to get the kid to read for the required 20 minutes.  At the beginning of this school year we went through all my books and pulled out a bunch I thought he might like.  One of those books was Captain Underpants.  That was all it took.  He has blown through all 10 books in that series.  He started on the Conspiracy 365 series in about February and has read the first one and part of the second.  I was looking at his AR report and he's reading an average book level of about 4.6-5.0.  That's HUGE for a kid that I was worried had dsylexia last year!  The other awesome thing about what he's reading is that he retains what he reads - sometimes better than Sam!

Math - Nash is like his dad & numbers just make sense.  He has an easy time with math and actually likes doing it.  He's started whipping out answers to multiplication problems in the last few months.  I think he may out do me in the math area before it's all said and done.

Bounce on his new pogo stick - as I mentioned before, his previous record was 318 consecutive bounces.  Tonight he reached 510.  He informed me his new goal is 600.  I told him he needs to have Alex from next door teach him to jump rope while bouncing on the pogo stick too (because dude, that was impressive!).

Things Nash doesn't like:

Practicing piano - I'm not delusional.  I know the only reason he's still taking lessons is because he wants to play the drums so bad.  I keep telling him they only let the kids with piano background play drums.  We'll see if the drum dream outlives his distaste for practicing his piano or not! 

Caleb's ability to irritate him in about .25 seconds.  Caleb's good at it - there's no denying that!

Getting told "Just a minute." - patience is not a strong point for him (but he is improving!)

Nash is a really good kid and very thoughtful of others.  I really can't imagine what our family would be like without Nash.  He is so good with Brookelyn - she adores him!  Which makes me happy because he wasn't exactly thrilled when we told him he was getting a baby sister for his birthday!  Happy birthday Smash!