Brian and I went on a fabulous road trip vacation (sans kids, obviously) the first week of September. We flew into Denver, drove to Wyoming and spent a few days driving around Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We saw so much beautiful, amazing scenery, got pretty sunburned (literally red-necks in a convertible), and I took way too many pictures... and videos because I got a crazy idea into my head that I was going to put together a little movie with all the video clips that I took. Yeah, right! Brian knew I was crazy to think that ever was going to happen, but he just went along with my ridiculous scheme. And seeing as how I haven't even started sorting through all the hundreds of pictures that I took, much less watching all the 5-10 second clips of videos, this may be a project for after the kids are in elementary school (or never).
That's Old Faithful back there... I know you're impressed!
The Grand Tetons out the window.
One guess who took this artistic shot?
The week after we got back from vacation was the kids' first week of preschool. I posted about the first day, but here's the rest of the story. For the next three days, Sarah was almost constantly saying things like "Mommy, I don't like school", "Mommy, I don't want to go back to school", "Mommy I want to be in Nathan's class" with a pitifully sad look and a quivery bottom lip. She definitely wore my patience thin because (poor thing) she could NOT let it go. Friday we made it until 20 minutes before school when the heart-wrenching pleading came at me full force. On the walk into school from the car, she impressed me with her wishful thinking "Maybe my school is already finished!"
We made it to her classroom doors without tears, but when she refused to walk into the classroom and I picked her up to hand her to her teacher, the floodgates opened! Thankfully overall she did much better, settling down much faster and after about 30 minutes was fully cheerful and engaged with class activities for the rest of the day. Our sweet preschool director sent me an encouraging email update a few hours into the day, though unfortunately I didn't see it until right before pick up. But I had been busy painting and running errands, so its not like I was sitting around worrying about her.
I moved the kids' "desks" down to the study - now all four of us have desk space in this room! They're used multiple times a day now since the kids are obsessed with printed coloring pages off the internet.
A pre-dinner snack of red pepper sticks while sitting in a box? But of course!
The haul from our/Nana's garden this week. I fried okra two nights ago, today my house smells heavenly of roasting tomatoes and we'll have eggplant maybe tomorrow night?
On Saturday morning Brian had to take his Peds Anesthesia Boards (which he had been cramming for the whole week before), so instead of being stuck with the kids by myself for another day I took them over to Gran and Pawpaw's lake house. Turned out that Brian's test went much faster then anticipated and Nathan started feeling bad - complaining of a headache - so we headed home for naps after lunch. That afternoon Nathan was feeling puny and running a temperature, but was fine again the next morning so we decided to go ahead to church. But then in the afternoon the temperature returned, and then Monday the rasping cough started. Brian diagnosed it over the phone as possibly croup, but his temperature definitely meant no preschool for Nathan (and we decided also Sarah) on Tuesday. We made it through Monday and Tuesday ok, with Nathan's fever breaking on Tuesday. So today we ventured out to the library since we had books due and more waiting for us on hold. Right as we were beginning to check out, Sarah got all weepy for her Kitty-Cat (her comfort object) so I picked her up and she proceeded to puke all over both of us!! I hurried to the bathroom with her and cleaned us up as best I could, then returned for Nathan and our books. Thankfully I had a change of clothes for her in the car, but I had the strange experience of driving home in just my bra! I kept telling myself "its just like you're wearing a bikini top, just like a bikini top..."
Playing on the statues at the library about 45 minutes before Sarah got sick this morning.
In other news, Brian bought me a new computer and he spent all afternoon yesterday installing a different (even bigger and faster) hard drive in it, so now I'm in the process of trying to move all my files over to the new computer, figure out how it works (oh Windows 8, our family is NOT a fan) and reinstall all my (mainly photo-editing) programs on it. So right now I'm actually typing this post on my old computer while I'm trying to upload photos onto my new one.
We've also been busy trying to take care of all the "I've just moved and have to figure out all our new health-care related stuff" business this month. Brian and I went to the dentist, I went back to have a broken filling fixed, I have an eye doctor appointment scheduled for next week, I've got the kids in with a recommended pediatrician and their well-child visits scheduled (that quickly jumped up in priority when Nathan started getting sick and we didn't have a doctor to take him to if necessary), and I think we have primary-care physician recommendations for Brian and me - whew!
We have also been working on some house decorating items in our free time - one of which was replacing all the old knobs in the kitchen. Now I don't feel like my cabinets are staring at me all day!
So... that's all the craziness going on in our lives right now. I can't believe September's already half-way over, but after looking back at this post, I can see why its flown by so far. I hope next week life will settle down a bit... I need a break!
Great catchup post. Love the veggies and laughing about the eyeball pulls. Gran
ReplyDelete