Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Busy, Busy!

This week has been crazy busy! We have been running, running, running!

Friday is the Spring fling at school. It is a big, carnival type thing. We have a silent auction every year, which helps to raise money for the classrooms. So I have been working this week on getting the baskets ready for 2 classes. Yes, I only have one child in school, but I still help Sam's teacher from last year. :) I came up with the theme of both baskets and then got things donated, etc. Sam's basket is a Birthday Party Basket. We filled it with everything you need for a party, including a pool party. For Mrs. Tarpley's basket we are doing a Fitness themed basket.

I spent Tuesday getting all the stuff we needed for the baskets, which meant going through everything the other class members sent in, then going shopping for the other items we needed, then going back to school to start putting the basket together. We then had to run and get Sam's allergy shot. He is having bad reactions to them so he is being cut way back for a while. He was so grumpy last night because of it, and seemed tired and grumpy today as well. Poor kiddo. I ended up taking Sam's class basket home to put together, so that is what I did all night. It turned out well and I love our basket. :)

Today I had playgroup at my house, but ended up having to leave everyone here by themselves after an hour so I could go back to school. I subbed for Mrs. Tarpley, and in between class stuff I finished putting her basket all together. We finally left school about 3:20, ran home, picked up Avery and went to the Y. Tonight was $.31 scoop night at Baskin Robbins so Lindsay and I decided to take the kids to that. It ended up taking us about an hour because of the line (which was out the door), getting the ice cream, and having Sam's face painted.


After that we were all starving and it was late so we went to McDonald's. After McD's we had to run to Wal-Mart to get Sam a hat for Hat Day tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will be back at school putting together Mrs. Tarpley's basket.

Friday Avery and I are going to a Gymnastics place with Kinley. Then it will be the Spring Fling. Should be fun, although it is supposed to storm, so who knows how that will go.

Anyway, this is the busiest month of the year for us. Everything seems to happen in May and I am at school all the time. So things will be crazy for a while, so bear with my limited posting time. :)

Friday, April 25, 2008

Webkinz Extravaganza!


The boys are infatuated with Webkinz! They are the softest, cutest, little stuffed animals. When you have a Webkinz, you also get to play in an online Webkinz worls, where you take care of your pet, play games, etc. It is all safe for kids, and they love it! Well, this weekend is the 3rd Anniversary of Webkinz. They are having a Webkinz Extravaganza, where if you spend $10 in one of the participating stores, then you get a free Webkinz. So today we went and took advantage of that.

Sam bought some clothes for his Brown Lab, Hershey. Then he got a free Spotted Leopard (who happens to be the Brown Lab's best friend), which he named Dotz.


Avery got a Lil' Monkey (fitting, don't ya think!), which he named Banana. He got a free Lion (which also fits with this jungle themed kid), and he named him Pawz.


They LOVE their Webkinz!!!

We got ROLLED!

I must document our first ever toilet paper rolling. Apparently some kids from church came and rolled our front yard last night, WHILE WE WERE AWAKE! We were sitting in the livingroom watching ER the whole time. Dare Devils! AJ teaches the 14-15 year old boys now, so I guess this might happen pretty regularly. Anyway, we don't have trees so I guess it wasn't too fun trying to roll our yard, but here is what they did get to do.









This morning Sam came running in my room while I was sleeping saying, "You have got to see what Daddy did! It's so funny!" I said, "OK, in a minute." He said, "You need to come now, he did it for you for Mother's Day!" Then I said, "OK, I'm coming." "It's in the front yard, it's a big heart!" He is not a secret keeper. :) Darn it, I got woken up for nothing. I had already seen all that last night before I went to bed. SO much for sleeping in on a no school day! :) It was cute how excited he was though! By the time I got up and came downstairs the boys had already been outside and cleaned it all up!!! Woohoo! So that was our little nightly adventure!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Funny Avery

Avery is a funny kid. This weekend AJ's Mom "G" dropped off something for the boys. She gave Avery this stuffed Teddy Bear. He loves it and calls it his pet. The other day he told me his name was Ik. I just thought he was confused and he would forget that. Well, this morning he was talking about his pet, Ik. I asked him why he named him that and he said, "Because I wanted to!" Then he said, "It's a funny name isn't it?!" When I asked him how to spell it he told me it was I-K. So we now have a pet named Ik!

Yesterday Avery went to Julie's house while I was subbing. Julie is babysitting some other kids this week and they all called Avery "Henry" the entire day. When I asked him his name he said "Avery, A-V-E-R-Y!" When I asked him what they calle dhim he said "Henry" like it was no big deal at all.

Silly Willy!

Wow! An Award?!


Last night we had an awards banquet for TuneTown. It's to celebrate all the past year's achievements, recognize members, give awards, etc.

Well, much to my surprise, I received an award last night. I got the Baritone of the Year award!! WOW! We have 4 different music parts in our organization. Tenor, which is the highest part (they sing what would be the Soprano line on the Treble Clef.) Then we have Lead, which is the melody part (they sing the alto line). Then there is Baritone, which is the harmony part under the Lead (We sing on the Tenor line on the Bass Clef). Baritones sing all the funny notes that make the chord work. Then there is Bass, which is the lowest harmony part (they sing the Bass line on the Bass Clef). I sing Baritone (and LOVE it). Anyway, I guess I did a good job doing the things I was supposed to do! :) I was all embarrassed, and I am sure bright red. I hate having to go up in front of people like that. Can't wait to see that picture! NOT!

Anyway, it was a fun night, and it was good to see all the other people getting the awards they deserved.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Soccer!



So we didn't get rained out! Yippee!

Avery was shy at first and wouldn't go out on the field. I had to go out with him, and finally after about 10 minutes he realized it was fun and let me go away. He really liked it. This is just a learning form of soccer so they play a lot of games to teach them what to do with the ball, etc. First they had to run across the field without getting tagged by the "alligator". Then they got to play with the balls. They learned to dribble the ball, knocked down the cones, etc. Then they got to kick it in the net. He loved that part. At the end they played a mini game. He did not like that part because every time he tried to go after the ball, another kid would get there first and steal it away. At the end, they had all of them stand all together and throw their balls up in the air. Ummmm, not a good idea with 12 3/4yr olds! One ball dropped and hit Avery right on the cheek so he cried about that. Besides that he really liked it and told me that next week he would not be shy!

He loved playing on Kinley's team. They make a good team! :) At one point, they both decided to take a break, pulled up their balls, and sat right down. It was so cute! They hadn't seen anyone else do this, they thought of it all on their own.

After soccer we went to the Y and went swimming. That is their favorite part of the week. We then went shopping for summer clothes and my watch. They kept smelling the booths that sold German roasted nuts. It basks the whole are in yummy smelling cinnamon. I promised them we would go get a Cinnabon before we left. We finally got finished shopping, went to the Cinnabon place only to be told that they were out of Cinnabons and it would be 30 minutes! Ummm, hello, it's the name of your business, you don't run out! I then asked for the mini Cinnabon's, which they were also out of! Niiiiicceee! Needless to say, we were done shopping and ready to go so we missed out on some ooey, gooey, goodness. :(

We came home and watched Enchanted. It was cute and all of us really liked it.

That's it for this weekend!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Friday!

So Sam had another CT yesterday, and then we went to talk to the ENT about what to do next. There was a lot of swelling, and we could tell an infection was on it's way (which I knew already just from the signs. We could see signs of chronic infections, etc. The doctor told me I was really good at reading CT's! LOL! Not a good thing to be good at when it's your own kid you are looking at. Anyway, the drainage openings in both the large and small sinuses are completely closed. He has to go in for surgery to open those up. The doctor said he has a 75% chance of improvement. He may still get infections, etc, but he is hoping that they will be less frequent and clear up quickly after the surgery. That's what they were hoping last time too, so we will see. He wanted him to have the surgery the first week in May, but he doesn't want to miss all the fun stuff at school. He would be out at least a week. Soooo, we are trying to hold off until the first of June. At the moment his surgery is scheduled for June 6th. I know he will have another infection before then, but the nurse thinks he should be able to be treated for that so we can hold off on the surgery until school is out. I hope it works this time!!

Last night I went to a Mom's Night Out with girls from my playgroup. We saw Prom Night. I LOVE scary movies. I thought this movie was more sad than scary though. I felt sorry for the poor girl. After the movie we went to a new restaurant called Mimi's Cafe. They had WONDERFUL desserts, so we each got a different one and then passed them around the table. Yummy!

Today I subbed for Justin's class, where we had a game day all afternoon. Avery played at Julie's, which he loves to do. AJ is camping again tonight so we hung out at Julie's, stopped and got Little Caesars, and now the boys are enthralled in the new Ben 10 show.

There is supposed to be soccer for Avery tomorrow, but it is supposed to rain tonight so I wonder if it will get canceled again. Hopefully not!

The plan tomorrow is to go to soccer, run to the Y, swim in the pool, and then hopefully go to Opry Mills. My watch stopped working yesterday and I CANNOT live without a watch. Opry Mills has Fossil so that is where I prefer to go, plus the boys need summer clothes, so I might as well go and get it all at one time. :)

Anyway, I hope everyone has a good weekend. Have fun!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Must Be a Boring Blog

Lindsay says blogs are boring without pictures, so I guess this will be boring. ;)

This weekend the boys ended up spending the night at Julie's house, so I was all by myself! I didn't use the time well though and I cleaned my house extra, extra good. I know I am a big dork! I had been cleaning all day (soccer got canceled)and I still had things to finish up so that's what I did all night.

AJ sprained his ankle pretty bad on his camping trip. It was all swollen and terribly bruised. It's not broken though, so that is good. It looks disgusting though!

Monday Avery had to go to the doctor for his 4 year check up. We went to a new doctor because I could never get in to his other one and I was tired of taking him to the walk-in clinic. I absolutely LOVE this new doctor. She was great. The office is kinda far away, but I think she will definitely be worth it. Anyway, I had some concerns and she really listened and thoroughly checked him out. I talked to her about his rash around his mouth from tomatoes. She put him on different vitamins because she said it might be caused from not enough zinc. Avery has also been feeling sick for quite a while. He constantly tells me that he doesn't feel good. It doesn't matter what he eats, when he eats, etc. He just doesn't feel good. He also has strange poop (TMI, sorry) so I asked her about that. She sent him to get an X-ray of his stomach to be sure there were no blockages, etc. His x-ray came back fine. She said that it could be a silent form of reflux so she put him on Pepcid AC. He has never had any reflux problems, even as a baby, so we will see if this works. Maybe so. She wants him to come back in 2 weeks to see if he is doing better. She said she hopes it is reflux because from what I described it sounds like he could have Celiac Disease, which is where your body can't process Gluten correctly. Gluten is in wheat, rye, and barley, so pretty much everything! The only way to help it is to have a gluten free diet which would be no good. So we hope, hope, hope that it is reflux! Anyway, besides that he is doing great. He is still a little runt, only in the 15th percent for weight and 10% for height. All that matters is that he thinks he is big! ;)

Today I went to sing at the State Capitol. We were asked to sing for Women's Crime Victims Week. There were several Senators, Supreme Court Judges, etc there. It was a little bit crazy, but we pulled it off and already have interest from 2 big wigs to do some events for them. Yea! Not bad for 20 mins. of work. :)

Tomorrow Sam gets to spend most of the day at the doctor. He has his CT scan and then we have to go back to the ENT. So, I will post more tomorrow about that. He told me last night that he blows and blows and that there is this big, gross stuff on the right side that he just can't get out. Poor kid. Hopefully we can get him fixed.

I suppose that is it for now. Bye Bye!

Friday, April 11, 2008

Doctors, Soccer, and More!

This week has been pretty busy.

Monday- I subbed all day while Avery played with his best friend, Trey. When we came home the boys went to play outside and left the front door open a little bit. Welllll, it is finally nice and warm this week so guess what is out and about. Yes, bees, wasps, and all sorts of flying things that I hate! A wasp flew inside. Most of you know how terrified I am of all flying things with stingers (yes, I know they are A LOT smaller than I am, I am still more afraid of them then they are of me!). I, of course, flipped out, and went in hiding, while begging Julie to get it out!! Well, it went straight up into our huge window in the foyer, which was way too high for her to reach. Then it flew upstairs into the playroom. I was screaming, Avery was hysterical because he just happened to be upstairs when it went flying up, and Julie is laughing at how dorky I am. Avery was screaming, falling down the stairs trying to get away from the stupid wasp. I know, I am a horrible mother, that teaches her kids to be scared to death of little flying bugs, but I just can't help it. I try to control myself when they are around, but I don't do a good job. That's what happens when you are terrified of something. You just can't control your fear, which means I can't control my screeching and hiding. Anyway, I called AJ an begged him to come home and get the stupid thing out of here, but of course he couldn't leave work at that time. (No, I am not just weird, he told me it was a slow day and he would probably get out early). Well, I definitely could not stay in a house where there was a wasp, so we packed up everything and went to Lindsay's house.

After a little bit, Denisee came home and we forced him to go and kill the stupid thing. He came and couldn't find it!!! Where could it have gone. I needed to make dinner and get stuff ready for singing, so I NEEDED to stay in my house. I finally let him leave without killing it, but I jus tknew it would come out the minute he left and harass me. Thankfully that didn't happen. I survived the 30 minutes until AJ got home.

I left for Rehearsal where we had a party to celebrate our big WIN and then learned some new music.

Tuesday- AJ informed me that he never found the wasp so all day I worried and thought I heard buzzing. Sighhhhh. I had a Doctor appt., just my yearly visit, then we went to the Y. After school we went to get Sam's shot and then that night I had a PTO meeting where I was nominated for the Volunteer Coordinator at the school. My time as Vice President is up. This is a big job though, and with everything else on my plate, will I be able to keep up???

Wednesday- Playgroup day. We went to playgroup at Chick Fil A. It's very small in there so once you get over like 5 kids it is too many. We only stayed an hour and then left because it was too crowded. We then went to Target and got the stuff we needed for Sam's Bubble Party, then to the Y after school. That night AJ had church so we just hung out.

Thursday- Lindsay came over in the morning. I got everything ready and made the Bubble Jello for Sam's party. Then we had to pick Sam up early to go to another ENT appointment. We told them EVERYTHING and they couldn't believe how much trouble he has had. They scheduled him for a CT scan next week and then we have another appt. to go over the results. They called while I was there to get Surgery approved, so obviously that is what they are leaning towards. I am going to try and hold off on it until he is out of school for the summer because the surgery is much harder and has a longer and more difficult recovery. We will know more next week.

After the appt we rushed home to eat dinner, ran to the Y, and then had a soccer meeting to go to. Avery is in a new program for the younger kids. They start on Saturday and he is excited. He happened to get put on Kinley's team and another little girl from playgroup, so that will be fun. After the meeting we came home and the kids went right to bed.

Friday- I had to babysit Kinley and the baby Lindsay watches today while she went on a field trip with Taylor. I then took all 3 of them and all my Bubble stuff to Sam's school for the Bubble Party. It went well and all 3 kids were good. Sam's class loved all the cool stuff we did. We blew up a balloon with bubbles, made raisins dance with bubbles, and did bubble art. The weather was crazy here and we had flooding and horrible rains, so we didn't think we were going to get to do our last thing, but it cleared up just enough to go outside and blow up a bubble bomb. It started raining while we were out there, but we did it. The kids had a great time! Now we are getting ready to go to the Y, then we will come home and have dinner, and finally just relax. AJ is camping this weekend so it will just be the kids and I. Tomorrow is another busy day though. I will post pics of soccer and write more about it later.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Birthday Time!

Birthday Time!



4 Years old! What a big boy! Avery woke up on his Birthday and when I told him Happy Birthday he said, "You mean I'm 4 now?!" He got a huge smile and is LOVING being 4! He also told us, "I am 4 now so I am not scared of ANYTHING anymore!" So cute! He thinks he is so big and can do so much. The whole world changed for him! :)

Every year on his birthday we take him to the Zoo. He always asks to go and it has just been the thing we do! Welllll, we woke up to pouring rain and it rained all day so no zoo for us. I will probably take him this week sometime. It was a very blah day and we couldn't decide what to do so we just went to lunch with Lindsay and Kinley where they gave him 2 cups of ice cream, a balloon, and sang to him. That was a little embarrassing for him. ;) After that he said he wanted to go to the park, but of course that couldn't happen with all the rain. :(

After we got Sam from school, Daddy came home early and we went to the Y. I did a hard, hour long Zumba class while AJ took the boys swimming. That is one of Avery's favorite things to do so that was fun for them! Sam has been taking swim lessons and is doing GREAT! He has been scared to go down the big slide though and he finally did it that night! Go Sam! He LOVED it, of course! After the Y, we went to eat at Chili's, one of our favorite places. Then we went to Target where we each picked out a special birthday shirt. :) When we got home Sam realized that Angel (his hamster) had escaped from her cage. We spent forever looking for her and couldn't find her anywhere. He was very sad, but we finally had to send them to bed. Five minutes later Sam screamed downstairs that Angel was in his room. We ran up there and he was tearing the drawers apart underneath his bed. She had somehow crawled into the drawer and then fell down underneath it and couldn't get out. She was chewing on the wood, and a pair of pants : trying to get out. She was really scared. We got her back where she needed to go and that ended the night! Whew!

Saturday was Avery's party at Chuck E Cheese. He loves it there and has been so excited for his party for weeks! Several of his friends came and we had lots of fun. He got lots of cool presents (THANKS EVERYONE!) and he was so happy to be the Star! He loved his Ben 10 cake and everyone thought it tasted great. Yea Sam's Club! LOL! After his party we went to Toys R Us to spend his Birthday money. He got a crown and Balloon in the store and everyone walking by us kept telling him Happy Birthday so he was loving that. After TRU we went BACK to Chuck E Cheese for another party. Yes, we are crazy! We didn't stay the whole time though, we were all done at that point.

After all the partying we went to Lowe's to get some stuff for our pond and the yard. It was weird getting that stuff because it was cold outside! Tennessee weather is SO weird! Yesterday was very chilly and yucky. Today it was bright and sunny and WARM. Anyway, the light in our kitchen is having problems and needs to be replaced so we looked at lighting as well. The light I want has to be special ordered and won't be in for 2 weeks (darn it!), but we got a really good deal on a cool new fixture for our dining room. I love it! I can't wait until the ordered one gets here. Last night we just spent the rest of the night opening all the presents and playing.

Today was Conference for church (which we watch on the computer) so we all stayed in pajamas and lounged around all day. All in all it was a great Birthday weekend.

Oh, we did have some very sad news that put a damper on the night last night. We got a letter saying that Avery was not accepted into the preschool program at Sam's school. We are VERY sad! We have been waiting for 2 years to get him in there. It is a special program where there are 3 typical kids (kids without learning disabilities) in with 3 other kids that do have some sort of learning disability. It is hard to get in because there are only 3 spots, and teachers get priority. I knew there was 1 teacher putting their child in there, but I was really hoping Avery would have a chance. Oh well, we will figure out something else. I told Avery last night that he wouldn't be in Ms. Molly's class and he got very sad. I told him we would find another school for him that he would love and he said, "Ok, but I won't get to see Sam." It was sad. Something will work out though and he will do fine wherever he goes.

Anyway, that was our weekend. Thanks to everyone who came to his party and all the Birthday wishes!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

It's April Already?!

This year sure is flying by! Avery's birthday is in 3 days! He is SO excited! He can't wait to be 4 and to be big! He is excited for his party on Saturday! He is excited for his cake, although he still hasn't settled on what he wants on the cake, thankfully I haven't ordered it yet.

Today Avery and I went to the Y and then spent the afternoon at school helping Sam's teacher from last year. She just can't let me go. LOL! Avery LOVES going to school and especially going to Mrs. Tarpley's classroom. She always gives him tons of snacks, candy, etc, and let's him do whatever he wants. She also has a cool, huge caboose in her class that he can play in. She's the coolest! :) Sam's principal did the afternoon announcements today and informed us that several schools in Murfreesboro were having plumbing issues and that ther ewould be no school tomorrow. You could hear classrooms screaming everywhere. He then said "April Fool's!" All of us were really believing it, too! He's evil! They had to come back on the intercom 5 minutes later to tell us that it really was a trick and there WAS school tomorrow. LOL!

After school we went to get Sam's shot, ran home ate dinner in 15 moniutes, and then rushed to get the boys hair cuts. Avery was crazy there! He was being sooo silly an d talking about EVERYTHING! We were all laughing the whole time.

Speaking of Avery... he is allergic to tomato products. Anything with tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, pizza, ketchup, ANYTHING, and he breaks out in a rash and blisters all around his mouth. It looks horrible, but doesn't really bother him. The bad thing is is that all his favorite foods have tomatoes! I am not sure what to do. The only thing that works somewhat is this special allergy mouthwash stuff that we can put on the outside of his mouth. Of course it is almost gone, we have to use it so much. It's like benadryl for the mouth. If we put it on his mouth just after he eats the tomato based stuff then he usually just gets a tiny rash, but if we even wait a few hours then his mouth is horrible and it takes much longer to go away. Argh! it's really hard and I hope it doesn't grow into a worse allergy because for real, that kind of stuff is pretty much all he eats. Sigh. My poor, allergic kids!

Well, I guess that is it for today!