the longest/best day ever

it is "go" day - vbs starts tonight! the kids and i arrived at the church loaded up with food, movies, supplies and a change of clothes for vbs. the kids were amazing! i set them up with movies and food in one of the rooms and they let me make it happen.

notice the sea turtles in the ceiling? the netting i ordered did not have the visual impact intended.

volunteers came and went throughout the day to get their individual classrooms set up (there are 9 rooms under my age group - "preschool"). the kids and i had a little lull to get changed and ready in our vbs gear before dinner (the church feeds the volunteers every night which is a HUGE help and they also provided us a light lunch today).

vbs ready!

we had prepped for 400 kids (we had 350 on average last year) - we had 405 kids! there was a little panic during snacks and crafts and some behind the scenes registration issues to start the night, but overall, the evening went very smoothly.

mason and maddux during opening worship.

all of the "coaches" were asked to wear silly sealife hats. i got off easy compared with some of the other options (like a tie-dyed giant squid!).

madelyn working on a rainbow in her group.

to say that i was exhausted when we got home would be an understatement. we were at church for 14 hours today and i put in 18,000 steps inside the building! crazy, right?!

once we got the kids settled, the vbs shirts into the washing machine for tomorrow and i finally got a shower, i collapsed into a deep sleep.

and then madelyn came in to wake me up. i could not make myself wake up. she had to come back again. why? because she had thrown up! ahhh! so tired. i was finally able to drag myself from bed and limp (my feet were crazy sore) to madelyn's room to take care of the mess and get her back into bed. poor kid.

asleep.

but then mason came in! he had thrown up! noooooooo! on my pitiful sleepwalk to take care of mason's mess and get him set up with a 'bed' on the floor of my bathroom.

please, God. let this be the end of the sickness. this is not the week. good night. love.

sudden ear infection

manning told me that his ear hurt this afternoon around 3 and he quickly melted down from there. like screaming that his ear hurt until he passed out. he was also determined not to see a doctor.

the doctor's office could not get him in today, so to the cvs minute clinic we go. but first we have to get mason off of the bus and pick up madelyn from school. so i have to wake up this poor boy (who completely refuses to take any medicine that might offer relief) and get him into the car.

thankfully, he cries for a while and falls back asleep. we took his lovey with us because it is the only comfort he will accept.

by the time we get to cvs, we have to wait 45 minutes to be seen. the big kids go to explore the easter aisle while i hold the crying manning until he once again falls asleep. he is burning up too. i am so hot and uncomfortable sitting on a folding chair but thankful that manning has been able to fall back asleep. the bigs are getting a little rowdy in the easter aisle so every time there is a song change for the in-store music, i call out one of their names quickly. i just can't risk manning screaming in pain again if i wake him up.

at last it is our turn. the bigs have been so patient and relatively well behaved. manning on the other hand, does not want to be there and wants nothing to do with the nurse practitioner trying to examine him. he refuses to let her look in his ears (which is really unusual for him - the doctor always comments on how well he does with ear exams and procedures). i finally get him to let her look in one ear. there is a clear infection and she, mercifully, gives up on trying to look in the other one. the treatment is the same whether there is one or two infected ears.

the kids playing go fish to pass the time. a deck of cards is worth carrying around in my purse.

when we finally got home, i persuaded (threatened) him to take his medicine and quickly went to whip up some dinner. within a hour he was night and day better. thankfully. love.

"ugly christmas sweater"

when madelyn and i went out to eat on sunday we discussed the different themes for school this week. she didn't understand what an "ugly christmas sweater" was so we googled some images. she still didn't get it. madelyn thought that we sweaters were great! (she is still a 'more is more' sort of girl.) we found a simple option that i thought we could recreate in time for her to wear today. madelyn had grand (and very creative) ideas for a sweater, but we were without enough time to put it together.

here she is wearing her converted red cardigan before heading out to school.

and mason stayed home with pink eye again... love.

christmas hat and sick eyes

madelyn has a christmas/holiday theme every day this week! between teacher gifts, class parties and other christmas preparations, this is going to be a long week for me. today was hat day.

while madelyn was excited to go to school today, mason was bummed to wake up with double pink eye. boo. i guess we will be doing things at home today.

like work on grandma's progressive gift (from brad's family to mine and on to josh's)

and start on the sugar cookies (yellow on yellow) for manning's class snack

and work out madelyn's "ugly sweater" for tuesday.

 there is never a shortage of things to get done around here... love.

sick

on our way to chuck e. cheese yesterday, a friend told me that i had timed our visit just right to pick up the stomach bug in time for thanksgiving. i laughed it off because i get a little germ crazy at chuck e. cheese and we have never gotten sick. until mason thew up this morning! (of course, i sent her a quick text to congratulate her on calling it - which she couldn't believe.)

since he thew up again after i called him off of school today, he won't go back again until after the thanksgiving break (because of the 24-hour rule). he is pretty bummed and i am feeling fairly certain that we won't have any hope of seeing his coat he lost last friday again now.

praying for the rest of us. love.

this poor kid...

maddux took a rare nap today. i have been asking him to nap for about a week now. he just looks tired and has been quick to cry. so he napped for a few hours with his head prompted up so high that his chin was on his chest. he looked incredibly uncomfortable but he was sleeping so i let him be.

matt had a work event that was keeping him from getting home for dinner so i moved some errands around and planned to go to a fundraiser at chick-fil-a with the kids. maddux woke up shortly after madelyn got home and was a little out of sorts after sleeping so long. but he was the best listener about getting ready to go. he was the first one ready to get into the car but was complaining about his neck. as i was responding, "of course your neck hurts, you were sleeping with your chin on your chest!" i saw his neck! he had a huge bulge on the left side and a smaller one on the right side!

i told the kids not to get in the car and called the pediatrician's office. for once someone got sick before 5pm. but the office closes at 4pm. sigh. why can't i remember that?! so i called matt to see what he wanted me to do. i was really concerned about how large his glands had swollen in so short an amount of time. (and, no, it is not the same side where he had that tooth pulled after his face swelled up last time.)

matt had me send him a few pictures. he called me back after showing them to a doctor at work to let me know there was a precription called in for me to pick up for him. one of the perks!

maddux was really miserable and crying. so there was no way i was going to get to the store - even if we were out of peanut butter. but we did still go pick up cfa for dinner on our way to get the antibiotics.

he has been pretty congested for a while and i have been feeling like he wasn't well so i think it was a sinus infection. he felt SO much better after a dose of medicine and some dinner. he was even running around before bedtime.

so now we know, maddux goes with crazy swelling when anything happens in his head. love.

snack friend

yesterday was a marathon day which included trying to pick up the supplies needed for maddux' 'd' week snack - "dinosaur dig." the problem ended up being the dinosaurs! i wasn't looking to spend a fortune on them. we had promised the kids that they could go to our local fire house open house so matt took them and i ran out to hunt for dinosaurs before racing back to pick up madelyn for swimming lessons. matt asked if i really needed to do this and i said that i was in too deep and didn't have time to think of something else - i was seeing it through! (i am so luck he loves me.)

you layer crushed oreos and graham crackers with chocolate and vanilla puddings to make dirt/rock layers to hide the dinosaurs under dyed coconut 'grass'.

and then maddux woke up with a low fever. sigh. he wasn't terribly sick, symptom-wise, but had that whiney, pitiful sort of face. the one where his chin quivers every time i make eye-contact with him. so he would miss out of enjoying his selected snack with his class. oh well, at least the other kids enjoyed it and there were enough left over for each of our kids to have one at home. love.

catch-up

so i have been quiet way longer than i realized! we are now back into full school, work, activity, fun mode and time is just flying by. throw in mommy getting sick and weeks have past. so here is a catch-up post. (okay, so it is just going to be pictures with captions.)

everyone in mason's class was given a large piece of paper to attach cut-outs of their family's feet.  we almost couldn't fit ours! not only are there a lot of us, but our feet aren't exactly small. mason requested that we all draw rainbows on them.

swimming lessons are back in the rotation. the boys were pretending that their towels were long hair.

the boys froze in their tracks when we went to the block room after swimming and found a playset and climbing wall had been added. 

the day wore manning out.

 but then he was up very late and keeping matt and i company in our bed.

i needed to take care of some things at church but told the boys that i would take them to the zoo when we were done. at church, our children's director asked the boys if they could find her a tiger at the zoo. here they are 'tiger hunting.'

and then mason asked if she liked bears too.

we always play in this garden 'maze,' but today i realized that the 'maze' is actually in the shape of a butterfly! always something new...

we went to the zoo on friday and i got in bed on friday night and didn't get out until sunday afternoon. we think i might have had strep (since matt and mason had it the week before), but i never had a sore throat or fever. i was just wiped out and unable to stay upright. thank goodness i got this sick on a weekend and not during the week! i couldn't have stayed in bed without matt's help.

maddux kept me company for a little while and really wanted to take pictures with my phone.

all the kids have tie shoes (what was i thinking?!) and manning was insisting that he could tie his own shoes. he tried (and did a good job of going through the motions) for a good 30 seconds before agreeing that he did need my help.

our favorite tree from our 'nature walk' on a beautiful day.

matt had a lot to do in the yard so the kids and i went to run errands. mason has really wanted to get his hair cut and it is too long for me to shape the way i want it so we took him to have it 'professionally' cut.

before

the kids didn't mind waiting at all - there were cupcakes, donuts, popcorn and apple cider free for the taking. i had many people comment on how well behaved they were. i was just thinking, 'just wait until that sugar hits.'

after

 when we got home we decided to go for a family bike ride (daddy suggested the ice cream).

in a few moments after this picture, madelyn licked the entire stack of scoops off her cone and onto her brand new (like this is the first time she has worn them) shoes. sigh. she was given some more ice cream - in a bowl.

maddux is already planning for his birthday and thought that wearing this shirt might make it come faster.

manning was the only one without a robe and then we got a bag of hand-me-downs from a friend with two boys. this elmo robe was just his size and he was thrilled to put it on for breakfast.

i think the boys were making the workers a little nervous has they inched closer and closer to the wet cement for the neighbor's sidewalk and driveway.

heading in for picture day! they picked their shirts.

we have been busy to say the least and have been very fortunate with 'southern california' weather - low to mid-70s and not a cloud in the sky for a little over a week. even manning comments on how nice it is every day. we have been trying to enjoy every minute of this very rare stretch of weather for ne ohio. love.