Summer Vacation?

I've been working hard the last few days getting some things done that have been neglected the last couple of months and needed some tending too. I had a little spurt of energy yesterday since I am finally starting to breath better at night and getting some better rest. So in between breaking up the on-going battles between Kendle and Morgan I managed to go to the library, stop at the store, do quite a few loads of laundry (all folded and put away), went through all my maternity clothes and packed up and donated ones I will never wear again, packed up all of Morgan's clothes he's grown out of in the last six months into a storage container ready to go in the garage, cleaned out the freezer, made two batches of freezer jam, and lastly made a "real" dinner for the family ( I say real because we've been eating lots of easy food lately like salads and sandwiches). It's amazing how after doing all of that work, my house can still look like a total disaster by the end of the day. I think breaking up all of the fights and the yelling, screaming, and tantrums are almost more exhausting than the housework.

Today after swim lessons we went grocery shopping and now after feeding the kids lunch and putting groceries away I am wiped out. My reward for working hard? I am going to put the kids down for naps/quiet time, take it easy the rest of the afternoon, read one of my new books from the library, and later I will meet up with my mother for some Olive Garden and shopping.

*I'll post soon about some of the great books I've been reading this summer.

Our grand old 4th of July Weekend

Friday Riley had the day off so we got up early, I made a big yummy breakfast of eggs, sausage and pancakes to get our motors running, and we headed outside to do a bit of yard work before it got too hot. It got "too hot" around 10:30 in the morning and we all gave up and came inside. It was a scorcher of a day. We relaxed inside and tried our best to stay cool. That evening we went to a BBQ at our friends the Gourley's house and enjoyed some yummy food while the kids had a great time playing and swimming in their pool. Luckily their back yard had plenty of shade so we parents not in the water could stay cool as well, even though we got splashed plenty of times. The kids has so much fun and were really tired when we got home. We got them in their jammies and put them to bed. Riley's mother came over and sat with them while we went to the movie theater to see "The Proposal". It was my first trip to the movie theater in over three or four months and we loaded up on the pop, popcorn, and candy just to make it worth our while. I was getting some fun baby movements in my tummy for that. The movie was really funny and we had a great time.

Saturday we got packed up to go to Pasco's 4th of July parade. We knew it was going to be another scorcher (100+) so we made sure to bring a cooler full of lots of ice cold bottled waters. Usually we sit down by Memorial Pool, but this year some friends convinced us to sit where they do by the Hospital which is the very beginning of the parade. It worked out well. It was far less crowded and we got out of there in great time - not to mention the kids got more candy than they usually do. (Thanks Howard's) Morgan got into the whole grabbing for candy routine this year and enjoyed contributing to Kendle's bag they were sharing. He also loved all of the big tractors in the parade. Good thing we brought all of those waters with us, because we drank almost every last one. We started heading for the car around 10:55 or so and it was already 90 degrees or higher. Here are some pictures from that morning:

That afternoon Morgan played in the kiddie pool for a while, Kendle said she was tired of the heat and didn't want to go outside. I couldn't blame her. I was tempted to sit in the pool with Morgan. Later that evening we had my parents and Riley's mom over for dinner. Riley got his grill fixed and he had been slow cooking some ribs for most of the day, we also grilled some salmon that was delicious. For dessert Riley requested I make these apple dumplings, so after dinner and resting from our full tummy's for a while I dished out some dumplings with vanilla icecream and we all oohed and ahhed over how full we were once again. After that we cleaned up the kitchen a bit, got some chairs and blankets and then headed to the front yard to get ready for the fireworks. We had some little snaps and sparklers that my mom brought for the kids, so we entertained them with those for a little while. Kendle kept asking me what time it was, and about the 12th time the fireworks finally began. I have to say, that I never get tired of the 4th of July and all of the celebrations and fireworks shows. I turn into a kid again while I'm watching all of the pretty explosions in the sky. Morgan thought they were pretty cool as well. Last year he was so tired he fell asleep half-way through and missed most of the good ones.

About the time the fireworks were ending Kendle started to get really cranky. We chalked it up to the fact that we had two super fun busy days in a row and she was just tired. Everyone helped pack things up from the yard and we got the kids to bed. After my parents left Kendle started crying and complaining that her ear hurt and she didn't feel good. She has this really dramatic cry that she does that is really hard to listen too, so we couldn't really tell if she was just trying to get some attention or if there was really something wrong. We all had been sick and feeling pretty bad for most of the week, and I thought she had shaken most of the yucky cold off so I was puzzled as to what was going on. We gave her some childrens Tylenol and said good night. In the middle of the night she kept waking up and yelling for us and kept crying really bad so we knew there was really something wrong. We were up every few hours with her and just trying to make it until morning when we could take her to the urgent care clinic. She was screaming that her ear hurt really bad and I knew she had an ear infection. Riley took her in around 8:30 Sunday morning and sure enough she had an ear infection, a 102 fever, and junk in her lungs. When Riley brought her home and we tried to give her the medicine for her ear she threw it up. Things were not looking very promising , but eventually we got her to eat a little toast and got some more medicine in her and she slept most of the day on the couch. She was a pretty miserable little thing, I felt so bad. She was also dissapointed because she was supposed to start swim lessons this morning. Luckily today is windy and cold so it wouldn't have been much fun anyways.

That was our weekend in a nutshell - I can't believe next year for the 4th of July we will have two more little ones in tow!

Sick in July

Our whole family is sick, sick, sick. We are all coughing, hacking, sneezing, using large amounts of kleenex and basically just plain miserable. Morgan seems to be the only one starting to feel a bit better and I think he was the one who passed it on to the rest of us. Last night as I was trying to sleep, I had to breathe through my mouth and would wake myself up about every five minutes because I was snoring and trying to breathe through my nose. This must be a pretty strong cold though because usually our whole family never gets sick at the same time, especially Riley. He manages to avoid most things me and the kids get. I have been getting a pretty good dose of sleep deprivation these last few months - I don't even remember what it feels like to sleep through the night. Not being able to breathe on top of having to get up and go to the bathroom 5 times a night is just fabulous. By the time these babies get here I'll be used to getting by on a few hours of sleep. I'm hoping we can all get better by Saturday to enjoy the 4th!

Summer Craft

While being stuck home with sick kids yesterday and not feeling too hot myself, I decided to get this project done that I've been wanting to do for a while. I've seen this idea floating around different blogs and have been waiting for some spare time to sit down and do it. Here's the finished product:

It was super duper easy. I just bought the picture frames at the dollar store in varying sizes, printed out the letters in different fonts from the computer, cut out the letters and glued them on some scrap booking paper I had, and then put them in the frames. All in all it took under an hour (if I don't count all the times I had to get up and see what my super busy 2 year old was up to) and was cheap, cheap, cheap. If you already had some little frames it would cost even less. The other nice thing is that you can change out the letters and the papers for the different seasons. I put this on top of my piano (hence the glare) and it really brightens up the room. It's funny how one little thing can cheer you up every time you walk past it.