Bring on Saturday

Where has the week gone? So far this week I have had posts titled, 'Almost Wednesday', 'It's Wednesday Already' and 'Friday Already'. Obviously none of them made it very far. We have had a lot going on this week and getting much extra done (projects, blogging etc.) has been next to impossible. We've also been battling allergies, colds and teething to top it all off.

Thursday night was pretty exciting at our house, a loud thunderstorm rolled through with a lot of lightning displayed and lots and lots of hail! It was so loud that we had a hard time hearing each other while we were in the same room! The kids got a kick out of it and had a little bit of a delay in bedtime because of it. It's hard to tell in the picture but a lot of the hail was quarter sized and some ping pong ball sized.

(sorry about the blurry water photo but I was too afraid of being beat to a pulp if I opened the door)

As soon as we thought it was about over another round of hail would roll through. It was still a little noisy when the kids went to bed but I told Elee that the thunder was singing her to sleep and I didn't hear another peep out of her. Ardon came out of his room once after a pretty big crash but went back to bed after that. Ah Spring! I remember when Bronze and I use to look forward to big thunderstorms to sleep through, funny how things change ; - )

We have great plans of what we'd like to accomplish, or at least get started on, today but since there's also a family gathering this afternoon so we'll see how far we get!

Just Because

Just because the boys have been ruling the blog posts.
Just because she's my girl.
Just because I found this picture on my phone.

and Just because seeing this picture made me want to pull her out of bed for some snuggle time.

But I wont, I'll let her sleep, and I'll make sure to get some snuggle time in tomorrow!

It Is Still...

Rainy, wet and very dismal outside.

It's driving the kids crazy, they really enjoyed the nicer weather before the rain hit and spent a lot of time out doors.

So this is one of the things we've been doing to pass the time today. Besides dreaming of more pleasant weather, we've been decorating the back door with wipe off marker!

Conversation vs Communication

They are two very different things. Bronze and I are great at one of them, can you guess which one?

We were shopping earlier and as we were leaving the store Bronze made a comment about it being very difficult for one of the checkers to work there because they were a Klingon. Now, I know we've had our 'trekkie' moments (Star Trek for those of you unfamiliar with the terminology) but I was wondering what made this person a Klingon, could they possibly have a large protruding forehead with deep set wrinkles and ridges? Or maybe it was something else, maybe he heard them speak the Klingon language and noticed they had native Klingon cloths on. As I'm pondering the possibilities I hear Bronze's next comment, "it would be so hard to do everything with one arm!" "One arm!" I exclaim and he confirms what he just said. "Wow!" I think " this Klingon must have had some serious battle wounds!" I try to turn my head and see this creature he's talking about as we make our exit. As I look around I don't see anything that fits this description. I look at him questioningly and say "A Klingon?" I can tell he's having one of those 'oh, don't mind my crazy wife moments.' and he looks at me and says, "A SLING on. Yes honey, there's a Klingon working in Target and they lost an arm the last time they were in a fight!" "Oh," I reply, only slightly disappointed that my hopes for seeing a real life Klingon have been dashed to the ground.

I'm sure our fellow shoppers wondered what was wrong with us but we got a great laugh out of it. We definitely have very different ways of communicating, sometimes it's frustrating but we've been married long enough now that most of it's just laughable!

Whale Tale

Eliad got a floppy, squishy whale recently.

The tail is so much fun to chew on!

It kind of feels funny in his mouth.

This must be what real fish makes Meme feel like. Gaggy!

How silly.

Maybe we should try the other end.

Nope, it's just as gross.

Well that was fun, what next?

Cruising, Crashing and Camo

Ardon got a new bike for his birthday this year and he wants to be outside riding it all the time. He comes out at the crack of dawn and the first thing he asks to do is go out to ride his bike. We have a large patio out back so it works well for his early morning riding.

This morning while he was out I kept hearing a lot of crashing sounds.

I looked out to see if Gabby was getting in his way or if it was something else.

It was something else ; - P He had the face on his hoodie zipped up! It does have mesh eye holes but obviously they weren't very easy to see through since they're hard to even see in the picture!

After I took his picture he told me that he thought it might be a good idea to unzip the hood so that he could see better and not crash into stuff!

All Buttered Up

A while back I thought it might be fun for the kids to try making their own butter.

I rarely have glass baby food jars but had saved a couple that I did use recently. We filled them with heavy whipping cream and started shaking away. As we were shaking Ardon stated that it should only take 10 seconds not 10 minutes because that's way too long.

After some sharing of shaking responsibilities we ended up with fresh, sweet butter and butter milk. The kids would have finished a loaf of bread just to eat more of the butter and they actually drank the butter milk!

Someone wandered over to see what all the excitement was about.

Mmm, bread and fresh butter is pretty good stuff!

Ugh

It was one of those things, you know, the kind that are bound to happen at some point or another. Like if children play outside they will probably get dirty, or if you put a child in the tub water will likely get splashed out.

Or if you give Elee gum, if not swallowed, it will get stuck in her hair. After a birthday party tonight Meme gave the kids gum. Bronze was actually given Elee's gum to give to her if she could have it. So he did.

When Ardon got gum stuck in his eye lashes/brow I tried several things to get it out and it took forever. This time I decided to try straight oil and cooking spray was easier than pouring a small amount out of the bottle.

It actually worked great and I was able to get the gum out in no time. Thankfully we didn't have to follow Elee's recommendation which was to cut it out!

We Made It

To the weekend that is. Our weekend starts when Bronze gets home from work on Fridays.
The big kids seem to be doing a little better, still pretty stuffy nosed but haven't coughed as bad today. Poor Eliad had to start antibiotics yesterday. I finally took him to the doctor because he just seemed to be getting worse and sure enough he has an ear/upper respiratory infection.
I'm hoping everyone will just get better from here on out.
In an effort to find my wild and restless kiddos something to do, and to avoid any more goose eggs on Elee's head, we broke out the play dough today.

This is always great fun and kept them entertained for quite some time.
I can never get them to hold still, smile, look at the camera and keep normal looks on their faces at the same time, this time I crossed my eyes while they were watching me and it worked pretty well ; - )

Thank You

To my wonderful, thoughtful husband who, when he found out his rout was going to be delayed, decided to not just sit at work and wait but drove back home before the sun was up instead and brought me this-

Some times laughter is the best medicine for a weary soul, and sometimes it's coffee!

Shopping

Big kid style that is!

I like to pull Eliad out of his seat to go in places when I can but time and cold weather aren't always permitting. Last week we tried riding in the shopping cart for the first time. It was a hit and now he'll never be happy to stay in the car seat again!

It's Thursday

and I'm wondering, will this week ever end? Everyone has still been battling the stuffy/runny noses, nasty coughs and sore throats that we came down with last week. I've been averaging about 3.5 hours of sleep a night but I think my 45 minutes last night probably lowered my average even more. "45 minutes!" you exclaim, "are you sure you only slept for 45 minutes last night?" yes, I'm sure, it was 1:45 to 2:30. I thought about blogging every little bit with status updates as to who was up and the reason that time but was paranoid the beeping from my computer would wake up someone else. Ardon has really bad asthma trouble when he gets sick so we end up doing breathing treatments through the night, other than that he's pretty good at staying in bed. Elee, on the other hand, has NOT been staying in bed. We have been trying to get her adjusted to her toddler bed for some time. She will be fine for a couple nights then get progressively worse at staying in her room. Last night I had to put her back to bed approximately 13 times. Finally I gave up and drug her pack and play up, she was more than happy to lay down in that and go to sleep, unfortunately by that time it was all ready 5:30am. Eliad's cold is probably the nastiest of all so of course he was up every half hour to hour.
Suddenly the lyrics "I Will Survive" go through my head. I have been blessed with the ability to go for extended periods of time on very little sleep. This is a good thing since I have also been blessed with children who sleep very little!