Grandma and Grandpa made the trip from Michigan to celebrate Easter with us. We had a fun-filled weekend with them. We were all sad to see them go!
The Easter bunny came last night and brought all of the boys a bucket filled with all kinds of goodies and toys. He also hid 12 Easter eggs for each boy all over the house! Luckily the eggs all had the boys names written on them so that there wasn't any fighting.
The boys all consumed about 3 pounds of sugar before 7:30am! Shane took a bucket full of jelly beans into the playroom to hide out. He sat in there eating them until somebody missed him and we all figured out where he was! His chubby little belly may actually be even a little bigger now!
I love watching the boys get so excited about such a simple tradition!
Today Wyatt asked me if it was April 22nd? He pronounced it "twenty tooth"!
All of the flowering trees around here are in full bloom. Sam is so impressed with them. He comments every time that we drive somewhere. "Mom, look at those bootiful trees!" Then yesterday he asked me "how they were so puffy? Was it magic?"
Today the kids used the new ipad to video call Grandpa on Skype without me knowing about it. I was fixing lunch in the kitchen when suddenly I heard my Dad's voice in the family room! That was a surprise! That ipad sure is kid friendly!
I can not believe that I am writing this, but I have parted ways with my caffeine habit. I gave up caffeine on Monday as part of my conversion to LDS (kidding). No coffee and no diet coke!! I have been addicted to caffeine since college. I have woken up to a Diet Coke every morning for the last 20 years!!!!! Shocking I know! So I expected the withdraw to be terrible. Monday was rough! I had a persistent headache and virtually no energy. But I was fine on Tuesday and today I think that I have completely recovered from the energy plunge.That's me turning over a new leaf for spring!
Since we had preschool conferences in winter we have been working with Sam on hammering down the three year old curriculum. His teacher thought that he was not ready to move up to the four year old class even though Jonah was.
What to do?!?! Twins progressing at different levels. Hold one back even though he is ready to move up? Force one kid to work above his level and move them both up? Split them?
Anyways, I met with the boys teacher on Friday to re-visit Sam's issues and address his improvement/ or lack of.
As it turns out she was AMAZED at how far he has come since we last talked. She said that his progress is remarkable. She could not believe how well his academics are coming along. She said that he is absolutely ready to move up to the 4's next year! Yipee!
She and I both agree that the help at home has improved his scores, but that the real progress is that Sam is INTERESTED in learning the academics now. It is almost like a switch flipped and he wants to learn about everything. I am so relieved... for him and Jonah. They will be together again next year both learning and enjoying school together!
I met with the boys teacher during their regular school day while they were in class. But I had Shane with me, so the classroom aide took Shane and let him go to school with the boys. OMG when I came out of the conference room Shane was sitting with all of the "big kids" in circle time with his little hands folded on his lap and Sam had his arm draped over Shane's shoulder. It was the CUTEST thing that I have EVER seen as a parent! He was watching the teacher talk to the kids about the weather and their classroom calendar.
I told him that it was time to go and Shane said goodbye to the teacher and other kids and happily skipped out of the school. When we got back in the van I said "Shane, did you get to go to school with the bog boys?" And he got the sweetest smile on his face like he knew exactly what I was saying! That boy can melt my heart! If I only had a camera... but then again I don't think that I will need a photo to remember Shane's first day of school! That one is in the memory bank for good!
I helped the boys color Easter eggs last Friday afternoon. It was nice and warm outside and is supposed to rain every day for the next week. So, I decided that it would be nice to color eggs outside and keep the mess out of the house.
Everybody got to pick three eggs and three colors. I was thrilled that the Paas company included only 2 wands in their egg dying kit. When you have 3 very anxious egg-colorers 1 wand is much better than 2! People fight when there is 2 of something instead of 3, but if there is only one of something they will readily take turns! Weird!
Anyways, I spilled a whole cup of blue dye all over Wyatt. It came out, but I sure was happy that we were out in the driveway!
It really ended up being a lot of fun! I enjoyed myself and the kids told everybody that walked by on their way to the bus stop what they were working on. I am not sure if the boys are at an age where they will start remembering their experiences forever, but I hope so. We sure have fun together!
Last week was a tough one. Shane started antibiotics last Saturday morning for a respiratory infection. He had been getting Motrin every 6 hours for a fever and we still had trouble keeping it down. But after the antibiotics he was feeling a lot better by Monday morning. Unfortunately, Jonah got a fever Sunday night and on Monday morning Sam was vomiting. I loaded everybody up in the van to drop Wyatt off at preschool and Sam threw up the entire way there. Luckily we had a big towel for him and he did well keeping everything in the towel. I drove straight to the pediatrician's office after dropping Wyatt off at school. Even though they didn't open until 9am I figured that it would be harder to turn us down for a quick appointment if we were there in person rather than calling on the phone. I knew that strep throat was going around so I figured that Jonah and Sam would need a rapid strep culture and then we could be on our way.
Thankfully they fit us into the schedule right away and did rapid strep cultures on both boys. While we were waiting for the results the doctor came in and checked the boys noses, throats, and ears. When she looked in Sam's ears she said "Ummmm, wow! He has a fairly bad ear infection! He will definitely need antibiotics for this even if the strep test comes out negative." Then the doctor looked in Jonah's ears and said "Yeah, his ears look even worse than his brothers! He has a horrible ear infection! I am surprised that he hasn't said anything to you about his ear hurting!?!?!?" (insert shameful judgmental look of bad parenting here)
So I said "Jonah does your ear hurt?". He said "no." Then I said "Sam, does your ear hurt?" Sam said "Hmmm, no, but my leg hurts!" The doctor looked shocked.
So, feeling slightly vindicated I said "Well, there you have it!" And now we have three boys on antibiotics. Everybody is feeling better and things are almost back to normal. It literally takes almost a week to get back into the groove after illness and missed school, but we are back on track!
How many times can I write a post about my funny man Sam? He is such a funny quirky little guy. Every day he comes up with something totally new and funny. I can't say how many times he is the comic relief of my day. Total strangers have come up to me to tell me how they noticed something about Sam.... He sure is a firecracker huh? That one has a lot of spunk I can see! He is so funny! What a sense of humor you have on that one.
His latest endeavor is being a worm collector. He spends every waking minute outside digging for worms. He plans on using them for fishing. Sam is either talking about worm collecting or fishing these days. It is like living with the crocodile hunter... Only the worm hunter. He lives and breathes worms.
The other day it was raining and I was backing out of the driveway in the van. Suddenly Sam yelled "mom, stop"!
I stopped and yelled "What? Why?"
Then Sam said "I need to get out and make sure that you don't run over any worms in the driveway and squish them"!!!!!
What a ham!
The boys have. trailer that hooks onto their ride on tractor and Sam has it full of dirt and worms parked in the garage. Every night before we come in the house for the night Sam will say "goodnight worms!!"
He enjoys life so much! My little bait man... we would be so bored without him around!
My little Shane had a rough weekend. He has had a fever and cough since Friday and isn't eating with his usual gusto. This morning I took him to our Med Express and they did a strep test and checked out his ears. Both were fine, but based on his incredibly pathetic demeanor the doctor gave us a prescription for antibiotics. I am hoping that the meds will do the trick for my little guy. He has only been sick 1 other time since birth and I forgot how CLINGY he was then! I need to break out the baby bjorn...my arms are about to break!
I took the boys to the bank on Friday to deposit some checks and let them each get a "brand new golden dollar" coin from the teller. You would have thought that they just won the lottery! The boys spent hours planning what they were going to buy with all of that money.
So, John took the kids to Target Saturday morning and let them use their money (plus some of his own) to buy a soccer ball and a football. They spent the rest of the morning running around the yard chasing their new balls! Then at lunch time Wyatt asked John to build him a little box to kick the ball into. We said you mean a net? And he said yes, can you build that while I am taking my nap?
Maybe Wyatt is ready to start soccer as a team sport?!? Who knew?
We had a near death experience on Sunday night. I am still freaked out about it! It was after dinner and the kids were watching a show on tv before bed. John was upstairs and I went into the den for 5 minutes (or less). As I was sitting at the desk Shane came walking in carrying a bowl that had previously been full of cashews sitting on the kitchen counter. In a split second I realized that he ATE the cashews and started to panic. He is VERY allergic to milk and peanuts. His pediatric allergist never specifically tested him for tree nuts, but said that he was very likely allergic to those as well. When he eats milk or nut containing products he goes into respiratory distress very quickly. It is very scary. We have Benedryl and an epi pen in the house (and car) at all times. After learning about his allergies when he was 10 months old we have never given him any foods with tree nuts in them just to be safe.
I screamed for John and he started emptying the remaining cashews in Shane's mouth onto the floor while I raced to get the Benedryl and epi pen ready. Shane was standing with a big smile on his face and no sign of discomfort or distress. We stood and stared at him waiting. Waiting for the inevitable. It was then that John and I looked at each other and realized that Shane is actually NOT allergic to tree nuts. Milk- Yes Peanuts- Yes Tree Nuts- No. How lucky was that?
I, on the other hand, was feeling great discomfort and distress at what almost happened. I was ready to shoot myself up with the epi pen to help get myself breathing again. I am so grateful that we, once again, avoided catastrophe. There is always something worrisome going on over here with these boys. Somebody once told me that with boys you are just happy if they all survive to adulthood. At the rate we are going I should be completely gray by Christmas and I will most likely not remember my name!
I am posting my favorite cookie recipe because it is amazing and I can never find the recipe. This way I will always know where I can find it. I can not express how much I love these cookies! Yummy!
Flour-less Chocolate Cookies
1 and 3/4 cups powdered sugar 1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa 2 teaspoons cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 egg whites 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 300 F 2. Mix together sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt. Gradually add egg whites and stir with spoon. Mix should be thick enough to form balls; if not add more powdered sugar and cocoa. Add nuts, mix well. 3. Form dough into 15 balls. Place on parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 16-19 minutes, until glossy and crackled. Cool completely. Makes 15 cookies
