Fall fun

Friday was a beautiful day! We had a few friends come over after school and we all had snack then spent the afternoon building a leaf man, running around, riding bikes, swinging, playing hide-and-seek, and having a generally wonderful fall day.

pumpkin head

Meet our new friend, Pumpkin Head.

silly kids

We had a very silly afternoon.

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We need more leaves! The girls continued stuffing long after the boys had moved on.

Then they spent some time pretending to walk past the house to see how it looked.  They varied their walking styles and speeds, in case that made a difference in the appearance of the leaf man.  :)

Then they spent some time pretending to walk past the house to see how it looked. They varied their walking styles and speeds, in case that made a difference in the appearance of the leaf man. :)

These beautiful fall days are limited, so we’re trying to enjoy them all!

A quick hello

I’m at Panera Bread right now, while everyone else is at my house having fun. I have two UVEI assignments to write, lessons to plan, and a huge test to study for. Ugh! I’m ready for this week (that has not yet begun) to be over! Soo… time for a blog post. :)

Lots going on. We had a busy week. Things are going well at school. On Thursday I taught a science lesson where we dissolved a sea shell in vinegar. The students were amazed. We had picture day on Friday and I got to be in the class picture. And I got my own “teacher” picture taken! I hope it came out well. I wonder if I’ll get a copy. I didn’t order a package for myself, just the kids.

We had some fall fun one afternoon with a bunch of friends over. We built a leaf man and rode bikes and all that jazz. Pictures on the computer at home. I’ll post them someday.

Hmm… I felt like I had more to say, but now my mind is blank. Actually, my mind is on a UVEI writing piece. I guess I’ll do that now.

Love to you all! Next week will be calmer. See ya then! :)

One Wise Owl

Lex came home with an award today.  He’s a Wise Owl.

He is a wise owl!

One wise owl!

Isn’t that cool?! He gets to keep the owl and the box (he’s holding the lid to the box in the picture above) for one month, then he has to bring it to school for the next Wise Owl. He gets to keep the certificate of course forever. He said he’s the first Wise Owl this year. He was pretty proud. :)

game

Lex made a puzzle for us this weekend. He made little check boxes at the bottom to make sure we all did it. :) I like this kind of mental challenge… although this one wasn’t too challenging! :)

This Wise Owl made a puzzle game for us to complete this weekend. I always liked this type of puzzle in the game books I used to get as a kid. He is so clever and creative. :)

Happiness is…

Fun with leaves! (These pictures are from a few days ago when Lex’s face was still swollen.)

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Today was another beautiful day and we were right back out there!

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Lex is working and saving and trying hard to save enough money to buy the latest Lego Mindstorm, the EV3. Today we decided to pay him to clean up the leaves. We’re paying per bucket that he fills and dumps into the ravine. He went right to work! I don’t mind paying him since we pay someone else anyway, and because Lex needs the fresh air and exercise, and because he is trying so hard to earn money! The other day he decided to draw dinosaur pictures and sell them to the neighbors. I thought the leaf raking would be more a more useful way to earn money. :)

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IMG_0173Can you guess what’s awesome about this next picture?  It’s not my daughter or my husband, although they are both awesome of course…. It’s the empty(ish) garage!!  Guess what’s in there now?!  Yep, my car!!  First time since early June.  Whoo hoo!  Just in time for a chilly, rainy weekend. :)

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A beautiful day for a hike

** this was all pre-bee sting drama **

I dragged the kids out for a hike Sunday. Outdoorsy, we are not! It was a beautiful weekend though, and when I mentioned a hike on Saturday they were all for going Sunday. We were busy Saturday anyway. When Sunday rolled around they wanted no part of it. However, as I suspected, once we got out there they loved it! Mostly. The hill proved to be quite steep, so there were a few times when they swore they just. could. not. go. on. But we persevered and were rewarded with breathtaking views of the fall foliage. We hiked up the back side of a skiway, so for the return trip we just went down the slopes, a trip which would have been much faster on skis! :)

IMG_0064Check out this cool spiney tree.

IMG_0066Lex was doing good for awhile!

IMG_0068Alan convinced Eve to go barefoot!  She loved the mud squishing in her toes. :)

IMG_0070This hike was part of the Appalachian Trail.  We came across a cool lodge and stopped for a visit.  For some reason this one had three fireplaces!  We checked it out, had a snack, then continued on.

IMG_0076The incline got steeper…

IMG_0084… and the kids got tired-er.

IMG_0085Lex giving me a good grumpy face. :)

IMG_0087The view from the top was amazing!!

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IMG_0095Straight down!

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IMG_0100We went down the front of mountain, straight down the ski slope!

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IMG_0105Check out this cool rock we came across.  We spent some time climbing on and around it.  There’s another big one right next to it, behind those two trees, and a fallen down tree between the two which made for a great climbing bridge.  Good times!

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IMG_0110Then home again, home again, went the tired hikers.  A good day and a good time was had by all… until they went outside to play that evening

Doctor visits and play dates

Lex woke up this morning looking like this –

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So much for improvement with a good night’s sleep. I spent awhile deliberating about who should take him to the doctor.  No question that he needed a doctor!  Alan offered to rearrange a few things and take the day off, but my momma heart was hurting.  Then Lex snuggled me and said he really wanted me to take him.  Decision made.  I was supposed to be at UVEI today, but I’m a momma first.  I also had my own emergency doctor visit today!  Last night I was taking my contacts out and one tore.  I’ve never had that happen before.  It looked and felt like there was a triangle piece still in my eye.  And, of course, it was my last lens.  Luckily it was my right eye, which isn’t all that great anyway.

So we dropped Eve off at school and headed to the doctor’s office for a drop-in, unannounced visit.  They took one look at him and said, “Come right in!”  Almost like that anyway, we only had to wait a few minutes before they were able to fit us in.  The doctor did her full exam and decided it was just a local reaction, which I guess is a good thing.  She gave him a prescription from prednisone and we headed off to see the eye doctor.

The eye doctor was equally quick.  We were lucky everyone was so accommodating to our emergency needs.  The doctor put an orange colored dye in my eye to make it easier to see if there was any part of the lens in there.  She couldn’t find anything.  Then she gave me a trial lens in my prescription, which was amazing!  My right eye has a very unique prescription so I wasn’t expecting them to have that available in trial. I was mostly planning on headaches for a few days until we could order new ones.  I had an appointment scheduled for Thursday, which I will be keeping, and I didn’t want to order new lenses before getting my Rx checked.  I got lucky with the trial one.

Since I could see again and Lex was feeling alright, I decided to take advantage of the “day off” and get some long over-due errands done, like the grocery shopping!  With his swollen face and my orange eye I’m sure we looked like quite the pair walking into CVS.  We headed straight to the dairy case for some chocolate milk to wash down the medicine – doctor’s orders.  Then grocery shopping, book store, and a quick visit to Good Beginnings to drop off some baby items from a friend that have been sitting in my car for weeks.  Like I said, long over-due errands.

We got home, crashed in front of our respective computers for an hour, then went to the bus stop to pick up Eve and a friend of hers who we were babysitting for the afternoon.   By the end of the afternoon we had four moms and seven kids.  We played in the leaves, played in the sand, played in the Legos, and had a noisy fun afternoon.

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One mom brought pizza and we had a big dinner party.  Alan came home to a surprise house full of people. :)

Tomorrow Lex and I are going back to school. Hopefully with little to no swelling. Conveniently they are riding bikes in PE and he doesn’t want to miss that, so that will be good motivation to get him out the door in the morning. I’m glad through all of this that he has felt just fine. He looks awful, but he’s had plenty of energy, a good appetite, and a very good disposition. He has made caring for him very sweet and easy.

Bees!

The kids were playing out in the backyard this afternoon and got stung by bees.  Again.  Poor kids!  Actually, last month just Lex got stung. Today it was both if them. Parrish escaped unharmed at least.  I’d hate to  send friends home with bee stings. 

I was worried about Eve because it was her first bee sting and she had that peanut allergy in the past.  I was hoping we would have bee allergies on our hands.

She got stung on her upper lip. Lex also got stung on his upper lip and on his upper arm.  Eve was fine.  Lex on the other hand… not so fine.

Here he is 40m after the sting (20m after his first Benedryl dose) –

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Three hours later –

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The good news is that he is in no pain.  I guess it looks a lot worse than it feels.  I keep checking for numb tongue or other swelling.  Over the three hours the lip swelling went down a bit, or maybe just moved to his cheek and eye.  Poor guy.  I hope he feels (and looks) better in the morning.