Fracture

That's what Alex ended up with after a game of soccer with his dad last night. And no, Andy didn't cause the break. LOL Alex couldn't put any weight on his foot last night and when we took him in to the orthopedics office today, they said the injury is located in his growth plate area...what else is new, that's where all his injuries have been. He's now in a very attractive looking black shoe which gives his foot great support...he wasn't able to walk into the office but he was able to walk out with this shoe on. Dr says no sports for a month which is a bummer because baseball is just about to start. Hopefully his coach will be understanding and still let him be part of the team.
I had to make a stop on the way home because one of my headlights burned out. I'd just gotten it installed when this happened. What timing.

I also discovered today that the drs office made a mistake in scheduling my appt to have the nuchal translucency u/s down. They scheduled it for 3/27 instead of 2/27 and needless to say the March date doesn't work at as it's way too late for the test. This meant that I needed to reschedule the appt for an inconvenient time for me which defeats the purpose of why I made it a month in advance in the first place. Ugh!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I came home to this cute little guy sitting on our counter singing and dancing away. He's a lobster, in case you can't tell. Keari loves these animated animals. I had a dancing gorilla that Andy had gotten me for a Valentine's Day many years ago and she's basically worn it out because she plays with it to much. She loves to dance to the music and she gets the biggest grin on her face watching these things dance around.

and Finally. Sickie #9

Andy put up a valiant fight but the bug finally got him. Hopefully it will be as short lived in him as it has been in most of the others.

Longest Commute

Okay, I'm sure someone out there has had a longer commute but 5 hrs is a record for me all caused by the weather system that went through our area this afternoon that produced a mix of snow/sleet/freezing rain/rain. The area I was traveling through basically had freezing rain. I was doing okay until I got about 20 miles from home even though I had passed numerous accidents along the way...so many that I eventually lost count. And they weren't just one or two car accidents...they were 6 and 7 car accidents, accidents with cars flipped over. It was amazing. Thankfully, it didn't look like anyone was hurt in the accidents I passed. It took me about an hour to get within 20 miles from home...normally takes me an hour to get home so I didn't think that was too bad considering the weather...but that's when it all changed. I got on the main road to come home and came to a stand still. Move .1 mile in an hour, then another .1 mile in the next hour and finally another .1 mile in the next hour...so in 3 hours, I went .3 miles. Not very good progress. This was all due to extreme icing conditions on a bridge up in front of me. Finally about 3 hrs 45 minutes into the ordeal, they reopened my side of the road to allow traffic over the bridge...they kept the other side of the road closed. When I finally made it to the bridge, I could see why they had closed it as it was still extremely icy even after all the salting/sanding they done in the 3+ hrs that we had been waiting. This is certainly something I hope I don't need to repeat anytime soon. And I was being tortured the entire time I was in the car because a coworker had given me some eggrolls that she had made...problem was they weren't cooked so I couldn't even eat them while I was stuck in traffic. How cruel is that??

There was one humerous part the entire ordeal. After talking with my mom, I found out that a close family friend was also stuck in the same traffic that I was. Turns out she was right beside me in the next lane. Out of all the thousands of cars that were on the road what are the odds that we would have ended up right beside each other. Not sure why, but it made us each feel a little better to know that we weren't stuck in that traffic nightmare alone.

Sickies #7 & 8

Today it's on to Tyler and Connor. Andy is the only one left that hasn't gotten it. Think it'll bypass him?

and 6

Kenzie. Ugh!

Sickies #3, 4 & 5

Today it got Taylor, Alex and me. I didn't think the mom's were supposed to get sick. =(

Our Second Sickie

Now Kearie has it. She started getting sick in the wee hours of the morning. She's so little, she doesn't have a clue what is going...just looks at me with big questioning eyes. Poor thing.

Our First Sickie

There's been a nasty stomach bug going around and it seems to have finally caught up with Bekah. She started getting sick when I got home from work last night and hasn't stopped since. Now she's so thirsty but everytime she drinks something, it comes right back up. Poor thing.

I wonder how long it'll take to go through the rest of the house. :(

Crazy Weather

From pea soup yesterday to a sauna today...well maybe not quite that warm but it's supposed to get to 70 today. It is the beginning of February, right? Just checking to make sure I haven't gotten into some kind of time warm and it's suddenly become May without me knowing it. And Sunday they are calling for the temps to be in the 20's. Like I said, crazy weather, and it's just another typical day in Maryland where you never know what the temps are going to be like from one day to the next.

Pea Soup

It's not something that I like to eat and it's certainly not something I like to drive in. What a terrible morning to be out driving. It was so foggy I could barely see to get of our neighborhood. And I really hate driving in the foggy...it's kind of creepy, the way wisps of fog reach out to your car as you drive by...and you lose all your landmarks so it feels like you are driving in unknown territory even though it's a road you've traveled hundreds of times, like you could fall into an abyss around the next corner. Times seems to expand while driving in the fog...not sure why although I'm sure it has to do with not being able to track your driving progress through the normal landmarks so it feels like you aren't going anywhere. Thankfully I made it to work without any problems but I sure don't want to make a drive like that every morning.

Recital

Connor and Kenzie had their Winter Recital at St. Johns College in Annapolis today. It's a cool old college that was founded in 1649 and the building they play in is ancient...doesn't look anything like you would picture a college classroom looking like. There's big fireplaces in each classroom (although they have them blocked at this point). The piano sits in the entrance hall to the building...which extends from the front of the building all the way to back...and the room has a balcony that goes all the way around and portraits of past college presidents on the walls. Today I was sitting beside the guy that was president in the 1860's with the cool dress attire from that era.

Okay, so all that has absolutely nothing to do with the recital but I think it's pretty cool and there's alot of history on this campus and the kids enjoy playing here. Both Connor and Kenzie played really well although each made a mistake but they worked through it without any problems. After Connor was done and got his music back, this was a judged event, he started flipping pages so he could show me the exact note that he'd made the mistake on...as if I'd really know. He claimed that his pinky finger knew which note to play but his brain kept saying "No, no" and wouldn't let his pinky play it. LOL The kid cracks me up!

Biscotti anyone?

Italian Double Chocolate Biscotti to be exact. Alex had to make an international dish for school and he chose this one. Having never eaten biscotti before, let alone make it, I'm not entirely sure that it turned out the way it's supposed to but Alex says it tastes good, he nibbled on the crumbs that fell off after slicing the loaves into pieces was done, so I guess that's all that counts. Guess we'll find out on Tuesday once the other kids get a chance to sample it. I think it's really cool that everyone taking a foreign language class at Alex's school has to prepare a dish. I can remember doing this within our own foreign language class...but never something for all the foreign language classes that all the students of the school then get to share in. Will be interesting to hear what other dishes are brought in.

Quack, Quack

Today would have been the perfect day if you were a duck...nothing but rain all day long...and lots of it!


I love the way the clouds look after an all day rain storm...thick, heavy, rolling, with just a hint of sun peaking through...

My poor nephew

I got a call from my sister this morning saying that Josh has been throwing up after each feeding since last night. He has no fever, no runny nose, isn't acting fussy...he just continues to throw up after each feeding. She called this afternoon to say that she was finally able to get him in to see his pediatrician and that the poor little guy has the stomache bug that is going around here. Dr said he is still well hydrated, which is great new, so that even though he is continually getting sick, he is able to keep enough down to keep him hydrated. They're going to give him small amounts of pedialyte throughout the night and small amounts of milk with the hopes that he will be able to keep the small amounts down. Of course he probably isn't going to like that cause he tends to be a little piggy when he eats. LOL Hopefully he'll get over this bug quickly and that my sister and her husband don't end up with it.

First OB appt

I had my first OB appt for this pregnancy and it went very well despite the fact that they called me on Friday having to reschedule it. The dr is a hoot...he comes walking into the exam room holding my chart saying that he is confused. You see, he uses green charts for pregnancy patients and yellow charts for annual visits...he had both a green and a yellow chart for me. He finally asked if I was pregnant to which I laughed and said yes. He thought I was just there for my annual, which of course I didn't even realize I was due for, so we were both confused. LOL He pulled out his u/s machine and we got our very first pic of this little munchkin. My dr took one look at the baby and proclaimed that it looked like a girl to him...as if he can tell at this point. LOL Guess we'll see in a couple of months how good his intuition is. Baby is measuring right where she should be so all is well so far. He then congratulated me, said that he didn't need to tell me anything since I've done this so many times and said that he'd see me in about a month. It was only later that I realized he didn't even give me a due date for this little one. Guess he figures I'm smart enough to figure it out for myself. LOL

Finally!

Yes, Alex and Sara finally got together to go skating this afternoon. No problems getting into the rink this time. Andy did think that they were mad at each other, though, when Alex called an hour after being dropped off to say that they were done. Turns out they were both just tired. Guess they don't understand the value of getting the most for your money yet...they lost out on an hours worth of skating that they'd paid for. Oh to be young and so carefree. LOL They then went to Dairy Queen to have ice cream before heading home.

In addition to that going on, Kenzie had softball practice in the morning, Connor had select baseball tryouts in the afternoon, Kenzie and I went to 5pm mass where she abandoned me to go help a friend serve, then Alex got dropped off to youth group while the rest of us went to watch Connor play indoor soccer, then afterwards Connor got dropped off at youth group. Then Andy picked them both up and headed over to Alex and his indoor soccer game...Connor went along to watch. Whew, we did alot of driving around and crossing over each other but it was a good day.

Results Are In

We just received Alex's grades in the mail and here are the results:

Honors Algebra II: 80
English I: 85
Spanish I: 85
Catholic Christianity: 94
Computer Science: 93
Honors World History: 86
Honors Biology: 90

3 A's and 4 B's which enables him to make the 2nd Honors list this quarter.

Way to go, Alex! You worked really hard this marking period and the results show.

Relaxing Saturday

What better way to spend a lazy Saturday than making cookies with one of your children?

Tournament

Kenzie has her first softball tournament of the year today. Will be interesting to see how well the girls play together. They did great at the Halloween tournament last year and they've been practicing a ton since then so hopefully everything still clicks together. They play 3 games this morning...should be done around 2. Andy took her, Tay, Ty and Connor so I'm left with a fairly easy day here at home. ;-) Have nothing planned...don't feel like cleaning so I might actually pull out my stitching once I get the baby down for a nap. We'll see how that goes.

Update: They won their first game 2 - 1 and were winning their second game 1 - 0. I haven't heard how it end yet and I'm going to have to have a talk with Andy about that...he's been terrible with updates today!

Update2: Just got a call from Kenzie saying that they won all 3 of their games today. Way to go Lakeshore Lightning U10 Girls!!

Foiled again

Poor Alex...his plans to get together with Sara aren't working out very well. He was supposed to go ice skating with her tonight but she ended up having to back out. They did make tentative plans to go on Sunday. Then they were going to a dance Saturday night but not enough kids signed up so the dance got cancelled. Guess one of these days they'll finally get together.

So instead, he ended up hanging out at a friends house and then went to shoot some baskets later that evening. He ended up having a nice evening even if it wasn't the one he originally planned.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

My oldest turns 15 today. Where has the time gone? He's a year away from driving now. Ack! And only a few years left before he leaves home to go off to college. How sad that will be...I don't want my babies flying the coop. But I guess we can't keep them young forever. Have a wonderful day, sweetie, and don't grow up too fast.

Snow?

According to the forecast today, at home they are calling for us to get up to 2 inches of snow this afternoon...but where I work, we aren't supposed to get anything. Now I know there are 60 miles between where I live and where I work but that's crazy. Guess this gives me something to look forward to this afternoon...traffic should be just lovely going home. People around here just don't know how to drive in the snow.

Good Samaritan

It's nice to know that there are still good people in the world. Alex let his cell phone on the bus last night (which is a public bus) and didn't even realize it until we got a call from his cell phone that night. A nice lady talked to him and said that she had found his cell phone and wanted to make arrangements to get it back to him. They made plans to meet at the bus stop on his way home from school. She ended up not being able to keep those plans but did call today to say that she'd be at one of our local churches and that we could meet her there. Sure enough, Andy and Alex go to the church and she's sitting there waiting for them. So nice to know that there are people out there that care enough to go out of their way to help out someone else.

The results are in...Alex has all of his midterm grades back. He ended up with 1 A, 4 B's, 1 C and 1 D. I'm a little disappointed in the D as that was in History where he'd had an A average going into the midterm. Needless to say, he lost the A but at least he'll still come out with a B. I can't complain about the C as that was in Algebra 2 where he's been struggling lately. He should end up with 2 A's and 5 B's on his report card this marking period. Way to go Alex!!

Dizzy

I'm guessing I can't take my medicine prior to driving into work. I got so dizzy about halfway to work that I thought I was going to have to stop. I was okay as long as I didn't have to turn my head any which is nearly impossible when driving. I'm at work now and still feeling dizzy whenever I move so I guess I'm going to try and stay as still as possible until this pass. I checked my blood pressure when I got to work and it's fine so I'm guessing it's my blood sugar? I ate before leaving home this morning but maybe I need something else. I can honestly say that I'm really not liking this...makes me feel like I'm not in control of things and I so don't like that.

My Family is Nuts

This is what I see when I looked outside tonight...(the rest of the kids other than Alex eventually joined them)
Never mind that our temperature is this...
Needless to say, Keari and I stayed in the house and had them bring us the roasted hotdogs. LOL I love sitting next to a nice warm fire but I think even the fire might have been a little chilly tonight. The kids had fun though...and the fire pit was one of Andy's Christmas gifts so he got to use it again which he enjoys.

What's in a Name

Here's what's in mine (thanks V, since I stole this after seeing it on your blog)...

What Vicki Means

You are very hyper. You never slow down, even when it's killing you. You're the type of person who can be a workaholic during the day... and still have the energy to party all night. Your energy is definitely a magnet for those around you. People are addicted to your vibe. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily. You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind. A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable. You are a seeker of knowledge, and you have learned many things in your life. You are also a keeper of knowledge - meaning you don't spill secrets or spread gossip. People sometimes think you're snobby or aloof, but you're just too deep in thought to pay attention to them.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Hmm, tightly wound, huh? My hubby might just agree with that. LOL

No Work Today

Yay! I could get used to staying at home...I've been home from work since Thursday. We had to reschedule Bekah's speech appt from Friday to Thursday so I got to work from that day which as it turned out was a blessing since we had snow and it would have taken me forever to get home from work if I'd been there. Friday is my normal day to work from home...and today is for the Martin Luther King holiday. I'm glad for the extra day as I'm feeling kind of weird...very dizzy and lightheaded. I'm guessing it's the progesterone I'm taking but I don't remember it having this dramatic an effect in the past.

Andy and the boys are at my parents house helping to clear out a blocked dryer vent and install some attic fans. The girls and I are just hanging out here at home...I'm actually trying to get my blog somewhat updated...have had a bunch of posts that I've wanted to make just never organized them. I've knocked out quite a few so far this morning. =)

Party Time

We had a birthday party today with family to celebrate both Alex's and Kenzie's birthday. It's really tough nowadays to find a day and time that is good for everyone to get together...especially with our crazy schedule. We had to fit the party in between Kenzie's softball practice, Connor's indoor soccer game and youth group. All in all, it was a nice day...kids got some nice gifts, Alex got a speaker for his ipod, a book, Hyperdash, some playstation games and a really nice sweat jacket (he better keep an eye on this one cause I really like it. LOL) Kenzie got a playstation game, a dance game, pj's, Eye Clops (which she really, really wanted), a watch and some hair stuff.

The party did mess up Alex's skating plans for the day, though. We didn't realize when he made them that Sunday skate hours were during the afternoon, not the evening, so he would have been skating at the time of the party. He had to tell poor Sara that he couldn't make it today but they did make plans to go either next Friday or Sunday...let's hope things work out better next weekend for them.

Stitching

You sure haven't heard that word much around here lately. I can't even remember the last time I stitched on something but I decided to pull out Mother's Bliss and work on it while I was waiting for Kenzie at her softball practice. 2 hours worth of stitching resulted in the top ribbon being finished.

No Skating

Alex invited Sara to go ice skating with him tonight as a way to celebrate making it through their midterms. Unfortunately we didn't realize that in order to go skating, you needed to be at the rink early because they fill up fast. They were dropped off at the rink about 5 minutes after the start time of public skate and were told that the rink was already full. Bummer! It's odd because Alex has gone skating there a couple of times before and never had a problem getting in. Maybe there was a party or something going on that filled it up quicker than normal. They ended up going to Dairy Queen instead and made plans to go skating on Sunday.

Brr!

And I'm not talking about the weather outside. Our furnace is on the blink again. Darn thing seems to only sporadically work when it gets really cold outside. Was working fine this morning but now it's 66 degrees in the house and that's just too cold. Repairman is here and he's seems to have gotten it working again as I can feel heat coming out of the vents. Yay! Wonder what the problem was.

Another Blessing

Stole this image from hubby's post. Newest blessing is due on or around 9/11/08.

2008

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve, so it's time for our annual Gingerbread House decorating...okay so this is only the second year we've done this but you have to start somewhere, right? LOL

The kids had a great time, here's there house from start to finish...I assembled it and they took over from there...

Vacation Work

How exactly is a vacation work you ask? It's when you spend your entire time off from work revamping your house. It all started because Kenzie convinced us to let her and Bekah share a room. So that entailed moving the twins out of their room and into Kenzie's room (bunk beds got put up in that room) and moving Kenzie and Bekah into the twins old room (they kept the boys captains beds that were in there). And of course, we couldn't just move stuff around...there had to be painting involved...mainly because Kenzie's old room was pink and the boys weren't too keen on that. LOL Here's the result of all our work over the Christmas holiday...

Kenzie and Bekah's new room, a lovely light lavendar shade.


Tay and Ty's new room, a lovely blue green shade...perfect for a fish bowl look. LOL


This will eventually be Keari's new room


And we couldn't just stop at those rooms...had to make sure that every room got in on the act so here's a pic of our spotless playroom. Did some major purging in here and now you can actually see the floor.


And here's a pic of Alex and Connor's room...again notice the floor (it's not often that you can actually see it. LOL)

And after all this work, I need a vacation from my vacation. LOL

Medieval Times Projects

Alex's homework for their current chapter in World History is a huge list of projects. He has to pick from the list the amount of points that he wants to get for his homework grade (if he wants to get an 80%, he picks enough projects to add up to 80 pts) and had 2 weeks to complete them all. He ended up doing 95 pts worth...

The first is a poster and essay on being Lord of a Manor


Second is a map showing the Vikings travels


Third & Fourth on journals on being a Knight and a Peasant


Fifth is a poster on Aristocratic Women


And last but not least a Medieval Castle

Busy Weekend

Between piano recitals, softball and not sleeping well, I'm exhausted right now. And I didn't even do the piano recital running around. Connor, Kenzie and Taylor had a winter themed piano recital in Bowie yesterday. Unfortunately Tay's teacher forgot to give him a piece to play for the recital so he didn't get to play. Talk about being bummed...and to make matters worse, he had to sit through all the other performances. Poor guy! Kenzie played well and made one mistake...he played his scale up one too many times and was going to run out of keys so had to restart that section. LOL

Kenzie had a 3 hr softball practice yesterday afternoon and a 4 hr practice this morning. Both times, I dropped her off and then went Christmas shopping. I don't know what was going on at Best Buy today but that place was packed. There is no way I would have stood in a line to check out that wrapped around the inside of the building. Crazy! I was able to get most of our Christmas shopping done this weekend...not that there was a lot to do since we bought our big family gift of the kayaks back in the summer. Hopefully the kids won't be disappointed come Christmas morning when there is only 1-2 gifts for each of them under the tree.

Starfish

Tyler was being creative yesterday. He loves making these stars and I thought it was very creative of him to turn it into a starfish. =)

Giant Snowflake

I saw Velda's post the other day about making snowflakes, and after she assured me they were super easy to make, I decided to give it a try tonight. Here's the result. What do you think? And since V inspired me , of course I had to make it in her favorite color. =) The kids were totally impressed and they all wanted to know how I did it. Think I should tell them or just let them think is was some complicated magic? LOL

Decorating - Day 2

The Christmas village got put up today thanks to Andy and Kenzie. It gets bigger and bigger every year. If you look closely in the last picture you can see Noah's Ark up by the lighthouse. I love Noah's Ark!

Festival of the Trees

Connor, Kenzie & Taylor performed at the 22nd Annual Festival of the Trees tonight. They always have tons of beautifully decorated trees and the kids playing Christmas music is a great way to put everyone in the holiday spirit. It was a quick performance tonight since the kids only had to play one Christmas song each...usually they do at least 2...although Kenzie and Taylor did play a duet together, in addition to their solo piece. The next two weekends are going to be busy for us as the kids have 2 more piano recitals coming up, plus a short playing stint at the Country Peddler, a country craft store.

It's Beginning to Look...

a lot like Christmas. Sheeze, hard to believe it's less than a month away. We drug out all the Christmas decorations out of the attic and between helping Alex with a paper, taking him to football and piano recitals, the tree got up and decorated...somehow. The twins actually did put the ornaments on the tree, much to Kenzie's chagrin, but it was her own fault because she decided to leave to go shopping with Andy. They did a really good job although some of the branches did get a little heavy. ;)

Here's some pics of how our house is starting to look Christmasy. The first pic shows our half tree since we no longer have the room to put up a full tree...we only put up the half a tree now. Can you tell? ;)




That's all for today as Connor, Kenzie & Taylor have to leave to play piano at the Festival of the Trees.

Virus

I really hate pc viruses. It's totally our fault because we forgot to install the virus program on the kids computer when it got hooked back up to the internet...for awhile it was just being used to play pc games on. It took me all day but I was able to get it mostly cleaned up...there is still something on it because it's keeps popping up bogus microsoft windows center virus alerts. I'm not sure where it is though because the two virus programs we are using aren't finding it. I even tried to manually look for the files in the registry and I can't find them. It's a puzzle at the moment but I'm going to let it go for now cause I'm sick of dealing with it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are off to see my in-laws today. It'll be different traveling this year as the past several years we've done Thanksgiving at our house. Depending on how worn out everyone is, we might swing by and see my sister on the way home since they only live a couple miles from Andy's parents. Kenzie is still dieing to see her new cousin.

No More Work

To bad it's only for the rest of the week. One of these days I won't have to worry about going to work but not anytime soon. Of course, if I'd known we were going to spend the whole day cleaning the house, I probably would have reconsidered staying home. I think I would have worked less if I'd gone to work. ;-) We did get alot accomplished with the house, though.

Alex and Connor spent the day in Baltimore with their church youth group helping to feed the hungry. I'm sure how impressed they were since they were relegated to trash duty...but they were there helping and that's what counts.

Do Over Day

You sure can tell that today was a Monday. Started off with me getting up late because someone who shall remain nameless was playing with my alarm and switch it from FM to AM. My alarm went off but played static instead of music so I didn't hear until about 15 minutes after it had started going off. Luckily I heard Alex roaming around upstairs because he also had an alarm clock problem this morning. In his case, somehow the time on his clock got set an hour earlier than it actually was so he ended up getting up at 5 instead of 6 like his clock said. Hmm, that clock fairy was busy. ;)

Then I get to work this morning and discover that a database I was working on last week was missing all the current months data. If I didn't have hard copies of the reports in front of me, I would have thought I'd imagined doing the update. Turns out I wasn't the only one missing data. They did a server update on one of our drives over the weekend and mistakenly loaded an old backup copy of the server. Needless to say that caused some trama this morning but we were able to get it worked out.

Then this afternoon, I finish converting a report into a database...done all the balancing etc, so it's ready to get turned in. I go to rename the database and end up deleting it by mistakes. Ugh! I just couldn't believe I did that. Luckily, I had a back up from Friday but I had to redo all the work I'd done today. Was able to get it recreated by the time I left today.

Needless to say, it wasn't a very good day and I'm really hoping that tomorrow is better.

Happy Happy Birthday Birthday!!

Tay & Ty turn 8 today and they are totally excited about it. Because of schedule changes I actually get to be home today which is unusual. That means I got to see my birthday boys first thing in the morning instead of late in the evening which is how it normally works. One of the perks of being the birthday child is you get to choose that nights dinner...and even those these guys are twins, they have different tastes...so we ended up with macaroni & cheese that Ty chose and beefaroni that Tay chose. Hmm, maybe they aren't so very different in tastes. LOL It ended up being night...dinner, then birthday celebration of cake...no ice cream, we forgot to get any. Oops! Presents that consisted of a rip stick...must be nuts on that one...a mini skateboard and lots of books. They seemed to really like their gifts. Then Andy and I had to leave to go to bible study. When we got back, Keari was totally zonked on the sofa. That's always a bad sign because it was only 8:15 and when she takes a nap that late, she never sleeps through the night. I figured I'd give it a shot, though, and picked her up and put her to bed. Much to our surprise she actually slept the entire night.

In addition to b'day stuff, Bekah had a hearing test today. This was to rule out any fluid in the ear problems that could be attributing to her speech issues...she tends to drop the ending sounds of words during normal talk. Turns out, her hearing is completely normal, in fact she has has pretty sensitive hearing so her speech issue are just development delays which will get worked on during her speech classes. Didn't hurt to rule out any other possible problems.

Speech Class

Bekah had another speech class today...I think this makes her third since she transitioned to the new program and new teacher. I'm very thankful that she likes this teacher much, much better than her previous. She actually talks to this one so that is a huge improvement since she was like a little clam with her other one. She's excited because she has her own book into which the teacher puts her homework. She thinks she's such a big girl....going to school with a backpack and a book. LOL

Today is my first of three days working from home this week. Had to switch Bekah's speech class from her normal day on Friday to today because her teacher is going to a conference tomorrow Friday. Tomorrow Bekah has a hearing test at 12:30 to which Andy can't bring any of the other kids. And Friday, I have a conference with Alex's algebra teacher. He ended up with a 79 for his first marking period grade but I'm concerned that his last several test grades have been declining below the C mark. Interested to see if she has any thoughts on how to correct this.

Another Busy Day

Started with Sunday school for the kids. I then went to 9am mass by myself as I opted to stay home with Bekah and Kearsyn last night...after being in the car the majority of the day yesterday, I knew there was no way they would be able to make it through mass quietly last night. By the time I got home, Andy had breakfast ready. Alex then headed off to school to help with the open house. While he was there, Andy went shopping for the twins birthday presents. I headed to the fields...first stop was to drop of Connor, Kenzie and Taylor for select soccer tryouts...second was to take Tyler to his last football game. Boy was it chilly by the time we left the field. They ended up losing but Ty had a good time. It was then time to head back to the other field to collect the rest of the kiddos. Now I'm home and tired and not at all ready to start the work week. Blech!

This week is going to be all out of sync cause Bekah's speech class is moved to Wednesday again due to her teacher being at a conference Thursday & Friday. Bekah then has a hearing test in the middle of the day Thursday. Then I'm meeting Alex's math teacher Friday afternoon to discuss what we can do to help improve his math test grades. Guess I'll get some work done in there sometime.

And then the following week is Thanksgiving. How in the world did that happen?