The Children's Museum

Every year for spring break, we take a day trip to the Children's Museum. This year was extra fun because we met one of my fave former students there. Ami lives in the area and collects free tickets, so she was able to get our entire group of 11 in for free! Thank you Ami!! For a mom with four kids, that is a huge savings as this is a trip that we save for months to take. We also brought along Zach's friend Matt and his mom Pam. My sister, her boys and my mom usually go with us, and this year was no exception. However, I think they need a GPS. They were half an hour behind us at take off, then they got lost in the city getting there, and finally, when we left, they got turned around and couldn't find the expressway. hmm - Mother's Day is right around the corner (ha, ha).

So, the first picture was taken at Wyatt's insistence. The display had action heroes in it, so we had to have a picture. This was Wyatt's first trip to the museum, and what a year to go!! They had a comic book exhibit, and a Star Wars exhibits as well as a Planetarium show revolving around Star Wars.

This picture of Julia is a tradition. For three years now, we have taken a picture of her in this tunnel.

Wyatt wasn't too happy about Julia jumping into his dragon lego picture.

This is Ami's daughter Maddie. We didn't get to see Ava because she was in preschool.

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Spiderman and the princess are on the lego throne.

This is Ami with sweet little Maddie.

Matt and Zach

Julia seemed to love drawing at the museum the most. Maybe she needs an art table for her birthday. Oh, where would we put it?

Logan is a brave boy. I would never have put that cup in my mouth.

Tiffany helps Logan and Julia send their boats down the water course.

This is another traditional picture. We all work together to build the arch and then get a picture of all the kids in front of it. Zach just appeared for the picture, and I don't know where Matt was when we took it.

my girls and me

Savannah did not enjoy the trip at all this year. She was outnumbered by boys and little kids. I will be making that up to her. We have two more outings planned this week, and she gets to bring a friend to each.

Grandma and Savannah

Wyatt got Julia back when he jumped into this picture.

Logan took a break under a bench.

Where's Logan? Oh, maybe he is still under the bench.

This is a Chinese dragon, and I took this picture in honor of my Chinese children. There was some information on why dragons are popular in Chinese culture and several artifacts from China.

my dimpled duo

Savannah, true to her math loving self, enjoyed this mechanical display. Wyatt also likes this type of thing.

This is an exercise game. At this point we were to walk like ducks. I can't believe I am posting this picture!

my adventurous duo refusing to smile

These two like roller coasters and taking risks.







This is how we start spring break every year. Today we see the dentist, and tomorrow Wyatt sees the surgeon. We will return to fun on Thursday.

10 Day Score Card

10 days in our house have looked like this

Day 1 surgery for Wyatt, strep diagnosis for Julia
Day 5 Savannah sees the doctor for a mystery illness that turns out to be allergies
Day 6 or 7 Andy is diagnosed with the flu - and he is working full time and performing in a church program Sunday through Friday evenings
Day 10 Wyatt awakes with a fever, earache, and hives. He sees the doctor and is diagnosed with an ear infection, but the worst is not over, by early evening he spikes a 105.2 degree fever. In an hour, we have only gotten it to reduce to 104.8. Sooo, we spend the entire night alternating Tylenol and Motrin every three hours. I did not take his temperature, but until the 7:00a.m. dose, he was pretty hot to touch every time I got him up.

The good news ----we have lots of fun planned for tomorrow. I will not reveal our plans at this time, but if you want to e-mail me privately, I will let you in on the plans, and of course, you are welcome to join us. I will post pictures and details later this week.

In other news: I am taking a break right now from using a magic eraser and lots of elbow grease to remove the artwork that Wyatt and Julia did on Wyatt's bedroom wall (see while the cat's away post). The wall really could use a paint job, but that is not in the financial or time budget right now. I think I will get to it this summer.
We have had our new washer for a few weeks now, and not one wet floor after running it. WhooHoo!!! I might also add that it does a GREAT job of removing stains.

Jr. Cotillion Grand Spring Ball

Zachary had his grand spring ball with Jr. Cotillion last night. Andy and I went for the last hour of the ball sacrificing Andy's viewing of the WKU game which was quite the "edge of your seat" kind of game. Andy is WKU alumnus by the way, and he was receiving text messages from a friend throughout the evening to keep himself up to date on the game happenings.

Shortly after our arrival, I waltzed with Zachary. I don't think either of us was born to dance.

This is a group of Zachary's friends all dressed up for the event. They all claim to hate it, but I think they secretly love it.

The boys with their moms.

Zachary, Andy and me. This was taken at my parent's house after the event.

It sounds so hoity, toity to do this cotillion thing, but it is such a great thing for adolescents. They learn good manners and learn to dance. Zachary had a ball dancing at the last wedding reception we attended. He knew what he was doing because of cotillion. I think it is great preparation for young adulthood. We are enrolling Savannah next year. She is so shy, and I think that for a shy child, just knowing the script and expectations goes such a long way in overcoming it.

...and I do have to admit that I think Zach's smirk in our picture together is cute.

a quick update

Wyatt - surgery went much better this time - it will be a few weeks before we know whether the result is as good as hoped

Julia - it is strep

Savannah- still iffy - ill off and on - very stressed out at this point

Zachary - thinks he is ill and should stay home - definitely fighting some minor respiratory stuff but not convincing Mom that he should be at home

update

Wyatt has surgery tomorrow, and we have an uninvited guest in our home. Yes, illness has struck. Savannah came home on Monday complaining that she hadn't felt well all day. She has not run a fever and has no other symptoms than a hoarse voice and a scratchy throat. However, she has been freezing off and on - still with no fever.
We went to Target last night so that Wyatt could pick out some Bakugan balls to play with after surgery. Julia fell asleep in the van on the way home. When she didn't awake for a few hours, I suspected that we might be in trouble. When she did finally awake, she was burning up with a fever which we have controlled all day with medication. She has complained that her tongue hurts. I suspect she may have strep, but our pediatrician will not see suspected strep cases until 24 hours after the symptoms start. Therefore, we may have surgery and a trip to the pediatrician ahead tomorrow.
Savannah's class is having a cookie cake treat that she got for them tomorrow, so she is bummed about the possibility of missing school.
Fortunately, my mother-in-law should be here any minute. She wanted to come and help out with Wyatt's surgery, and we did not want to make her the bad guy (the one who has to keep his hands off his face on the way home). Therefore, Andy and I both went ahead and scheduled to be off work. Now, we will need her here to watch Julia, and possibly Savannah. What a day we may have tomorrow!!

when the cat's away...the mice will play

So...I had this sweet, little girl who was not destructive. She was not good about taking care of her stuff, and she was not sentimental about anything, but destructive, she was not. ...then I went to China to get her a big brother. I suspect he was never destructive either. However, strange things happen when these minds work together. Wyatt now has a mural? / grafitti? on his bedroom wall. They even signed their work. I suppose I now have a spring break project. (sigh) I never cared much for the dull yellow anyway.

haven't forgotten

I haven't forgotten the blog. The last time I spent any length of time on it, I was working hard to change the design and never figured it out. (sigh) Someday I will have a cute blog.

Tunnel of Chaos

To be blunt, I must admit that I feel like I am living in a tunnel of chaos. This is clearly not how I am supposed to live, and I feel somewhat helpless to stop it. It happens almost every year at some point and seems that it will never end. However, this year, I believe it started in August, and I may not see the clearing until June.
Guilty!!!
I have only made one attempt to return a phone call to a friend who wanted to get together today. Our families have so much in common, and we have fun together, but I just did not make that connection this week. Yesterday, I ran from one place to another until 7:00 last night.

Right now even as I type, I am plagued by the bathrooms that need to be cleaned and the dining room that really needs to be cleaned as well as the laundry which is an issue.

How did I get here?

I am still adjusting to being Mom to four children. Adjusting to one more person who needs me generally takes a year, so I am getting close to finding the routine that will work.

This tunnel of chaos really started when Zachary was hospitalized in August. We had just established our new normal when damaging winds cost us power for eight days. Then we were dealing with school issues for Wyatt and then the holidays. We barely got back into the school routine before an ice storm took our power again. We are not fully back into a routine from that and are dealing with laundry issues. Last week I went to put clothes into the dryer only to find them dripping wet. I jokingly asked Andy if he would like to take me to a boutique to spend about $500.00 - an inside joke from a Sunday school lesson. His response - are you saying what I think you are saying? I hoped not. I figured the washer would run the next load just fine. Wrong. The next load had suds in it when it finished. So... what to do? The washer is 13 and a half years old. I could call in a repair, but that seemed like gambling. I took the plunge and bought a new washer which will arrive on Friday. It was a scratch and dent model from a local bargain shop. However, today I had a scary thought. You see our washer has leaked from the pipe that takes the water away for two years now. Three plumbers could not find a problem in the line. I was hoping that maybe the new washer would solve the problem. Maybe it was the washer all along. What if it isn't? What if the washer is not draining now because there is a problem with the plumbing outside of the house? What if I spent all this money on a new washer for nothing? Oh, what to do. - It is a done deal, so if the problem is outside, we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

We are heading into several weeks with totally overwhelming schedules. I can't even think through what needs to be done to make overlapping events work. The cat was due to see the vet in September, and we still haven't made that happen. The van needs an oil change, so I need to get that done, and soon, because I will be driving it out of town this weekend and possibly next weekend as well. I need to get a dryer hose clamp and clean up all of the dryer lint from the basement. Oh yeah, I do still need to work at my full time job.

So the problem with chaos is that I feel completely removed from God. I am not investing the time I need with Him, and I am missing it. Yet, here I am typing on a blog instead of doing something about it. sigh

Okay, don't be surprised if you come back and find this post missing - I think I just shared too much information for my own comfort.