Family Weekend

We had our family weekend at Arrowwood Resort this past weekend.  We went with my entire family, and my dad's brother's family.  We had 9 kids 10 years old and under, 8 of which were boys!  The kids had a blast. They went swimming, Kayden went sledding, and decorated cookies, they napped, they ate, the watched movies, they had lots of juice boxes, and in general, had a great weekend.  It was a HUGE help to have my sister, Amazih and her friend Morgan there.  They helped with all of the kids.  I did take pictures (although not as many as I would have liked to), and I'll post them later. 

We all had a great time, and hopefully we'll do something like this again in the future. 

Last night we also went out to dinner at Fuji Steakhouse with some high school friends.  It was so fun to get together since we do that kind of stuff so rarely now that we have kids, and jobs, and in general, such busy lives.  We definitely need to make time for that kind of stuff more often.  

The week ahead doesn't overly busy so far.  Amazih does have three basketball games, but they are all kind of far away, so we'll be there in spirit, while we listen on the radio at home. Wednesday night we plan to go out to dinner with my family for the January/February birthdays.  My mom, my sister and Amy (Eric's girlfriend) all have birthdays within two weeks of each other, so we try to just get together once for all three. 

My Motherly Instinct

Poor little Tyson has just NOT been healthy lately!   A week ago Friday, his ear started draining a lot of yucky stuff.  I let it go, and figured his tube was just doing it's job.  By Thursday, he was pretty congested, and his breathing was sounding really rattly.  Not terrible, but not normal. We were headed to Arrowwood for the weekend, so I talked myself into taking the afternoon off on Friday to take him to the walk-in clinic to have it checked out.  For my own peace of mind, really.  I called the clinic Friday morning and talked to a nurse about his symptoms, and she said I should bring him in.  So, I left work at 11:30, and picked him up at daycare.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the clinic. Chest x-rays, RSV test, flu test, nebulizer treatment, the list goes on. By the time we left we had a diagnosis of an ear infection :::insert annoyed groan here::: and pneumonia.  We were sent on our way with prescriptions for ear drops, albuterol by way of nebulizer, and augmentin.  I got to the pharmacy and talked them out of making me buy new tubing for the nebulizer we already have, as well as $144.00 ear drops which I still have left over from one of Tyson's other 500 ear infections. 

I had planned to make a quick trip to the clinic, a possibly stop at Target for a prescription, a quick stop at Cobourn's for groceries for the weekend, then home to pack the last minute things for the weekend, then pick up Kayden and Tyler on our way out of town, and  be to the waterpark before supper time.  Things didn't exactly work that way.  Instead I spent the entire afternoon at the clinic, went to Target to hand over my pay check in exchange for some drugs, then ran through the grocery store, and got home in time to hap-hazardly throw a few things in a suitcase for myself, whip up some sloppy joes for the weekend, feed Tyson a bottle, and make our way out the door.  Needless to say, we didn't get to the hotel until about 7:00. 

Back to the subject at hand--Tyson does seem to be feeling better.  That nebulizer really works.  He was up twice last night, but I'm not sure if that was because of his ears, his breathing difficulty, new teeth, or just because we've been gone for a few nights and out of routine. 

Rhonda came over last night to babysit while Mike and I went to dinner with some friends, and she said Tyler sounds like he's getting something.  Maybe bronchitis.  

Really???  

Ugh! 

Pray for me people.

Daddy did it!

Kayden fell asleep in the car on the way home from the basketball game last night, which was what I expected to happen, so I had him in his jammies already.  Since I put him in his pajamas at the game, he had his shoes on with them.  

When he woke up this morning, he said, "Mommy, do you know what happened?"  Thinking he was going to tell me about one of his goofy dreams, I said, "What?"

"I slept with my shoes on!"

What??????  I pulled back his blanket, and sure enough---there, were his little Nike's!  Daddy put him to bed with his shoes on!!!!!! 

Randoms...

A few random things to share today:

**Last night we took Kayden to Amazih's game in Melrose (the town where I teach).  Tyler and Tyson stayed home with Rhonda.  It was fun to go to the game and see lots of my students outside of the classroom.  Plus, as a bonus, Amazih's team won ;)

**Tyler and Tyson are both on drops for their pink eye, I'm watching Kayden's right eye, as it's looking a little reddish, and NOW, Tyson has a nasty cough.  Really????  I just hope everyone is healthy by this weekend because....

**We are headed to Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria. We are going with my family, and my dad's brother's family.  It should be lots of fun.  There will be 9 kids (not including Amazih and her friend Morgan), eight of which are boys!  They have a big water park, which will be something new for my boys, so I'm really excited to see how much they like it.  AND, hopefully we are able to wear them out in the pool so they'll sleep really well ;)

**Kayden had his first "Show and Tell" at school on Monday night.  He chose to take his Pillow Pet.  I kinda wish I could have seen him share....

**Tyson is moving around faster every day!  He has also been waking up at night, so I'm wondering if he's working another tooth???  We'll see!

"Yes, of course, he's always an angel"--(ah-hem)

Since Tyler and Tyson have pink-eye, they were home with Mike yesterday, and Kayden went to daycare by himself.  I think this was a nice change for him. I know that he spends a lot of time watching over his brothers, so I'm sure he was able to relax a little more than usual.  

When I picked him up yesterday afternoon, Sharon (our wonderful daycare provider) said that she is, "so proud of Kayden".  She went on to say that he is always such a good listener, he works hard when they do projects, he has such good manners and he's a wonderful helper. ***blush***  

He is a good boy.  He has his moments at home, but I'd much rather he have those at home, rather than at daycare or school.  I'm really hoping that he can carry these good listening, and good manners habits into his school years. 

*She also commented on how many parents came in and noticed that the house was a little quieter than usual, and then, many of them said, "Tyler must be sleeping".  Poor Tyler, he's not naughty, he just likes to make his presence known.  And he likes to whine for juice.  And snacks.  A lot.  We're working on this. :)

Basketball, fishing, a movie, and pink eye.

**WARNING: This post is a little random, and fairly boring, but since this blog serves as a family journal for us, they were things I needed to write about.  So, fell free to skip reading this entry if you have better things to do***

This weekend was one of those weekends.  We started by making the last-minute decision to go to Amazih's basketball game on Friday, and boy are we glad we did.  She had a great game!  She was the player of the game and had a triple double!!!  We had Rhonda watch Tyler, so I actually got to watch most of the game, and we sat with Eric and Amy and my mom, so there were plenty of people to help with Kayden and Tyson.  

Saturday morning we got up early and headed to Brainerd to Pat and Leah's.  Mike, and his dad, and brother, and Rhonda and her boyfriend were fishing in the big fishing tournament up there, so the kids and I were going to hang out with Mike's mom, Leah and the girls. The kids spent the morning playing, then Leah and Sydney and Kayden and I left around 11:00 to go to Target and a movie!  We went to see Tangled.  This was Syd's first movie theatre experience and both kids did well, even though there were a few scary parts where they both declared they were ready to go home :)

While we were gone, Doris(Mike's mom) managed to get all three little kids to nap at the same time, so things weren't too crazy for her.  We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening playing and eating ;)  Then, after we had supper, everyone played with Kayden's Christmas present from Eric and Amy, Big Buck Hunter, which is an interactive hunting game for the TV.  

Bedtime went well, although my boys did not sleep real well.  Tyson was up by 12:30, Tyler at 2:30, and Kayden at 3:30.  Then, by 6:00, Tyler was awake for the day.  I'm going to assume this had everything to do with just not being at home, and assume things will go back to normal very soon (fingers crossed).  

Sunday, we hung out, made a huge mess of Leah's house, cleaned up, made another mess, cleaned up, you get the idea.  The guys fished in the morning, and were back in time to have a late lunch, then we packed up and headed home.  

We had Amazih overnight, because my parents went to a casino/hotel for my mom's birthday, so the boys had fun playing with her before bedtime, and I took advantage of her being there to watch the little kids so that I could give Kayden and Mike a haircut.  Yes, I cut their hair myself.  Kayden went to a real salon for his first few haircuts, now I just cut it whenever I do Mike's.  Tyler, on the other hand is in desperate need of a haircut and will be going in very soon!  

***Side-note:

This week's illness in our house is pink eye.  Friday night at the basketball game, I noticed that Tyson's eye was a little bit mattery, and red.  By Sunday morning, his eye was pretty yucky, but Tyler's eyes were worse.  Daycare didn't want them there with pink eye that wasn't being treated yet, so Mike stayed home with them, and I called the clinic to have a prescription called in.  Thankfully, so far it's just the two of them, hopefully it doesn't spread to the rest of us!

Thankful Thursday

This week I'm thankful for:

~the health of my family and friends

~heat(today's forecast= -25)

~Uggs(my cheaper version anyway)

~chubby babies

~fruit snacks

~Sam's Club

~lots of preggo friends and two preggo cousins (better them than me!)

~Play-Doh

~one-tooth babies

~my jobs