On the Mend

Well hello.  As of this morning we are all MAYBE healthy.  We're all on track to head to church today, so that's promising.  As I mentioned, last week Winry was pretty much better, and while Brooke was sick in the latter half of the week she's been better all this week and was able to go to school and everything.  Grayson, however, took a turn for the worse and threw up a bunch Sunday night.  When I was going to bed, Grayson had been crying so  I went to check on him and opened his door and his room smelled TERRIBLE!  I asked Monica if she thought I should let him sleep, or go change his diaper since we knew he wasn't feeling good.  Well, I decided to change his diaper (it was poopy), and Monica had taken Nyquil, so I was pretty much on my own.  Turns out he had some super diarrhea and had a HUGE blowout.  It was a bit of work, but fortunately he was super tired and just sorta laid there while I change him and got him back into bed.  It was quite the mess to clean up.  Once he was back in bed he threw up sometime in the middle of the night then went back to sleep, so when I got him up in the morning it was all over him, his clothes and in his hair.  We took a bath right away and he was NOT happy about that (he usually likes baths), but we got him cleaned up and continued onward.  Poor little baby.

The girls found our Crazy Forts kit and have had a lot of fun with it this past week.  Those blankets on there were a bit too thick and heavy and we were pushing the fort to the limit.  Everyone climbed in and they had fun inside.  I believe the girls were playing school, and that was their school house... or maybe that was recess.  Anyway, the fort lasted until Grayson looked at it from the outside and thought that HUGE pile of soft blankets was just too good not to lay on, laid on the side of the fort and collapsed it!

Winry asked for the dinosaur to be inflated again sometime recently, and Grayson has enjoyed playing with it this past week.  I helped him sit on it and he was really happy about that!

So... I guess Grayson has been watching us wash our hands a whole lot while everyone has been sick, and figured his hands might be dirty too (they probably are/were).  He figured out his own plan to eat his snack, and just went for it straight off the table with his mouth!

The forts have been pretty popular all week, and the girls have made them several times.  We got a sheet for them to use so it was a bit lighter and less encouraging for Grayson to try to lay on it.  Apparently it's super fun to poke out the side instead of using the entrance, as you can see Winry doing here!

Thursday I went to get Grayson up from his nap and he had a super diarrhea blow out again.  I had to clean him up as far as his neck...  Fortunately, his sleep sack contained everything, so it wasn't all over his bed/crib or room, but it was still a bit of work to get him cleaned up.  Poor guy.  He was sick in total for around a week and a half, but fortunately he wasn't constantly throwing up, etc. and was able to eat and drink and stay healthy enough.

On Thursday while I was out for my run I got a text from Monica saying Grayson had thrown up.  I was already on my way back, so I didn't really get home any faster to help.  He threw up on the towel that's under his chair to catch crumbs, and Monica used the towel to wrap up all the clothes, etc. that needed to be washed.  When I got home everything was cleaned up, and all the clothes were in the bathroom sink (she couldn't just put them straight in the washer because it was already running with his previous gross clothes).  Brooke made a sign for the door to help out, it reads "closd throwup."  Now that I think about it, I did wash all that laundry and clean out the sink, so I guess I did help with the clean up in the end.

Brooke helped Monica do the meal planning for this next week.  Monica would tell her and Winry options, and then Brooke wrote everything down.  Here's our full meal plan, kindergarten spelling and all!  I LOVE it.  I love when Brooke writes things out, though sometimes things, like Sunday's lunch, can be hard to figure out (it's crepes by the way).

On Friday the weather was decently warm, like... mid to upper 60's.  The kids enjoyed playing in the backyard with Monica during the day, and even changed into swimsuits and asked Monica to spray them with the hose!  They said I'd done this before, but what they didn't pass on is that I sprayed the hose up into the air so it was like it was raining.  Honestly, I'm impressed though. I feel like for most of their lives if you sprayed them with a hose they would have started crying, mainly due to water in the face, so good for them.

Saturday while we were doing laundry Grayson found a shirt he really wanted to wear, so Monica put it on him... It was still a little big.... it's Monica's.  He roamed around in his blue BYU toga for a while before we finally got him dressed for real.

Grayson thinks our sour cream container is cottage cheese (or, honestly, at this point he might just love sour cream enough that he wants a bowl of that for a snack).  Whenever he sees it in the fridge, that is always his snack of choice.  Usually we'll get it out, and the yogurt, and pretend to give him sour cream while giving him yogurt.  Anyway, yesterday he got to lick off the sour cream spoon, and was delighted (and messy)!

The girls had a birthday party Saturday afternoon, so Monica took them to Target to pick a present in the morning.  We were all going to go because Grayson loves riding in his car, but we stopped at a garden store (Grayson is plant crazy, so I figured he'd love it) on the way to Target and he was losing his mind.  He did enjoy touching many plants as we walked by, but he just did NOT want to be there, so Grayson and I got dropped off at home for a nap.  Anyway, the giant red balls at Target were decorated as Kirby and the girls just had to get a picture!

In the afternoon while we were waiting for it to be time to head to the party, the girls all worked on planting the seeds they bought that morning, plus others we already had.  We got a lot of stuff planted, so hopefully it all goes well.  Monica learned a lot this year and says she's surprised our plants grew at all last year after all she's learned this year. (We kind of attempted to start seeds indoors last year to transplant outside, but nothing made it- but this year it will hopefully go much better!) We'll just have to be double careful once they're sprouting that Jelly doesn't come eat them all again!

The party was super fun!  It was at a park next to their house so they just invited full families.  We dug up some dinosaurs in the volleyball court, had some snacks, sang happy birthday, colored with chalk and played on the playground.  Everyone had a great time, and I even got to meet a new guy in the ward.  I followed Grayson around for much of the party.  He rode over in his blue push car, and he spent a bunch of time putting his dinosaurs (from the sand) in and out of the trunk.  A little later he decided he needed to steal all the chalk and started loading up with that instead!  I love that he left hand prints on the trunk, it makes it extra "stealthy."  Winry had a great time with the chalk making a dinosaur zoo, and drawing habitats for all her dinosaurs to live in.  This got quite popular and she had a crowd of kids who had joined in with her by the end.  She was a bit of a mess by the end.  I do like that the chalk on her cheeks matches her shirt though!

I think that's all for this week.  It seems like the kids have all been healthy for a few days at this point, so hopefully we're getting back to healthy in our house.  I have a little congestion at this point, and I think Monica's mostly feeling better as well.  We finally made it!  Now if only spring break were three weeks long we could still head down to Texas!

Texas or Throw Up, Which Would YOU Choose?

Texas.  Let me be clear, Texas is the right answer.  100%.  Unfortunately we didn't get to make that decision based on reason.  This past week was our spring break, and we were supposed to spend it in Texas with my sister, Oriah's family.  Unfortunately Winry got sick the day before we were meant to leave and threw up.  We even still packed and did all our preparations Monday night just in case she was feeling better Tuesday morning, but she wasn't.  When she woke up she told us she was feeling great, but I think she used her energy too fast because pretty soon she seemed like she was super tired.  When we'd ask her if she was feeling okay she'd always put on a big grin and nod her head, but her affirmations of health weren't expressed in any other mannerisms.  We ended up deciding not to go, and that ended up being the right choice.  Not only did it spare Winry a rough day of travel while feeling sick, but... well, you'll see.

Speaking of that Monday though, while Winry was very tired, everyone else was doing great!  Grayson loves to pull together a pile of blankets, and he was laying on them kicking his legs all over.  What a cutie.

Side story, Grayson was the second to get sick.  He threw up a little bit on Monday night, but we didn't notice it at first when we got him up because it was a small amount, and because he just went right back to sleep.  I did that once when I was a kid too.  It seemed like Grayson was getting over it pretty well, though he did have some bad diarrhea through the week, but he REALLY got sick Sunday night.  More on that in next week's blog post...

Brooke got herself "dressed" and what an ensemble it was.  Watch out Fancy Nancy, we're coming for you.  She has 2 (adult size) masks on in this picture, one on her face, and one on her forehead.

Some good news is that while we were at home for spring break, the weather was pretty good here, so we got to spend some time playing in the backyard, and health permitting, at parks!  Grayson really likes going down the slide on our little playground, and did that a LOT this past week.

I think it was sometime last week Winry asked me if we could have Easter Egg pancakes for breakfast, so I made some fun pancakes for breakfast on Wednesday I believe as Winry was starting to feel better. Although she ended up not eating them for a couple days still.

We eventually moved past Easter and St. Patrick's day to person preferences like a pig for Brooke!

With Winry being sick the TV was on quite a bit throughout the week, which naturally means Brooke couldn't get up either.  I took Brooke swimming one day to give her something active to do and burn off some energy, and afterwards we went to McDonalds for lunch and had a picnic in the back of the van.

I thought the kids would like playing airport/airplane since they were so excited to go to TX.  So we played airport one day.  I had them bring down their suitcases, and Monica checked us in and gave us our tickets.  Then they had their bags scanned at security, before boarding the plane.  The in flight entertainment was an episode of Bluey, and of course we had a snack service as well.  Everyone enjoyed the flight.  In fact, they enjoyed it so much they wanted to do it again, and every day after...  Oops... this was meant to be a one time thing...

We got quite a few inches of snow on Thursday.  It was really heavy snow too.  It piled up on our tomato cages too, which I don't ever remember seeing before.  We never made it out to play seeing as people were sick, but it could have been fun.

Grayson kinda waffled back and forth between seeming good and seeming sick.  It didn't help that he is getting possibly all 4 of his canines right now.  Anyway, there's not a whole lot that distracts him when he's not feeling great, so there was a lot of story readying and snuggling, though we did find he likes Daniel Tiger enough to watch for a minute or two.

Jelly was really interested in the snow, so we opened a window a little for her.  She enjoyed the cold wind and watching the snowflakes fall.

We got a holiday box from Hannah with St. Patrick's day things in it that we opened on St. Patrick's day.  One of the items was a few green balloons, which Grayson loved playing with.  He'd grab the little tied off part and shake them until the balloon slipped from his fingers and was thrown across the room.  Then he'd chase it down and do it again.

On Friday Winry was feeling all better, so we decided to head to the museum.  I took the girls with me, and Monica stayed home with Grayson.  We took the umbrella stroller so that Winry could sit in it when she wanted as she was still getting tired more easily than usual, and I don't really know how well she'd walk the whole museum anyway.  We had a great time, and got to see just about every exhibit.  Winry wanted a picture in front of the display of big bugs.

Brooke got a picture with antlers on!  We saw all the animals, went through the space section, the rocks and minerals, Egypt, and the dinosaurs!  We really did make it through just about everything.  As we were leaving the dinosaurs to head to another stop Brooke started crying.  I asked her if she was just really tired and she said her stomach hurt, then she put her hand up to her mouth...  The race was on, and we did NOT win.  We made it about half way to the nearest bathroom and then Brooke threw up.  Fortunately there was a mom sitting on a bench nearby with a bag and wet wipes so that I could get Brooke cleaned up.  And fortunately there was a worker right there at the time that radioed in the clean up.  Once I got Brooke cleaned up with the wipes she sat in the stroller and we headed to the bathroom to wash our hands, down to the cafe to get a cup for just in case, and then out to the car.  Winry got tired, so I got to carry her while trying to push the stroller one handed, which was a bit rough.

Eventually we made it to the car and headed for home.  The rest of the trip was thankfully uneventful, but Brooke was pretty wiped out.  She had a rough night, but has been getting better since and was even healthy for school on Monday.

Sunday morning Grayson got together an appropriate sized pile of stuffed animals (for him that's 3) for some diving.  He was having a really great time.

We decided that we should probably all stay home from church.  Winry was likely healthy at this point, but she still felt a little like a loose cannon, and I was sure Monica would not appreciate me heading to church by myself now that she woke up feeling sick as well (although hers is a cold, not the stomach bug).  Our ward did have a zoom broadcast, and sacrament meeting was SOO good!  I'm glad we got to hear the speakers still.

We cut open our nailed it cake for my family call.  It was supposed to be a rainbow peak-a-boo cake, and ours turned out exquisite!

That afternoon I went out with the kids in the backyard to burn off some steam.  Brooke even joined us, though the time she spent out there she was just laying on the swing.  All the same, I think it was good for her to get some sun and fresh air, and she still got to relax and take it easy.  After she headed inside Grayson and I took a turn on the swing.  In addition to that we of course had many trips on the slide, and we also played some basketball on the hoop you can see Winry tipping over in the background.

The only big event I can remember that I don't have a picture for would be March Madness, and while Monica and I have been enjoying watching the games, our brackets have not enjoyed the tournament.  It's still been a lot of fun watching basketball, though if we're being honest, staying up till 10:30-11 every night while ALSO having sick kids to take care of throughout the night is really a terrible idea.  I've survived so far, though I do tend to feel a little more tired each day.  Oh well.

Have a great week!

Back to the Zoo

Oh my Grayson and his tree obsession.  Today at church we made it most of the way through sacrament meeting, which was very surprising.  With about 10 minutes left he was done with being on our row though, and I had to take him out.  He walked around the foyer a little, but mostly waited by the doors wanting to go outside.  Eventually someone arrived, and Grayson got through the door, so we wandered outside a bit.  He was very happy to know the church also had trees!  We were only out here a few minutes before we headed back in for the end of Sacrament meeting.

Rolling back in the week, here's Winry one night at dinner.  Apparently the sour cream was a bit much to handle this night, as it ended up all the way up to her forehead!

Winry also grabbed this selfie with Monica's phone.  I believe it was this same day that in the morning she made pancakes for breakfast!  Monica helped her get everything and mix the batter, and she put it out and flipped them.  Monica said she got all of them off the griddle onto a plate until she took that video, and of course that's the time it fell off on the counter!

Grayson got another haircut this past week (and so did Monica!).  The girls helped, but he was super squirmy.  Things ended up a little rough around the ears as he was having none of that, but otherwise it looks great.

I've been playing the piano more recently, and some of that is due to a piano book I got for Christmas.  Brooke really likes one of the songs in it called "Song of Storms."  She made up her own dance to go with it, and even showed it to her dance class and her teacher found the song on Spotify.

Saturday morning the girls had a birthday party, so while everyone was out, Grayson and I went for a walk.  It was a very sunny and nice day, so we had to take our sunglasses.

We of course stopped at Grayson's favorite tree, and it had a special surprise today, snow!  Not only did Grayson get to poke his finger tips with pine needles, but he also got to play with the snow.

The party was Encanto themed, and here's a picture of the girls while they were there.  They had a lot of fun.  I remember they had to find Bruno (the dad, who was hiding in a closet with a green blanket wrapped around himself) and they did a piñata.

Once the girls were back, I headed out for my run, and then when I got home we all headed to the zoo.  We don't typically go in the afternoon, but we haven't been in a long time, and with a party in the morning it was the time that worked.  We still had a lot of fun and I'm really glad we went.  Grayson LOVED to see the animals!

Well... when there wasn't a big distracting tree on the other side of the path.  Sometimes he focused on the trees...  Maybe we need to take him to the botanical gardens...

We didn't go around to all the animals like we usually do, but made sure we got to everyone's favorites.  Of course that means we saw the vultures, who Winry left with a hug and kiss!  Oh, and when we walked up she stood up to see them, and then started singing "Happy Birthday" really loud to them, just cause she was excited to see them.

The tiger was out, which is always a treat.  I feel like they usually sit in a corner where you can't see them.  He was going down for a nap when we got there, and when we were walking up you could hear him... purring?  It was a pretty loud sound, don't know what it was.  Here he is with his tongue out.  

We also saw the sea lions, and this guy really looked like he could use a pillow.

Today we took Grayson to nursery for the first time!  He's a little over a month away from 18 months, and we usually go with our kids for the first month or so to help them get settled.  He did pretty well today.  I was surprised he sat in a seat for most of singing time.  He also didn't seem too attached to me either, so that's good.  He'd wander off and play, etc. and he LOVED snack time, which is a shocker (not).  They closed things off with a bubble machine, and he just stood there in shock watching it.  After a minute or two I coaxed him into walking around and poking the bubbles.  Anyway, he did a great job, and it's so crazy he's already getting so big!

That concludes this past week.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Have a great week ahead.

Back in the Backyard!

We had a warm weather week, and so we were out in the yard quite a bit.  Grayson especially loves to go out in the backyard lately.  The girls like to play over with the neighbors, and they came over to our backyard this past week as well.  They all ended up in the trampoline.  It's probably good they weren't jumping, cause I'm sure the 4 together were more than that trampoline is meant to handle.

Grayson continues to love going on walks, and he really loves pine trees.  I don't know why evergreens specifically, but he always points at them as you walk down the street, and if there's one close enough he loves to poke them!  We've got a little pine tree growing in our back yard right now, and Grayson loves giving it attention.  He always goes and checks on it when we play out there and gives it a few friendly pats and pokes.  I got a picture today when we were playing in the snow, but I'm planning to save it for next week.

Grayson loves to find toys to carry around outside.  He currently loves cups and balls.  I gave him some of these little balls, and I didn't think about it but I gave him three so he could have a color choice.  After watching him try to hold all three at the same time for a little I got him a bucket so he could carry them all around.  This lead to Easter egg hunting practice, so at least we're preparing!

Jelly has started taking an afternoon nap in Brooke's bed most days to Brooke's delight!  Whenever Brooke gets into bed she tries to be very careful so as to not disturb Jelly.  It's to no avail.  No matter how relaxed Jelly looks, once the lights are off and the noise maker is on she knows what time it is and always gets up and leaves during songs.  But Brooke is still very happy to see Jelly in her bed at night.

Brooke has started up cooking again!  She can make scrambled eggs all on her own!  She helped Monica make dinner tonight as well.  And when I say helped I mean with the cooking, not like how I helped by laying on the floor and letting Grayson climb all over me and drop books on me.

This picture is really about Winry dressing herself.  She wore her homemade Halloween shirt, running shorts, and her Frozen Elsa/Anna heels.  All great choices honestly.  She was also showing off her twirls for Monica that day as well.

Grayson enjoyed some time in the swing this past week.  He has really been loving exploring the yard, so swing time mostly means we need him more contained for some reason, like when we were cooking pizza in the backyard.  He still loves it though.  Speaking of exploring, our back patio is an inch or two above the lawn in some places, and Grayson has been learning how to step down from it.  Currently that means taking a huge step up, and then falling off, but having the drop be fortunately small enough that he can catch himself by running forward.

Here's Winry's big return to the trampoline.  She was showing me how high she could jump, as well as her best trick, which is jumping up and landing on her bum (though catching herself with her legs on the way down still).

I have no clue where the sunglasses came from, but Grayson actually loved wearing them.  He had them on all afternoon!  Any other time I've tried putting some on him he always pulls them off right away.  Don't know what it is about the tigers, but they're a hit!

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but SEAKR was bought by Raytheon sometime around the end of last year.  There have been a few "congratulation" type events since then, and there was another this past week.  They gave us all a free shirt and they had gelato popsicles!  They were quite good, and I happened to have to be in that day anyway, so I just had to walk to the building next door to pick it up.

I put Grayson in the trampoline one day.  I really thought it would be a bigger hit than it was.  Monica is pretty sure that Grayson one time, purely accidentally, jumped.  Like, actually got his feet off the ground.  And he spent most of the rest of that day trying to do it again and we watched him do so many squats.  So I figured he'd be all about the trampoline... but he wasn't.  He bounced a little, but mostly just wanted to get out.

Because outside there were cups, and even better, balls!  And Grayson wanted to thrown down a slam dunk!  He took it to the hoop like slam, even Aaron Carter screamed out JAM!

Grayson has been doing much better at meal times.  Tonight he even ate a bunch of green beans and corn chowder, and he was willing to try out a veggie straw for snack time.  But this post isn't about today, it's about the day Monica PLAYED with him instead of feeding him!  Typical mom...

This is a very important picture.  The reason why is because it comes with a story I've really been wanting to tell (and maybe have...).  At Winry's 4 year check up, Monica told the doctor she'd been having headaches (every morning when she woke up she said her head hurt and then would usually also complain about it multiple times throughout the day) and the doctor said the first thing is to try to help her drink more.  So we've been letting her have some lemonade drink mix each day to help her drink more, and we also put in an electrolyte mix to try to help with the hydration as well.  It's been working great, but the important part of this all is that now, every day, Winry asks us for her "electric light" drink!  I LOVE IT! And we're so glad that her headaches are gone!

On Saturday the girls cleaned the bathroom as that's one of their weekly chores.  They have a split where they both do different parts, and Winry cleaned the tub this past week.  After wiping down the tub she sat down and started cleaning all the toys.  I told her she didn't have to, but it's probably not a bad thing that she did!  I even called her down for snack time and she told me to wait cause she wasn't finished!

Shortly after doing Saturday morning chores, the next door neighbor, Aurelia came over.  Her parents had something going on, so she came over so I could watch her (Monica had a relief society thing, and then a haircut, so she was out for the day).  The girls had a great time playing with her all morning and into the afternoon.  Once Grayson went down for his nap I was completely free to get all kinds of things done around the house.  Everyone had a great time until she eventually went back home.

That afternoon when Monica got home I headed out for a run, and Monica took the girls to play with puppies!  It turned out to not be the most magical trip, but from a kids-eye view it was fantastic!  The girls have been telling me how fun it was to see and play with the puppies.  Brooke sat down and the puppies climbed all over her.  Monica said Grayson even pet/patted/poked them, and they didn't mind as much as Jelly.  When everyone got home all their clothes went straight into the washing machine because Monica was having BAD allergies!

I think that's a wrap for this past week.  Have a fabulous week ahead!