Ho Hum

Not a whole lot has been going on in our lives lately...

It's all been pretty much the same thing day to day. The kids having fun and enjoying the summer. And of course, the "occassional" fighting which is driving me insane. I can think of one little person who really needs to go back to school.

We took a nice trip to the zoo last Saturday with friends of ours and my little sisters small family. We had lots of fun, though we didn't have a lot of time. We arrived at the zoo around 4 and they close at 6:30. We figured we should have plenty of time to see what was there. However, Saturday was still plenty dang hot at that time. They had a sno cone special for $0.75 so we all had to have one. Though we didn't have a whole lot of time we all enjoyed the time we got to spend together and the kids had lots of fun. Eric's parents gift to all the kids this year for their birthdays was a membership to the zoo. So, it wasn't a big lose not seeing everything. We can go back whenever we want to. I had to post the picture of Eric because it is RARE that he will actually let someone take a picture of him without him making a funny face or turning his head. I was very glad he cooperated. Nice to have a picture of his face and not his profile.

After the zoo our friends had another appointment they had to go to, so the rest of us figured out what we wanted to do. My little sisters husband really wanted to go see "Transformers" and Eric didn't mind that at all. (He'd already seen it twice) My sister and I weren't really in the mood to go see a movie, so we decided the guys could go to the movie and we would go shopping.

It turned out to be a good night, but we were all exhausted by the time we got home. It's been nice to take this week slow. My little brother is staying with us this week and I hope he's had fun. My parents went away to Girl's Camp, so it was nice for him to have somewhere to go.

Sunday is Tanis' 7th birthday. We are getting geared up for that. He is excited. I was frustrated with when I got the invitations...The package with all the bday decorations and invites didn't come as soon as I had hoped, so his invites just barely went out yesterday. I hope everyone receives them in time.

As for the job, I've decided I need to find something new. I am too stressed out... Smith's wants so much "perfection" that it is just driving me crazy. We have produce tests every so often, have to be scanning 28 items or something per minute, and do a bunch of other things. I don't know, for the most part it wouldn't be so bad. But I just don't have enough coordination to go super fast when scanning things, and I don't know enough about produce to be too effective. I applied for a job with the city that would be part time doing things I did when Eric and I first got married. I am so hoping it will work out. I am so much more comfortable in an office setting. If anyone else hears of other job opportunities that will allow me to kind of work around a Kindergarten schedule please let me know...

Still need to get back to the gym...Don't know what is holding me back. This week would've been a perfect week to go, but I've just been too lazy.

Hope everyone is doing well.

What Happens Next...

Just To Keep You Up To Date

I hope the summer has been good to all of you.

We have been kinda busy all things considering.

I got a job at the Smith's out here and a couple weeks ago I had 3 days full of training. It was exhausting to say the least. Now that I am actually working it isn't quite so bad. There is a lot to learn and I learn something new everyday. It is a fast paced job, which I like because the time flies by.

The kids are enjoying the summer and playing outside with their friends. They have all gotten sun tans from the length of time they are outside. We've also had the ouchies that come with the summer.

The past few days have been busy, and fun. On the 3rd of July I was able to get together with my best friend from High School. We each have 3 kids, although only Shaylyn and Lex have a kid their age. But even though that is the case, they all had fun playing while my friend and I visited.

After the visit, we headed to my little sisters place to wait for Eric. When Eric got there we all headed to dinner at Godfather's Pizza. The kids enjoyed their food and it was fun to be with my little sister and her husband. We then went back to their place to watch a movie.

The kids were going to sleep over at my parents house that night, but my mom wouldn't get home from work until 9:30. After the movie ended, it was about 10, so we decided to take the kids to my parents. When we got there, my mom still wasn't home - she decided to run to the store to pick up things for the 4th. Luckily, we only had to wait about 10 minutes before she got back home. We got the kids all settled and said our goodbyes and headed home.

The next morning, July 4th, we headed back out to the valley. My family all decided we would do mini golf before they headed where they needed to go. We all met up at the outdoor mini golf place and we all had fun. The kids enjoyed their time and so did the "big kids." After mini golf we went to get ice cream. It was yummy. When we all finished our ice cream we said our goodbyes. My family was headed to my uncles house for a party (we couldn't go as I had to work), so we headed home. We stopped to check out the new IKEA store, but that was a bad idea. It was crazy full of people and we were all too tired to really enjoy looking at anything. Before heading home we stopped and bought some fireworks to do when I got home from work. (My shift was from 5-8:45)

After a crazy day at work, I headed home and it was time for fireworks! Sadly, Lex was asleep and I was unable to rouse him, so we did them without him. :(

Shaylyn had had a fever for the better part of the day and fell asleep halfway through. Eric, Tanis and I all enjoyed the fireworks, however. We even had other people on the street doing their fireworks, so it was fun to see it all. I was sad that I missed out on the party at my uncles, because I haven't seen that side of the family for awhile and my cousin who joined the Coast Guard was on leave. It would've been nice to talk with him.

Anyway, I think I rambled on a bit...Hope everyone else had a nice 4th of July.

As for the gym and losing weight thing - I kind of got out of the habit with the training I had to do. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things this week. Help keep me motivated!!!!

What Happens Next...

Does It Ever End?

Once again, Shaylyn gave us another exciting couple of weeks.

On Friday, June 15th, I was doing my major housecleaning. I do this every week on Friday because we are usually busy on Saturdays. I was trying to clean it extra nice as we were having Lex's birthday party the next day. I had just finished and it was 4:00 in the afternoon. I was just sitting down to have some lunch when Tanis comes running in the house telling me that Shaylyn fell in the window well.

I knew this couldn't be good because our window wells are fairly deep. I ran outside and as I went around the corner, she was climbing out of the neighbors window well. (I am still surprised she was able to do this on her own.) My first thought when I heard that she fell down the window well was that she broke a bone. Luckily this wasn't the case. However, she was bleeding from her head.

I know that head wounds bleed quite a lot even if it isn't bad. I got her in the tub so I could clean her off and clean off the blood to see just how bad she had gotten hurt. Shaylyn was screaming, Lex and Tanis were wondering what was going on and I am trying to talk to Eric on the phone...Such chaos. Then in the midst of her screaming (understandable, by the way) she threw up. I knew this probably wasn't such a good thing. Eric thought it was probably just because she was so worked up. Possible, I guess. So I tell Eric that it looks like the wound has stopped bleeding and he says he is getting ready to leave.

I get Shaylyn out of the tub and into some pajamas so that she would be comfortable. I hold her in my lap with a washcloth pressed to her head to clean off the wound a little more. She keeps asking for her daddy and I tell her he should be home soon. After about a half hour, she dozes off to sleep. Eric then calls and tells me he is just leaving his uncles house. I was a little upset as I misunderstood what he meant by getting ready to leave and he misunderstood how bad Shaylyn was hurt. Then while I was talking to Eric, Shaylyn woke up needing to go to the bathroom. She did that and as she was heading back to the couch, I noticed her wound was bleeding again. I told Eric this and he says, yeah she probably will need stitches then.

Eric gets home, takes one look at her head and decides that she will need stitches. We figure we don't want to go to the hospital (Also, don't know where the closest one is to us, yet) because we will be there all night. So we take our chances at Instacare.

Luckily, Instacare was able to take care of it and stitch her all up. We were in and out of there in an hour. Picture of her stitches is posted below.





As if Shaylyn cutting her head wasn't enough - Lex threw up in the car on the way to Instacare and on the way home...Then about an hour later Lex and Shaylyn both threw up within seconds of each other. I was worried that Lex was sick and that we would have to cancel his party. Shaylyn I figured was just so worked up and stuff that her stomach was still a little uneasy.

Luckily, Lex and Shaylyn were both back to normal in the morning. So we enjoyed Lex's birthday party and the rest of that day.

This past Friday we went and got Shaylyn's stitches out - all in a matter of 5 minutes. Picture without the stitches is posted below.

Some other good news - the tree that the boys killed next door? It started growing branches back! But then, the home builders or the company who is selling the house just replaced the tree. So now I am feeling relieved, yet guilty at the same time...Oh well, what do you do?

What Happens Next...

An "Exciting" Couple of Weeks

The last few weeks have been fairly eventful...

We'll start in the life of Shaylyn.

Sunday, May 20: We arrive at Eric's parents house for our weekly Sunday dinner and Shaylyn complains that her ear is bleeding. Eric looks in her ear quickly and decides she just scratched her ear and it wasn't bleeding that bad.

Monday, May 21: Shaylyn wakes up and there is dried blood in her ear and on her pillow are 3 small spots of dried blood. I start to get a little worried. I clean out the ear as best I can, cause she says it still hurts, then I tell Eric what happened and he says if she had scratched the ear and opened up the scab during the night that would've happened. The rest of that day goes by without too much incident.

Tuesday, May 22: Shaylyn is a little bit whiny today. Complaining that her ear hurts. Don't really know what to think as she is a bit of a "drama queen" at times, so it is hard to distinguish when she really is hurt and when she isn't.

Wednesday, May 23: Shaylyn is whiny all day and just isn't acting like herself. She is tired and moody. Doesn't want to do a whole lot at all. She goes to bed that night, but a few hours later she is up crying and complaining that her ear really hurts and she can't sleep. So she comes and sleeps with us...Yeah...She doesn't sleep all night, and neither do we. By this time we have decided that in the morning we need to take her to Instacare.

Thursday, May 24: We take her to Instacare. Luckily we went fairly early in the morning, so we didn't have to wait long at all. Shaylyn is acting more like herself with the prospect of her ear feeling better. The dr. comes in and checks the ear out. He actually says to us, "There is so much dried blood in here that I can't really tell what's going on." He says what probably happened was that her ear drum ruptured and then she had an infection on top of that. He gives us prescriptions - ear drop type stuff to clear out the dried blood and amoxicillan. I was a little bit nervous about the amoxicillan because the first time Tanis had the stuff he broke out in a rash. Luckily, Shaylyn didn't have any reactions. Thankfully as well, she will take medicine for us without any fight. We give her some medicine and she goes to sleep really quick. Not a big suprise as she didn't sleep all night.

That night Eric has his game night and as the guys are talking one of his friends said that this Instacare dr. isn't a very good dr. Apparently he had torn some ligaments or something and went to the Instacare and this dr. just told him that he pulled some muscles.

Friday, May 25: Shaylyn is back to normal, but her ear looks really disgusting as the medicine had pulled that dried blood out. (Picture below) She feels good enough that she even goes to the Bees game with us. Thursday night she was insistant that she didn't want to go.

So after all the hassle we had with her that week, the next week was just crazy with things that needed to be done.

Tuesday, May 29: Shaylyn has dance pictures. Luckily the studio her dance teacher decided to use was located real close to us. A 5 minute drive if that! We made it in time for her pictures but as everyone was crowded in the studio, Shaylyn got into the studio and had her individual picture taken before I got to even see how she looked. Then for her class picture she wanted to look at me instead of the photographer. Oh well. (Dance pic is posted below)

Thursday, May 31: Shaylyn has her last dance class of the season. For once we are actually one time because Tanis got out of school way early.

Friday, June 1: Shaylyn has her dress rehearsal. Her dance teacher is smart and separates each group into 15 minute segments instead of having everyone there for the whole amount of time. Shaylyn has her session at 5:45 P.M. We know we are going to be cutting it close as we were trying to get to my brother in laws graduation at the E Center by 7:00. Eric was taking the kids to a movie at the mall that started at 7:00 as well. We walk into the school for Shaylyn's dress rehearsal and NO ONE is in this same costume. Someone made a mistake - ME! I wasn't sure what time she was really supposed to be there, just knew that I read the paper wrong. Good news is we all made it where we were supposed to be on time because she didn't have to stay and practice.

Saturday, June 2: Shaylyn's dance concert. I am stressed hoping my family will get there in time to see her perform. She was #7. Luckily my parents only missed a slideshow presentation and my sister and brother only missed the first number. Shaylyn did great and looked like she was having a great time. Then when she was supposed to leave the stage, because they couldn't quite find the opening in the curtain, her and 2 other little girls decided to just crawl under the curtain. It was funny to see.

Tanis finished school on Thursday the 31st. He only had to go to school for an hour and a half that day. I don't know what in the heck the point was for that. Oh well. I am glad that he is out of school, although this morning has already been a morning of fighting over nothing.

On Memorial Day, I went to the gym with my mom and sisters. It was supposed to be a $10 one time thing, but then the guy sold me into a membership. I was a little leary at first because I wasn't sure where there was a gym close to me and about the kids. But my $40 a month membership included unlimited daycare, so I couldn't really pass it up. He also explained to me where the nearest gym to me is. It is like a half hour away, but that's better than driving to the valley. It was something I've wanted to do for awhile, but just kept putting off. My 10 year High School reunion is next year and I want to lose like 20 - 25 pounds before then.

So wish me luck and I'll keep you posted. :D

What Happens Next...

Opinions....

So, I need opinions with something that happened yesterday.

The kids have met 2 little boys who live down the street. The oldest is about 6 (right in between Tanis and Shaylyn's age) the other is 3. They have fun playing together and their house is where Tanis went yesterday. (Refer to previous post)

After the kids played at the neighbors home for awhile they came here. They played some video games for awhile then Tanis, Lex and the 3 year old decided to play outside. Shaylyn and the 6 year old continued their video game adventures.

So, here is what I need opinions on....

The little boys mom came to the door yesterday telling me that the cops had just been to her house. Apparently the 3 year olds and Tanis destroyed a tree next door by pulling all the branches off. (Pic is below) No one is currently living at that home, so the cops told the other mother that whenever someone moves in we need to replace the tree. (Well, DUH!)

I KNOW I am to blame at least partially because I wasn't watching them as well as I should have. What I want opinions on is this...

The guy who called the cops is an older gentleman who lives 2 houses away from us. HE KNOWS who the boys belong to as he sent the cops to the right house and he has seen me with my boys. But, instead of talking to the little boys HIMSELF, or coming and getting the MOTHERS, he calls the COPS on two 3 year old boys and a 6 year old boy! Tanis was so scared that the other mother told me he actually said, "I am too young to go to jail."

I am just wondering if I am crazy for thinking this guy was NUTS for calling the cops. Personally I think it was a waste of time and energy for the cops. If we were talking about teenage boys, I could totally see that. But as it is, I so don't understand. Eric tells me I am dwelling on the wrong thing and maybe I am. But I am just so in disbelief that someone would call the cops on little kids.

I KNOW what the boys did was wrong and Tanis should know better. We talked with him and he understands what he did and why it was wrong. The 3 year olds, however, probably didn't really have any idea that what they were doing was "wrong."

Anyway, just wanted some opinions on this....

Share ANY that you have.

:D Shilo

What Happens Next...

And it Begins...

The start of summer seems to actually be coming!
Tanis started playing Coach Pitch Ball a few weeks ago. His very first game got rained out, but he's had two games since then. They have practices every Monday and the coaches he has are terrific. They are really patient with him and try to teach him the correct way to bat...He still hasn't quite figured that out yet.

We go to his first practice after his rained out game and he gets his "jersey" and hat. By complete chance he got the number "12". 12 is the number Eric would always choose when he was playing ball. Talk about coincidence.

School is almost out. Tanis only has 5 1/2 days left of school. I AM SO EXCITED! Next year will be a little better as he won't have to go to school as early, thanks to Shaylyn going to Kindergarten. I am excited about this as well. I think she needs something to do during the day. She has lots of fun playing with Lex most days, but they can also have the biggest fights ever. I don't get it.

Friday we will be going to the BEES game. The first of hopefully many times this season. We enjoy watching baseball and I am thinking Lex will have a blast. He is more into ball this year than he really was last year.

I had a bad mother moment today - I went visiting teaching at 1. Tanis is out of school at 2:15 - no problem, right? It shouldn't have been. But then we got talking, next thing I know my companion's daughter is telling her it is 2:40 and she had to get home for an Activity Day.

I was like, "What time IS IT?!?!?" We hurried and said our goodbyes and came home. Tanis wasn't waiting outside, so I figured he went to 1 of 2 neighbors homes. Go to house #1 - no one answers the door. Haven't totally lost hope yet. Go to house #2 - and there he is! He is such a smart kid. He went over and said, "My mom isn't home."

I am so thankful that we have good neighbors and that he is smart enough to go somewhere where he knows people. Next time I will be checking the time for sure!

Hope all is well. Love you all!

Shilo

What Happens Next...

Busy, Busy

I feel like it's been forever since my last post...

It seems like I've just had lots of "projects" to get done.

The week we got back from Lava, I had to get 14 cards made for the Stampin Up Club that I am part of. My sisters roommate is a demonstrator and asked me if I wanted to join a couple months ago. Of course I did. Now I have a monthly task of making the cards. :D The cards I made were the ones pictured below. I bought this stamp set thinking of my little sister who is absolutely in LOVE with Monkeys.

Then we took that Thursday to visit my grandma (picture above is of Grandma, Mom, Me & Shaylyn). I love visiting with my grandma, it's nice to just shoot the breeze and see how things are going. This summer I plan to visit her once a week. After our visit as I was dropping off my mom and little sister, I grabbed one of my mom's photo albums. I've been making the video slideshows of her books every so often. I was on Volume Three. I figured I would give it to her for Mother's Day, but then I realized she had a birthday before then. *OOPS*

It was one of those things, I knew was coming, but didn't quite realize how soon.

So, that left me like a week to do this project, but once again didn't start until Wednesday. My little brother was coming down or up (whichever you prefer) from Wyoming as well on the Sunday just before my Mom's birthday. I figured that was a perfect time to give her her birthday gift. It left me working crazily all weekend. On Sunday when I was putting the video all together, the kids turned off the computer downstairs which effectively ruined the video. (Which I didn't realize until it was too late to do anything about it)

I gave my mom the video the way it was with the promise that I would make her a perfected copy.

My mother in law is headed out of town on Saturday to visit with her parents. This meant that they would be gone for Mother's Day. I had a gift for Eric's Grandma that I wanted them to take with them. But, I also wanted to be able to give her her Mothers Day gift and my Father in law his birthday gift. (It happens a couple days after Mother's Day) Luckily the gift for my father in law was a store bought gift, but for my mother in law it required working on it this past weekend. I can't really tell you what it is cause I am giving the same thing to my mom.

Anyway, we gave them their gifts on Sunday and they both loved their items. But Monday meant that I needed to get my mom's gift done. Yeah for me, I actually did!

After I post this blog I need to make the next installment for the Monthly Stampin Up club! I am doing something with Trains. I bought that set because Lex is absolutely in love with trains. I will post a pic when I finish.

Hope all is well with everyone else.

What Happens Next...