Life

 I go to get allergy shots every week.  Yeah, I know, ME.  I voluntarily drive 30 minutes so I can spend 45 minutes waiting and I let them poke me 3 times with stuff that stings and makes my arm burn and itch.  Fun stuff, I tell you, fun stuff.  Why this insanity, you ask?  Well, I live in hope that it will help.  Every year my allergies get worse.  Spending 3 months of the year sneezing, clawing itchy eyes, and being in a fog of snot induced headaches is not a lot of fun.  And no, meds do not provide much relief.  

So I thought I'd give the allergy shots a try.  I've been doing this for nearly 8 months now.  In a coupe weeks, I'll finally get to the "maintenance" dose and I won't have to go every week.  And hopefully, in a couple years, I won't suffer so miserably each spring. I got to go visit the allergist a week or so ago and he said since I am allergic to so many things, I probably will not see a vast improvement this year.  Sigh.  

You wonder what this picture has to do with my ramblings, don't you?  This is Rylee, at one of my appointments.  I try to go on days she is in preschool, but that's not always possible.  Thank heavens for the Kindle Fire!  She plays quietly on it during the eternal wait and is usually really good.  Isn't she cute?!

Joshua's 6th grade class had a "Poetry Slam" where each student got up and recited a poem they had memorized.  They were suppose to do a dramatic acting out of it, and it was fairly entertaining.  Parents were invited and I went and enjoyed myself.  Joshua did a good job.  And then there was a party.

Why I hate jump ropes.  Levi has a love hate relationship with them.  He likes to gnaw on them, but he's less enthusiastic when the girls do this to him!

Somebody was given permission to dismantle an old stroller to make a new go cart.  Someone was a bit overzealous with a hammer and managed to knock himself in the head with it.  Fortunately, it was not a bad injury and all is well.  The bruise will probably last longer and hurt more than this cut.

Let the Good Times Roll

I am the Sunday School Teacher for the adult class at church.  Not my favorite calling, since I feel inadequate to the task, and I feel grumpy investing so much time to it every single week.  I know, bad attitude.  I'm working on it.  I'm also working on the procrastination.  I usually am fairly well prepared, but I tend to wait till Saturday night to write down all my thoughts.

This week I kind of got distracted and I did wait until Saturday night to really look at and prep my lesson.  I know, bad idea.  Don't judge me.  It was Daylight Savings night as well, so herding the kids to bed took longer than usual since I wanted them to bed early, and they just knew it. To make it even better,  I was struggling with the content of the lesson.  My lack of desire to teach the subject meant I was up pretty late.

Then I coughed half the night.  And Rylee coughed the other half.  (That means she would wake up crying and I had to go tuck her in again, and again, and again....!)  And we lost an hour of sleep.  And I woke up grumpy because I was tired and being tired makes me grumpy.

On the plus side, we managed to get all the kids out of bed, dressed, fed and in the car on time!  Even better, no one was crying!  I was elated.

Then I got to church and realized Dan had not brought my church bag into the car.  I'm not sure why I thought he had, but I was certain I'd seen him grab it.  He hadn't and I was church bag-less.  That means, I had no scriptures, no lesson manual, and no notes on my lesson. AAAACK!  And there was no going back for it since its a 45 minute round trip home, and Dan was speaking in church.  Super.

Delaney Awesome

Delaney is a hoot.  Last week she went through her "Broken Leg" syndrome for the second time.  This involves wearing a knee sock on the "injured" leg and not bending that knee.  She does have to wear a regular sock on the "not-injured" leg so she doesn't get confused.  But this kid is good!  She spends the entire week not bending the leg.  And she never forgets and accidentally bends it.  I confess to dissolving in a mess of giggles as I watched her hop-gallop across the street to school.  She is speedy!  Even with one gimpy leg, the kid can hustle!  It is a huge pain in the behind though, so I am really glad she's "healed".  If she ever takes up acting, she will be great at it.

Today the children seemed to be having a hard time with a lot of things.  Or maybe it was just me.  Rylee didn't have a nap, so she was tired and needy. Joshua was grumpy about having to go to the chiropractor.  Callie kept playing with stuff in the glove box and using her toes to poke things in the van, and Delaney took off her seatbelt right after we drove through the front gate.  At least that's when I hope it came off; that's when I noticed it anyway.  So there might have been a little voice-raising on that one from me.  I was feeling a bit put out, and to make it worse, it was leftovers night.  We have LOTS of leftovers in the fridge, but when that is what we're having for dinner, it seems like no one wants to eat and it is a lengthy process and we don't really sit down for dinner.

The older girls had already run out to see who was playing at the park and I was pulling food out when Delaney came over and said, "I know you're having a hard time putting up with me, so I'm going to go to Jaden's house, okay?"

Sigh.  I love that kid!  How cute is she?

Pinewood Derby

Joshua had his Pinewood Derby and Blue & Gold Dinner last night.  We went as a family to enjoy the festivities. 

They went pretty low key.  There were hot dogs and nachos with cheese, and chili to put on either of those.  The kids were happy. 

The nachos were an especially big hit for them.   

Yeah, I don't know who this kid is!

I think Marian had 2 hot dogs and a plate of nachos.  You'd think I never feed her! 

 After the food there was the chaos and waiting for stuff to happen, so the kids ran amok and entertained themselves.

 They did get down to business and Dan and I got called up to help Joshua get his Arrow of Light  and his Webelos Badge.  I was not expecting to have to go on the stage!  Yikes!

It was the last of Joshua's Cub Scout stuff.  He's now finished all he can and they'll be sending him in with the Boy Scouts, even though he won't be 12 till the end of summer.  He is excited.

After the awarding, they got to what we'd been waiting for!  Joshua raced with the Over 10 crowd this year.  It was a smaller group. 

The girls really enjoyed watching the races.  It was fun and I thought they were pretty well organized.  The boys got to race quite a few times.  I think they raced every single car at least once.

Joshua's car was not very fast.  It was not the slowest though.  I think that honor went to the kid who took his block of wood and just added wheels and stickers.  There were some awesome cars, my favorite being the Perry the Platypus one.  I wish I had gotten pictures. 

I just wanted a picture of the car!  Joshua did a good job on his car.  His leader is adamant that the boys do all the work, so he did.  I thought Josh's car looked great.  I wish we were more knowledgeable about how to make the wheels less wonky.

 It was fun to watch.  The boys were all very good natured about the races and all there to have fun.  I was glad it was not overly competitive.

Ah, Marian.  She does make her own fun wherever she is! 

When we got home, Joshua wanted to show off his uniform.  Granted, I have not sewed anything on it in 2 years, and he has a few things that should be there, but he's pleased with his Arrow of Light.

And he did get a lot of cool pins on his new shoulder ribbon.  That's my boy!

Rainy Day Project

Monday, after the kids got home from school, I had to run out to return a child I'd been babysitting.  I returned home to find that they'd been quite industrious during the time I'd been away.  They were busy baking boats.

Rather interesting boats.  I think they went through a package of paper plates.  I thought about being cross over it, but realized for $2, they were having a lot of fun and DOING something.  That's definitely worth $2! 

They had used masking tape and duct tape to make their creations and they had definitely used their imaginations! 

 I admit that I was pretty impressed with some of their ingenuity.  And their art.  The little flag poles were especially cute, I thought.   But why were they making boats, you ask?

Because it was pouring down rain.  The canals were filled with rushing water and the kids had the brilliant idea to make boats to float down it.  

They had made several variations of boats to see what worked and what did not.  They also were trying out different models to see if they could create a boat that would survive a trip through the pipe.  

Marian's boat sailed along the canal nicely. 

 As did Callie's.  Sadly, none of them made it through the pipe intact.  But they sure had a lot of fun trying!  I love that my kids were so creative and had such a good time.