Bayou Signet Park

Joshua had one little thing to finish up before he could achieve his "Arrow of Light" for scouts.  His fabulous scout leader used the holiday Monday to meet us at Bayou Signet Park.  We figured it would be a good day to take all the kids out. We'd never been to the park, and it is a state park with a bunch of different things to do.  I thought we'd get some hiking and stuff in.  Sadly, we just hung out at the park and Joshua went off to do his thing.  I'd have liked to have gone hiking on some of their trails, but with a gaggle of girls, it seemed more prudent to just stay at the park, where they had an absolutely marvelous time.  It was a lovely day and it was nice to spend the morning at the park as a family.  Yep, even Dan was there.

We brought Levi with us, but I'm not sure how much fun he had!  We wouldn't let him off the leash, wouldn't let him chase anything, and wouldn't rescue him from Callie's repeated torture of him on the playground.  Poor, good natured dog!

 Trying to get a group shot.  Callie insisted Levi had to be in it, and no one would look at me.

Callie took Levi down the slide.... several times! 

 Note the death grip on the collar so he can't get away.

Such a good doggie!

 This was a fun little thing and the girls really liked it.

Delaney asked for her picture to be taken. 

Rylee was cute.  She had fun, until she scooped up some sand that had been part of an ant pile.  Ouchies!  She got a few fire-ant bites on her fingers.

Did I mention it was about 65 degrees?!  Gorgeous weather that day!  The girls kicked off their shoes and had a blast digging and building in the sand. 

Callie an Levi weren' the only ones to utilize the slide.

And Joshua is spotting wildlife.  I've got him super-zoomed here, and he didn't know I snapped his picture.  heh heh heh

Stats for the Week

Highlights of the Week:
** I got to see my friends at the Library.  Rylee wasn't awful and even participated a bit!
** We had the missionaries over for diner on Tuesday.  That was great because I made yummy Bourbon Chicken and an awesome Cheesecake for dessert!  It was Elder Green's last meal before going home the next day.
** Visiting Teaching Nancy on Thursday and then having marvelous success at the shoe store AND the Thrift store.  Yay for feeling fabulous about my day!
** Play-date/Visiting Teaching at my house of Friday.  I love visiting with my friends.
** Best highlight was going to the Temple on Saturday with my friend Mandi.  The drive goes so fast when you gab with someone you like, and going to Chili's for lunch after was great.
** Callie and Delaney would say the highlight of the week was Friday night's Daddy Daughter Dance!

Low lights of the week:
** Squeezing my stupid allergy shot between preschool pickup and kids getting out of school.  Making it worse, the nurse shot me too close to the nerve.  I've never had that happen before, so the incredible pain in my left arm worried me.  Fortunately, we have a friend and neighbor who is a flight surgeon, and he makes house calls!  He came over and told me it was because the nurse hit too close to the nerve and it would be better in 48 hours.  I loaded up on motrin and cried myself to sleep.  It hurt that bad.
** The rain.  The incessant gray, drizzly skies that lasted through Thursday.  So miserable.  I'm so happy the sun is back out!

Running Report:
* Monday- Took Rylee to the gym with me because it was raining.  Ground out a miserable 3.5 miles, with a 5 minute intermission to deal with Rylee.
* Tuesday- Ran the flightline with Levi in misty not-quite-rain. Had an awesome run of 4.5 miles!
* Wednesday- Yucky weather, no motivation.  Used the elliptical machine 45 mins.
* Thursday- Got up early and ran outside at 5:45.  Found a decent loop and did 3.3 miles.
* Friday- Decided to try the track. Did 4 miles while Rylee hung out at the park.  Levi did half the miles with me and then I locked him in the tennis courts so I could run free.  His feeling were really hurt.

And now for the pictures:

Callie's fancy hair for the Daddy Daughter Dance.  She wanted a bun, but her hair is a bit short and wispy, so it needs help to keep it all up. 

It came out nicely! 

Yeah, I parked her in front of the tv so I could work on her hair and she has no interest in looking at the camera!  Just wanted to watch her movie.   We are battling over the length of the bangs again.

Delaney wanted 3 ponies that met in one big pony in the back. She was cute.

Dan took the girls and said they had a good time.  Callie and Delaney talked about it forever and loved it! Delaney keeps telling me how she got out and learned to dance!  Now she can dance all by herself!

  Love these guys!

Mom Fail

I don't make Sloppy Joes very often.  I love that they are easy to make, can be put together ahead of time, and freeze well.  But it is not my favorite meal.  Thus, it has been a while since I last made it for dinner. I figured even though I didn't love it, the kids were big fans.

Sadly, that was a year or 2 ago.  Tonight, it was a colossal failure.  No one wanted to eat it.  Callie claimed she took a bite, but she really only bit into the bun.  Marian sampled it, nearly had a meltdown when her bun fell apart, and then bravely tried 2 bites of mine before claiming it was icky.  Rylee let me cut hers into quarters and nibbled from 2 of them before refusing another bite.

Yeah, I'm not feeling like a winner tonight.

Just For Grandpa

Marian had a project to interview a grandparent and put together a report on them.  She was so cute.  She was also quite behind, because she feels the need to make every single picture perfect and she's rather detail oriented.  She got permission to bring it home to work on over Christmas break.  I wanted to show her grandpa, but we forgot to take it to AR with us. I managed to get pictures of it before she finished though.  So, Grandpa, here it is! 

Young Love

Around Thanksgiving time, one of my children came home and admitted to having a crush.  A few days later, this child informed me with delight that their crush reciprocated the feelings.  Hmmm....  We had a little discussion about being too young to date.  The next day I was informed that at this school if you have a crush and your crush likes you back, then you are boyfriend and girlfriend.  This led to another discussion about being too young to date, and too young to have a girlfriend.  (Yeah, yeah, so it is my only son we are referring to!)

I told him that there would be no touching, not even hand holding, and no being alone together.  I suggested that this was a good opportunity to learn about being friends with girls and maybe a time to start thinking about the things he liked and might want in a future wife.  I know, too young to date but not too young to think about marriage!  She was a nice girl, quiet and sweet and they walked to and from school together.

Honestly, I'm still a bit at a loss on how to deal with it all.  I know they hung out at the park, but I think it was always with a pack of other kids, so I didn't make it a big deal.  It just seemed kind of cute and harmless.

Poor boy came home yesterday looking glum and said Emily (her name was Emily) had dumped him.  He seemed quite upset about it.  So I guess this whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing was more serious than I'd thought, which is not good. She dumped him in favor of another boy.  The brazen hussy!

I thought we'd talked about not having a girlfriend and it seems that was not really taken to heart.  Now I think I'll give him a few days to grieve, and then I'm going to have to lay the smack down.  Any advice?