April

This is the time of year where I begin to brace myself for mayhem.  Normally, it starts with Easter and then doesn't let up until the end of the school year.  With Easter so early this year, I have had a bit of a break to gather my senses and organize myself.  The chaos begins this week.

So, what does our chaos look like?  I'll tell you.  First we have our wedding anniversary, Bree's birthday, Teacher Appreciation Day/Week, Kai's birthday, Great Strides, the last day of school, end of year awards ceremonies, Bree's well child exam, and Reid's birthday.  The last several years there has also been our Woodmoor Country Club Tennis Fundraiser.  This year we have all of that and we are throwing in about 5 medical appointments, a Krispy Kreme fundraiser, several Great Strides Committee meeting responsibilities (attending meetings, contacting teams and sponsors, and manning an information table for several hours over two days), Kai's Little League Baseball schedule, and piano and music lessons.  Oh, and a little thing called a master bathroom remodel.  There are exactly 5 weeks left of school and right now I'm just bracing and holding on for the ride.

I'm a list maker and a pretty good multi-tasker, thankfully.  I've already started knocking out some to-dos for many of these events.  For example, Bree's birthday cake is on order (no way I'm making one, not enough time, too much stress), as are many of her party decorations.  I have also typed out the invitation to Kai's birthday and ordered the paper for the printing.  Hopefully, those will go out this week.  (His birthday falls on Great Strides so we are inviting his friends to come join us at the walk.  Crossing my fingers it works!)  I've also ordered favors to hand out to our team at the walk, and I've nearly finished getting all of the Krispy Kreme orders collected, so that I can place the order with Krispy Kreme this coming Thursday.

With this fundraiser combined with the one I did over Conference Weekend, we will come close to have raising nearly $300 by selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

So, one day at a time.  This week is bathroom remodel week, three doctor appointments, one music class, one piano lesson, one Little League practice, two baseball games, one Pinewood Derby (oh yeah, forgot to mention that!), and our anniversary.  We have just about everything we need for the remodel (I've ordered and have received all new fixtures and our tile is in) but we are waiting on the toilet.  Hopefully it will be here before the end of the week.  And for our anniversary, well, we did just buy a riding lawn mower this week which I think counts as a great gift.  I haven't told Reid that yet, though.

Our new mower.  We found it used at a engine repair store.  Someone had brought it in and abandoned it.  It came with a new engine and all cleaned up.  It only has 10 hours on it!

And just to make sure I'm really on my toes, Finn's sinuses are acting up.  His culture results from our clinic visit two weeks ago came back with Staph again, which seems to be the case when his sinuses aren't doing well.  The lining of his nose looked slightly inflammed (seems to be a chronic thing for him anyway) but there wasn't a lot of drainage at the time of the appointment.  That has been slowly changing, though, and so this morning I added his antibiotic cream into his sinus rinse and I'm making him go back to two rinses a day (we had been doing one because he was doing so well).  I'm really hoping to avoid oral antibiotics and to nip this quickly, but I know better than to plan on that.

And of course, this weekend we got a typical spring Colorado snowstorm.  Well, this one was a bit larger than normal, but still.  We've been snowed in all weekend and the boys are starting to get on each other's nerves.  Kai, in particular, is extra testy, which brings me to my last story.

The door to our deck.  This storm brought about 20 inches of heavy, wet snow.

For lunch today Kai wanted a drink.  He asked if he could have one and I told him he was welcome to help himself to a drink.  He asked if I would get it for him and I told him I would not as he could get it himself.  He threw a fit.  After a few minutes I was in the kitchen looking for food for myself and he approached as the refrigerator door was open.  He asked if I would get the V8 for him.  I looked at him and could see that he could reach it and told him so.  He then proceeded to make moves as if trying to reach the juice but was unable to do so (imagine dramatic but not authentic reaching movements).  I told him where to grab the juice and he eventually realized he could and that it wasn't that big of a deal.  He took the juice to the counter and then asked if I could pour it.  It was only 1/3 of the way full so I told him he could also do that himself.  Repeat throwing a fit, stomping off, slamming the door.

After a few minutes he came back and easily poured himself some juice.  When he sat at the table with me I praised him for being able to do it and he denied that he had done it himself (?!).  Ummm....ok.  Then he asked me, "Mom, why do you make me do hard things?"  Oh good grief.  I talked to him about how hard things make us grow and we all have to do hard things.  I felt it was a pretty standard "hard thing" conversation.  At which point, Kai asked, "What about that little box on the counter?"  I did not know what he was referring to and so I questioned which box he was talking about.  He went over to a corner in the kitchen and pointed out a box that he said had "squiggly lines and words".  I asked him what the words said and he read, "Good moms have sticky floors, dirty ovens, and happy kids." and then he asked, "Don't you ever pay attention to that?"

Ok, I'll admit I busted out laughing.  I asked him if I was a bad mom just because I made him get his own juice.  He did not respond but he did say, "It just seems like the opposite of this sign happens around here a lot."  I questioned him, "So, I try to clean the house and it makes you unhappy?" He responded, "Well, no, it's just that last part of the sign."

I was laughing and had no idea how to respond to what I perceived as ridiculousness, so I told him that everyone is unhappy at some point nearly every day but that doesn't make it anyone else's fault.  And then I went down and told Reid who also laughed.

I have a feeling the moody tween years are on their way!  Yikes.

Spring Break

I had ideas for Spring Break that included an activity for each day in exchange for the kids getting their chores done.  That lasted exactly one day.  What is it they say about the best laid plans?  Anyway, on Monday I got the kids to do some cleaning and then they reached into the bucket to chose the day's activity.  Thankfully, we got the one activity that Finn had been wanting for a while--Glow golf.  We've also started giving the boys an allowance of $1 a week, so I had them count their money and do a bit of "balancing" on our "ledgers" (really just handwritten transaction lists) while I paid them their weekly allowance.  Then we headed to the mall for a round of golf, a ride on the Monkey train, and visiting the puppies in the pet store.

Kai counting his money and the pile closest to the camera is Mommy's "bank".  :)

Finn Glow-Golfing

Kai

Bree--My Peanut

On the Monkey train--she wanted to ride in the red car

Kai wanted to ride in the caboose (luckily that was the red car)

Finn wanted to ride in the green car

On Tuesday Bree was tired and just plain cranky.  I thought it was in everyone's best interest to stay home and have a slower day.  Bree's room was nearly done and I took a picture of the new white closet door trim with the new hardware we got for the doors, too.  We love it!  I still have the door and window trim to finish but it's almost there.

Wednesday we were rested and getting stir crazy.  Unfortunately, we got a large snow storm that day.  It snowed all day and we were stuck inside.  Reid was working from home, and the boys were getting at each other's throats.  Bree had nearly dropped naps and there were some days that were harder than others.  She went through a super-clutzy week, including falling on her back on the treadmill and getting a good scrape on it, falling off a bucket that she had put next to the window by the front door to look climb on and look at the bunny that is living under our porch, falling while walking, and more.  She was a beat up mess.  And then that night while I was making dinner she must have been hungry as she grabbed the raw chicken and gave it a lick.  Ugghh!  When I told her no, she cried for a good 15 minutes.  Dropping naps is hard.  Being stuck inside for two days straight is hard.  Good golly we were happy to see Thursday.  The snow had stopped and we were ready to go out....at least to Walmart.  But when we opened our garage we were greeted by over a foot of snow.  Luckily it was one of those perfect Colorado spring snow days where it was warm enough to be out in the snow and shovel and play.  Reid joined us and helped us clear the driveway and front walk with our snowblower while Finn and Bree enjoyed helping Daddy with the shovels and buckets.

It was so bright out we were all getting snowblind.  Sunglasses were a must!

So grateful to have a snowblower this summer.  We got it at a yard sale years ago but it had never worked.  We took it in at the end of last summer and they cleaned it up and got it ready for us.  It's gotten used quite a bit!

Just getting out to play in the snow really helped lift everyone's spirits.  Thursday was a much better day but we still weren't able to really go anywhere.  Reid continued to work from home for the day.

On Friday the boys had an early morning appointment and then we made plans to all go the Space Foundation Discovery Center.  The boys started seeing a social worker for counseling this month and so that's where we went first.  We started counseling for a variety of reasons.  The biggest being the fact that Finn has a life-threatening chronic illness.  Chronic illnesses increase the incidence of depression and anxiety in addition to other difficulties.  I wanted the kids to get some skills to deal with those hard things they face and to have a safe place to talk about what is really going on.  I feel that learning to understand and express their emotions is an important skill that I wish I was better at.  I hope that by getting them a good foundation it will make things easier in the years to come.  The boys enjoy visiting with Ms. Julie.  She plays with them and talks to them about what is going on in their life and how they feel about it.  They have goals that they have set for themselves.  I'm hopeful that we have found a good counselor for them.

Anyway, after counseling we headed to Chick-Fil-A and then the Space Foundation and had a good time.  They have added more exhibits since we last visited and they had a really fun traveling exhibit called Math Alive.  It was a fun, quick visit.

That night I took a picture of the hour counter on Finn's vest.  Over 45 days of 24/7 breathing treatments.

Our Spring Break week ended with more snow (Friday into Saturday) and then finally Easter.

We found the Easter bunny right outside our front door on Easter morning.  Turns out this mommy bunny is living under our front porch.  And yes, we have seen at least one baby.

For Easter Sunday Bree chose to wear her Easter dress that I had bought for her.  But once I tried to put it on she had a complete melt down that it wasn't her standard "favorite" Sunday dress. She wore it for about 15 minutes and threw a fit like this the whole time.  I finally caved and let her wear her normal Sunday dress.  Go figure that two weeks later when we went to church she went to her closet and said, "I'm going to wear my Easter dress" and wore it with no problems.

Getting ready for church in the morning I noticed that the milk was not as cold as it should be.  After watching the temperature all day not improve at all, and then start to actually get warmer in the evening, we realized our fridge was busted.  We emptied the freezer into our chest freezer in the basement and then saved what we could in the mini-fridge in the wet bar.  And then Reid took the fridge apart to find that there was a solid sheet of two to three inches of inch in the back of the freezer which was stopping the exchange of air between the freezer and the fridge.  We defrosted the freezer and cleaned it out and then the next morning plugged it in.  By the afternoon everything was right where it should be so I cleaned the fridge (since it was empty) and moved things back.  Sheewww!

 Monday after Easter we were happy to get back to our normal routine.  Finn went back to his music class, Kai back to school, and so on.  It was nice to get back to our schedule and to not be stuck in the house with snow.

Finn is learning chords and flats right now.  He is doing a great job in his music class.  If he keeps with this class he will be learning recorder and guitar from this teacher.  She teaches the chords with the guitar chord names so that they can pick it up faster.  So, this is a picture of his left hand doing a "puppy I chord".

The first few weeks of March

I can't believe how fast time goes.  There are days that seem endless (like yesterday!) and then there are days that disappear before I even knew they were there.

(Originally written on Friday April 1st)  Yesterday we had the Kick-off party for the Colorado Springs Great Strides.  I've joined the walk committee this year and I really felt I needed to go to the event.  But Reid has had a long week at work (insert working LONG hours) and so I needed to find a last minute babysitter.  And then of course we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground and a 2-hour delay (what for??  I don't know.)  By the time the bus came it was snowing fairly heavily again but the forecast called for only an inch.  With the extra two hours with Kai in the morning, the kids played together while I got in a 45 minute work out on the treadmill and then I set to work to find a babysitter.  Thankfully the ward Facebook page saved me and by 1pm I had an awesome babysitter.  Finn gets dropped off at school at 12:45 (the snow had stopped by then) and one of his little friends needed a ride yesterday, so his friend showed up at 12:20 and then we loaded in the car to head to school.  After dropping Finn off, then finding out I had a babysitter, I set to work cleaning the house.  The kitchen, bathroom, and well, just about the rest of the house needed some work.  Bree helped me sporadically and we worked right up until time to pick-up the boys at 4pm. After picking up the boys I had to finish putting away laundry, run Finn through his evening treatments, get ready for going out, and then convince the kids that 4:45 wasn't too early for dinner.  Kai was having a rough afternoon.  He struggles with changes to his routine and I wasn't as patient with it as I could have been.  He spent the hour between 4 and 5 pm throwing a fit and crying.  The babysitter showed up a little before 5 and we walked her through the house and the evening (she is relatively new to the ward) and then I spent 10 minutes talking with Kai and trying to get him to cheer up before I headed out.  I ended up 15 minutes late to the party but I knew that would be ok.  It was a fun night meeting some CF families, talking about CF and what we are doing for fundraising, and just enjoying each other's company.  I had debated on skipping when I was struggling to find a babysitter, but I am really glad I went.  It was nice to be out.  I got home a little before 8pm and had to run the kids through their bedtime routine.  They were so excited to see me and greeted me excitedly at the door.  Bree gave me a big hug and said, "I'm so proud of you Mom."  It made me laugh.  I love my sweet little Peanut.  Finally everyone was down by 9pm and Reid was home so we watched Big Bang Theory.  I knew my night might be rough since Bree was overtired when she went to bed.  I was right.  Around 3am she started screaming, "That's not fair!" over and over in her bed.  She was having a night terror.  I went in and tried to pull her out of it and she yelled, "I want a birthday, too!"  while she was thrashing around and throwing a complete 2 year-old tantrum.  It took me a while to get her to let me pick her up and then it took awhile for her to calm down in my arms. I was the recipient of a slap but I knew she wasn't really cognizant of what she was doing.  Finally she was still and calm in my arms.  I went to put her back in her bed and gave her a kiss.  She looked up at me and said, "Bank you" (Thank you).  Talk about melting my heart.   It was a long day but very productive.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with March but I wanted to remember some of that and I don't have any pictures so why not blog about it now.

Back to March, the first few weeks were really warm.  In between working on the trim in Bree's room we had some time to play outside.

I love the snow boots--jammies--bike combination.  :)

The new baseboards I picked out.

My fantastic helpers

We started out early one morning doing dress up.

This is what she does every time I pick her up.  I love it.  She is snuggler with me.  And she will rub my arms while she is doing that.

Kai is playing little league baseball this spring with many of his old teammates from the YMCA and with his YMCA coach of the last two years.  On Saturday the 12th there was a parents' meeting at the mall, so Finn stayed home and I went with the other two.  After the meeting we walked through the mall to get some ice cream and see the pets at the pet store.  And then we went to Dick's to pick up some cleats and pants for the upcoming season.

After our warm start, after St. Patrick's Day the snow came back.  We had the sister missionaries over for dinner on St. Patrick's Day and I had planned to make cookies for dessert, but it didn't work out.  We had the dough ready, though, so that Friday when we had a snow day from school we made spring sugar cookies.  The next week was spring break, so with the snow day the kids got an extra day of Spring Break.