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".