Summer fun

I've been trying to keep these kids busy this summer so here is a little run down of all the things we have been up to.  We have been pretty successful so far at keeping them busy and I haven't heard the awful "I'm bored" come out of their mouths too much.  We did buy a swim pass in the spring and that has provided us with lots of fun.  I've also created a chore chart for them, they have 5 chores that they have to do everyday before we go do anything fun.  And so far they have been really good about completing their jobs.  We are doing the library reading program, so we end up at the library about once a week to get new books and get their reading logs signed off.  Leila has been doing swim lessons that last two weeks, so we have had that every morning and while she is swimming the boys get to play at the splash park.  We've had lots of play dates with friends which usually end in the kids running through the sprinklers and playing in our little swimming pool.  

The kids are always good at Costco so they can get a treat after we finish shopping.  Paul and I didn't think they would each finish their giant ice cream bars and were expecting to get to finish off their leftovers.  We were disappointed because they finished every bit of their ice cream.  

The splash park is fun but it is the only one in Ankeny and it is only free in the morning so it gets pretty crowded.  I definitely miss Henderson's parks and splash pads.  

Sometimes I get to take just Leila and Grey to the pool while Paul stays home with Asher.  It sure is nice to only keep track of two kids at the pool instead of three.  

On June 11th Paul and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  We took the kids out for lunch to our favorite burger place, Zombie burger.  Afterwards our neighbor watched the kids while Paul and I went out for dessert.  We had to celebrate early in the day because Paul had a meeting at work that night.  We were also able to go out that weekend while the kids stayed home with a babysitter.  

We have had several picnics at different parks,  Leila wants to try and go to all the different parks in Ankeny.  I think there are around 30 different parks and so far we have been to about 10 different ones.  

We spend a lot of time playing and riding bikes in our front yard.  Greydon has become really good on his balance bike and so one day he wanted to try out Leila's bike.  I literally ran with him for about 5 seconds before he just took off.  

We went to a movie at the middle school one day while we had stormy weather.  The kids enjoyed watching Madagascar 3 with their friends Madisyn and Alanna.  

Greydon and Asher spend hours each week talking to our neighbor Julienne through the fence.  They share snacks through the fence and toss things back and forth.  One day I even found Greydon sharing is dinner with Julienne through the fence.  

So back to the kids having chores.  I give them jobs everyday that they just have to do because they are part of a family, they don't get rewards or treats or money for these.  Then I have extra jobs that they can do to earn "money" to buy things from the "mommy market".  Every Saturday I open up the market and they can choose how to spend the money they've earned.  In the market is anything from toys and candy to special activities.  Both Leila and Greydon have done really well with this system.  Leila sometimes has folding clothes as one of her jobs but sometimes it's just a bonus job.  She is really good at folding all the kids clothes and putting them away.  

Both kids have been pretty worn out each day from all of our summer fun.  Greydon has taken a nap almost every single day.  

One day Leila wasn't feeling well and had a fever but that didn't keep her from being outside with everyone else.  

 Greydon loves to get wet at the splash park and runs around like a crazy person the entire time we are there.  

Leila is becoming quite the little swimmer.  She has known how to swim for several years and could definitely get across the pool if she needed to but now she is learning all the swim strokes and learning how to breath while swimming.  She didn't love her class because she was the youngest and didn't know anyone and she couldn't touch the bottom like the rest of the kids.  But she went each day and worked really hard during class.  

We had the Spjuts over to roast marshmallows and eat dutch oven cobbler.  By the end the kids were sticky and full of sugar so I think it was a successful night.  

Bed head

This little boy wakes up from his naps with crazy bed head every single day. The better the nap, the crazier the hair!

Asher

I wanted to quickly document some of the stuff Asher is doing, it has been way too long and he is growing way to fast.
- He has definitely hit the independent big boy stage.  He doesn't want to be a baby anymore.  If I try to carry him he yells "walk, walk" and screams until I put him down and also refuses to hold me hand when he is walking.
- He no longer wants to sit in a high chair, he wants to feed himself, and he won't let me give him bites of food, he thinks he needs his own food and will not share.
-He is talking like crazy, and mimics anything he hears us say.  I can usually understand about 80% of what he is saying.  One thing he says that always makes me laugh is when he is in the bath and is asking for body wash he says it, "booty wash".
-He likes playing with trucks and cars and is really good at making car sounds.
- He loves playing with his brother and sister and loves to follow them around and join in their adventures.
-He loves water, loves baths, showers, sprinklers, and the pool.  He doesn't even mind when I dunk his head under at the pool.
-He loves to be outside, so if an outside door opens he is trying to get out.
-He is a really good sleeper, he usually takes a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and sleeps for about 11 or 12 hours at night.  I can just give him his blanket and binky and he is happy to be laid down.
-He is still super tiny, he can still fit in 12 month size clothing.  Unfortunately his brother was huge at this age so most of the summer clothing that I have is 18 months -2T so all of his clothes are giant and baggy.
-gets crazy bed head, it's always going in every direction.  His hair has also turned really blond and a little wavy at the ends.
-He is starting to show some terrible 2 signs.  He has major tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants, but usually after about 5 minutes of screaming he forgets what he is crying about and moves on.
-Can definitely let out a scream when his siblings start to bug him.
-knows all his body parts and tons of animal sounds.
-seems to be right handed and holds a pencil correctly when coloring.  Unfortunately likes to color on pretty much anything except paper.
-Hates going to nursery, and cries for about 15 minutes after we drop him off.
-He has 13 teeth and is in the process of getting 3 more.
-He loves to cuddle and gives great hugs and kisses.
-Some of his favorite toys are a toy computer and Elmo.
-His favorite foods are yogurt, any kind of cereal, smoothies, pepperoni, watermelon and pizza.
-He doesn't like cheese, tortillas, or rice.
- When he gets excited he gallops around and pumps his right fist in the air.
We sure love this sweet boy!

Tonsillectomy

Leila has snored since she was little, its usually not very loud but just a constant soft snore.  When we went in for her 6 year old check up I mentioned it to her pediatrician,  who also told me she had a cyst on her tonsils so she sent us to and ENT.  When we went for that appointment her Dr. Morgan told us that snoring in children her age is not normal and when he looked in her mouth he said her tonsil were huge and had several cysts on them.  He said they would cause her problems and would be best to have them taken out.  We decided to wait until she was out of school to do the surgery so she wouldn't have to miss any school for it.  We talked a ton with her about what to expect so she was pretty prepared for the surgery.  Paul had to round at the main hospital that morning so he met us at the outpatient surgery center (connected to his hospital) as soon as we arrived.  He was with us in pre-op before he had to head over to the West Lakes Hospital.  Leila did not want me to take a picture of her in her tiny scrubs so all the pictures are blurry because she was running away.

We had to wait about an hour before they took  her back for surgery.  So we made silly faces and read books.  

The surgery went well and was super quick.  About 25 minutes after they took her to the operating room the surgeon came out to tell me they were done and that they would come and get me in about 45 minutes to see her in recovery.  I held her the entire time we were in recovery, I totally expected her to be sleepy but she was wide awake.  She ate a popsicle and a slushy and we read an entire Junie B. Jones book while we waited to be released.  

This is when it would have been nice to have Paul around, I could have sent him to fill the prescriptions while we were in recovery and then we could have just loaded her in the car and headed home.  Instead I had to haul Leila down to the pharmacy ( thankfully they were super quick) and back to the car.  We stopped at Sonic on the way home and got her a milk shake.  She had several friends drop off Popsicles off  and coloring books.  They gave her Tylenol with codeine for her pain, which is suppose to cause drowsiness but it had the opposite effect on her.  She was wired all day long, she didn't sleep at all, she watched a lot of movies and read books and stayed up until almost 10 o'clock which is way past her bedtime.  

Her recovery went pretty well, she definitely had some miserable times but overall she handled it really well.  She hated the taste of her antibiotic and the Tylenol with codeine so getting her to take those was such a pain.  She also got tired of eating Popsicles and ice cream and would just beg for regular food.  Within about 5 days she was pretty much back to herself and within two weeks she was pain free and back to a normal diet.  

Last day of Kindergarten

(I can't get this picture to flip the right way for the life of me)

Leila had her last day of school on May 29th.  Boy did the year fly by and crazy how much stuff Leila learned.  She received excellent grades and really excelled in reading and writing.  Leila loved her teacher Mrs. Sobaski, she was such a great teacher for Leila.  I really appreciated that her teacher sent an email each week telling me the things they were learning and working on and ideas for us to do at home.  And she made a book for each child that showed all their growth and improvement.  The last day of school was a little crazy.  Leila wanted me to pick her up instead of riding the bus home.  So we left around 2:30 so I could get a parking spot.  As we were driving it started to rain and by the time we got to the school it was raining really hard.  We sat in the parking lot for a few minutes and then we heard that awful sound, the tornado sirens.  I grabbed the boys and ran for the school, by the time we made it inside we were completely soaked.  I was ushered into a bathroom with the 4th graders.  Greydon immediately followed what the other kids were doing and got down on his knees and put his hands over his head.  And just a side note this was only a couple days after the Moore Oklahoma tornado so I think that was fresh on every one's minds.

We quickly learned that the sirens were going because of high winds and severe thunderstorms, but they couldn't release any students until the warning had been lifted.  At that point I made my way to the kindergarten safe area.  They were still on their knees with their backpacks over their heads.  There teacher was reading them a book to keep them all calm.  When they could finally sit up Leila was sure happy to see us.

We ended up being locked down at the school for about an hour before they finally lifted all the warnings.  The kids had to all go back to their classrooms to be accounted for.  It was so sad saying good bye to her teacher, Mrs. Sobaski was in tears, you could tell she just loved all of the children in her class.  I had planned a fun little welcome to summer entry way with a sign and Crete paper and some summer surprises, but Leila wasn't too thrilled because she had to run out in the rain and in through the front door to get to it. The rain was kind of a bummer on the last day of school.

Now we are excited to not be getting up at 6:15 every morning and Leila is enjoying a later bedtime.  

Severe Weather

We have had some totally crazy weather here lately.  Thankfully nothing that has caused real damage but still scary for us.  We had two days in a row with really severe weather and had an actual tornado touch down and hit just north of our house.  I'm also very thankful that we have a basement to hide out in.  Luckily Paul was home that night, even though we knew that the tornado was probably going to miss us it was much less scary to have him home and in the basement with us.  We did puzzles and played with toys to keep the kids entertained.  I had never experienced weather like this, when we first started getting tornado warnings it seemed weird,, it was sunny and the wind wasn't even blowing.  And then in just a couple minutes dark clouds moved in, the rain started and it began blowing.  The next day, at about the same time we heard the sirens go off again and saw funnel clouds in the sky one of which was just a few blocks from our house.

The rest of the week we had thunderstorms and lots of rain and wind.  Almost every night I was woken up by huge crashes of thunder.  Last year we were in a drought and this year we are the other extreme, flooding and way too much water.  

On memorial day we woke up to more stormy weather.  I was watching our trampoline out the window and noticed it was getting blown pretty hard but the stakes were holding it down.  Plus I figured we had had stronger winds earlier in the week and thought the tramp would be fine.  I looked out the window less then 5 minutes later and the tramp was completely gone.  I ran outside and couldn't see it anywhere.  I yelled for Paul and he ran down the street looking for it.  We found it about seven house down in someone else's backyard.  It tumbled across seven backyards and 4 fences.  Luckily it didn't do any damage to anyone else's property.  Paul and I then disassembled it and hauled it home.  We need to fix or get a couple new poles and a new enclosure to make it usable again but I have such mixed feelings about setting it up again.  Our kids love it and spends hours each day on it but I'm not sure I can handle worrying about it blowing away again.  

This what was left of the trampoline when I looked out the window.  

This whole living in tornado country is definitely a new experience for us.  And we hate the sounds of the tornado sirens.  They test them on the first Saturday of the month at noon and they went off last Saturday and my kids freaked out it took a few minutes to calm them down and convince them it was only a test and not an actual warning.