Our Newest Friends

So, I will start my blog posts about our trip to Costa Rica by going backwards. To make a long, frustrating story short, we missed our connecting flight to Love Field out of Houston, and the next available flight was cancelled on Friday night (which happened to be the last flight of the day), and the next available flight wasn't until SUNDAY!! I was frustrated, and apparently, so were these other four people. From left to right we have, Anita (FUN FACT: she has perfect pitch), Danny (of course), Debbie, Kim, and Mitch. Danny and I rented a van and drove these four strangers back to the metroplex with us! They paid us, of course, but they really had no choice. None of them had a driver's license and they were essentially at our mercy! Debbie and Anita are both teachers in Grand Prarie, Kim was a tourist from Korea and spoke very little English, and Mitch is from California and was flying to Dallas to visit his dad, who lives in Keller. We had, suprisingly, a really fun trip home! Mitch was hilarious and kept us laughing most of the way, and it was fun getting to know these other people! We dropped Mitch, Anita, and Debbie at Debbie's house in Grand Prairie, where Mitch's dad met us. It was past 2am by this time, so we drove Kim to his hotel in Dallas where he was going to catch a shuttle to DFW. His shuttle was to leave only a few hours after we dropped him off! Poor guy! He was trying to sleep on the way to Dallas, but I'm not sure he was able to! We still don't know for sure if he caught his flight and made it home safely! Danny and I then drove to Mandie's house in Wylie and crashed on her couch, and Carter's bed! We were so tired, but SO glad to be back!

Danny claims that this was all my fault. Why, you ask? Because I'm not a huge fan of flying, and for some reason, I had a lot of trouble on our flight from Costa Rica to Houston. It was really bumpy, and the landing was terrible! I groaned when we got off the plane and said, "we have to do this AGAIN in less than an hour!?" Danny said, "well, what do you want to do, rent a car and DRIVE home? That doesn't sound fun to me! I'd MUCH rather fly!" Well, we ended up doing just that, and had a great time doing it. I would have much rather flown, but at least I got home in time to see our crazy snow storm, and now we have a funny story to tell our grandchildren!

We have some winners!

Thanks everyone for the love! I didn't realize that some of you actually read my blog! I have been super busy the past couple of days, so I'm sorry this is a little late. Tommy was diagnosed with strep and a double ear infection on Monday. I would have never taken him to the doctor, but in the middle of the night he woke up with a 102.4 temp. The next morning he was fine, said that nothing hurt, and he could go to school! So, I sent him to school, called the doctor, explained what was going on, and they said they needed to see him. When the doctor was examining him, she looked at him and said, "hey, bud, you shouldn't be so happy. It looks like you should be in a lot of pain. Does anything hurt?" Tommy looked at her and smiled and said, "nope!" Crazy kid. Especially since after taking the first 2 doses of medicine, he was feeling lots of pain, was super tired, and didn't want to eat! Oh well, he's at school today, and Danny is home sick. Danny thinks he has a cold, but I'm afraid it could be strep. Dangit.

Anyways, our winners are: Damaris, Ginny, and Chrystal! I'll get you your prize as soon as I can!

300!

I guess I didn't realize that my last post was my 300th! Wow. I can't believe I've had so many posts! To celebrate, I would like to do a little giveaway. Since I have had 300 posts I would like to award three lucky readers a little token of my appreciation! It won't be something big, so don't get too excited! Just leave a comment on this post, with your e-mail address, by Monday, March 1st! Here's to hoping more than 3 people read this blog!

A little sad

Anna and Tommy were both placed on new soccer teams this year. It was so sad for us all! Their teams have ceased to exist due to low numbers of returning players and no coaches. I have been in contact with the team manager for Anna's new team, the Panthers, and she sent me a picture of what the girl's uniforms looked like. When I opened the e-mail I was suddenly REALLY sad. She sent a picture of the Panthers playing the Lady Pumas, Anna's old team! (She had no idea that was Anna's team, by the way.) You can see the fabulous Tayte on the far left in the pretty pink and black uniform. Anna LOVED those uniforms, and so did I! The pink was the perfect shade and it was the best looking uniform in their age bracket! The Panther's uniform is green. BRIGHT green. Anna doesn't like green. And to make matters worse, Anna doesn't know a single girl on the team. Great. JUST great. This will be an interesting season.

My Happy Song

My most recent happy song is "Fireflies" by Owl City. It just makes me smile everytime I hear it! Do you have a happy song? Please share!

Early Morning

I've been up since 6am. Eddie woke up early, and I stayed up with him watching the school closings hoping that school would be cancelled for the kids and Danny. No such luck, but Anna woke up with a fever, sore throat, and awful cough. She gets a snow day, while Tommy and Danny both have to go to school. It certainly is beautiful outside, though!

Eddie's Speech Progress

Eddie had his one year review last week for ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). Last year, when he was 18 months old, these were his scores:

Cognitive - 16 months
Communication - 10 months
Social Emotional - 29 months
Physical - 16 months
Adaptive - 15 months

As you can see, he was all over the place, but he was consistently behind in every category except one. He has made huge improvements this year, and we've worked pretty hard to get where we're at right now. It's really fun to see how much he learned in the past year! Here are his scores at 29 months:

Cognitive - 29 months
Communication - 24 months
Social Emotional - 35 months
Physical - 32 months
Adaptive - 33 months

He is now only 5 months delayed in speech, and only has 3 things that he needs to work on in order to catch up!! He is now caught up in everything else! His speech therapist is confident that in 6 months he will no longer need services! This is AMAZING! Tommy is still in the need of speech services, so I feel so grateful that Eddie is doing so well! Yay Eddie!

Picture of the Day

This is what Tommy looked like before he pelted me with handfuls of snow! Last December was awesome!

Picture of the Day

Classic Eddie. He drives me nuts sometimes, but I love my little guy!

Catching Up

The kids wouldn't have even gone out into the snow on this day, but our neighbors were out in their front yard building a snowman, and the kids just HAD to go out too! I'm SO glad we went out! We had a blast! Tommy's favorite part was making snowballs and throwing them at everyone!
Our snowmen were really dirty because we had so many leaves in our yard, and the snow was so WET!

Eddie and Papi took off for a long walk down the street. Well, actually Eddie took off down the street and Danny followed, but it was such a beautiful night they both enjoyed how peaceful it was! Eddie just loved the snow, but he didn't love how cold it was! Danny would periodically blow on Eddie's hands to warm them up. We didn't have any mittens for him!

This is actually the snow that we woke up to on Christmas day. Anna was the only one who wanted to go out in it. The boys were too busy playing video games! It was hard and icy, and not much fun to play in! It was NOT fun to drive in, either! We had a rough trip on the way home from Abuela's house Christmas Eve. The drive is normally about 30 minutes, but it took us almost an hour to get home! The roads were super slick, and we were SO grateful to get home without any problems!

Our little cactus did not like the snow one bit! We forgot to bring it in this winter, so we're not sure if Spikey (yes, we named the cactus) is going to make it to spring!

I'm a slacker

Yeah, I know. I haven't blogged in a month. I have a TON of pictures, but I've just been too lazy to download them to my computer. I'll try to post something worthwhile later, but right now I have to deal with Anna, who has strep, Tommy, who has been grounded from video games because his behavior at school has been TERRIBLE, and Eddie who is still sick with a cold! Sigh...it's going to be a LONG day!

Looking for some inspiration...

My bedroom is ugly. Okay, so it's not really ugly, it's just not pretty. It's not a room I walk into and feel like it's my sanctuary. It has outdated furniture, and an ugly clock, and too much gold, oh and black curtains I made when I found out we had a peeping tom! I want something peaceful, and pretty, but not frilly, girly. I want to paint the walls, replace my headboard, maybe repaint my dresser, or even get a new one, get a new comforter, shams, bedskirt, maybe re-upholster(why does that word look weird to me?) my chair...the list goes on. Any ideas of what I should do? Any pretty rooms you have found online to give me some inspiration? I don't even know what colors I want or anything! I would love to hear/see your ideas!

ANOTHER conversation with Tommy

Setting: The kitchen, early this evening.

Tommy: I want milk.

Me: I want milk, what? (trying to get him to say please)

Tommy: Oh. I want milk, poe low bowl.

Me: WHAT?!

Tommy: I want milk, POE LOW BOWL!!

Me: Poe low bowl?

Tommy: You know! Poe low bowl, please in Spanish!

Me: You mean, por favor!

Tommy: That's what I said!

A Conversation with Tommy

Setting: Early this morning in the living room

Tommy: You have to be friends with a girl before you can marry her.

Me: Sounds good to me. Who told you that?

Tommy: Cambree. So, I'm not going to marry her anymore. I don't want to be her friend; I just wanted to marry her.


Oh dear.

SNOW!

I woke up this morning to see snow outside! I was so excited, so I ran to get the kids up. They dressed in record time (I wish it snowed every morning!), and rushed outside. Tommy was the first one out, and Anna was not far behind. They had a short snowball fight, and headed inside for some breakfast. They were freezing but VERY happy! Eddie was content to watch from the door. He did NOT want any part of the snow! After I got the kids to school, I made a small snowball and threw it at Eddie. He thought it was hilarious, and finally started playing in the snow. The snow only lasted an hour on the ground before it started to rain, but it was a great start to our day!

Randomness

• We got hit with a stomach bug this week. Eddie first on Wednesday, Anna and Tommy on Thursday, and me on Friday. Danny escaped it.
• Anna went to an 80's party tonight. It was fun to dress her in a totally outrageous outfit that I would have loved to wear when I was a kid.
• I pulled nearly 100 iris bulbs from my back flower beds. They had multiplied so much, and had so little space, that they were growing over the cement into the driveway!
• My fence needs some minor repairs and a major paint job. Anyone want to come help?
• Anna and Tommy missed the Patriotic Parade on Friday. They were sad, but we were able to listen to it from our backyard. It would have been Tommy's first parade.
• I can't wait for the cold front to come! Warm weather in November stinks.
• I'm getting my first MaryKay makeover on Wednesday morning. Anyone is welcome to come watch and get made over themselves! Bring your kids!
• I can't wait for Black Friday!
• High School All-Region is coming up and I'm nervous about how my students will do.
• Eddie has not slept through the night since he had the flu. We can't get him to sleep all night!! Any suggestions?

Yay! It's November!

I am SO glad that October is over! Danny and I both agree that this past October was the worst in our history together. It was bad. VERY bad. For those of you who don't know, it all started with a spray painted tuba. I won a tuba on e-bay, only to discover the loser previous owner, spray painted a silver-plated tuba silver! What the heck!? Two days later, Tommy came down with swine flu, and 2 days later Eddie got it. Tommy went back to school that Thursday and Friday, only to be sent home the next Monday because he was throwing up! He threw up for 2 days, got really dehydrated, went to the doctor, they thought he had appendicitis, sent him to the hospital for some tests, turns out he really was just constipated. He remained constipated for 3 days until we got things moving again right before Kyle and Damaris' fabulous wedding. The day after the wedding, my wonderful mother had a heart attack, and would have died had my fabulous sister gone to check on her. Later that week, Eddie came down with the same virus that Tommy had the week before. Not fun. We thought it was all over, until last Thursday when I got a call from the nurse at Anna's school saying she needed to see the doc, ASAP. She had a massive infection on her right foot, caused by an ant bite, that made it swell to almost twice the size and had track marks up her leg. And finally, the month ended with two TERRIBLE soccer games that my kids played in, and lost miserably. Sigh...I have so much to be thankful for this month, though, and I'm glad that my children are all well again, that I have plenty of money in savings to cover all of our medical bills, and that my tuba is getting repaired, for FREE, thanks to Danny!

Check out this giveaway!

I know some of you out there are in the need of a new faucet somewhere in your house, especially me! Check out this great giveaway on One Project Closer. I would totally choose the Mystique faucet if I won. Which one would you choose?

I need a vacation. NOW.

I have yet to get a full night's sleep. Eddie has been waking up in the middle of the night and it's been really hard to get him back to sleep. He's not been sleeping well, and is insanely cranky. The flu just wore him out and he's still recovering. AND he just hit his head on the coffee table and has a golf ball sized bump on his forehead!

Because of that darn flu, Danny and I spent the day Saturday completely disinfecting the house and all the toys in it. It took all day, but we were so happy to have a germ-free home! I was finishing up with some cleaning this morning and got my stuff together to teach tomorrow. Then, I got Eddie dressed and we went to playgroup. Eddie was hopping up and down in his car seat because he was SO excited to get to the park today! The poor kid has been cooped up in the house for the past week, so he totally deserved a couple of hours at the park. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. Only 5 minutes after we got to the park my cell phone rang. As soon as I heard Nurse Shannon's voice, I knew I wasn't going to be happy. She informed me that Tommy threw up during snack time and I needed to get him as soon as possible. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Eddie was really upset that we had to leave and I was so frustrated. I thought I was done with sick kids for a while! I thought I would be able to teach tomorrow! Grrrr....I just want to get a full night's rest, have all my kids healthy, my home germ-free, and my schedule back to normal!

Flu Update

Tommy is now completely over the flu. He's been fever-free for more than 24 hours, and he's doing great. He was a bit tired last night and crashed on the couch way before bedtime, so I decided to play it safe and keep him home again today. He was SO mad that he couldn't go to school, and Anna was SO mad that she had to go!

Eddie, on the other hand, is not doing so great. He was diagnosed with N1H1 yesterday and WOULD NOT take Tylenol or any other fever-reducing medicine last night! He was burning up and miserable and we finally just had to hold him down and forced it in him. He also has a nasty case of croup which is pretty rough combined with the flu. He has Tamiflu, but he refuses to take it, so I've been hiding it in his juice. I haven't had much sleep, and I'm completely exhausted.

I took the kids to get their flu shots yesterday, and I went first to show them that it's not too bad. Tommy screamed his head off and Anna hid in the corner! Wimps. Hopefully, we'll be flu-free here soon, and I can have a full night's rest!