Thirty-Four and Nine Months

Thursday was a big day in our household as Duncan celebrated his thirty-fourth birthday and Brady turned nine months.  I think it's neat that it worked out that they were both born on the same day of the month...the eighth.  Whereas Duncan is a very perfectly proportioned, if not exceptionally proportioned in my opinion, adult, Brady is still undersized, as expected.  I took him in for his check-up and here were his stats:

Weight: 15 lbs, 13 oz, off the bottom of the chart
Length: 16 3/4 inches, 10th percentile
Head: 17 1/2 inches, 25th percentile

He gained 1 lbs, 13 ounces since six months which dropped him from the 5th percentile to less than 0.  This is the first time I've had any kid not at least be on the chart.  Aubree, who has always been on the small side, was 16 lbs, 10 ounces at this age, in comparison.  The good news is that his length to weight ratio is very steady and has been following the same upward curve each time.  If his length was growing rapidly but the weight wasn't following suit, they would be more concerned.  As it is, the nurse practitioner said everything else was perfect health wise and developmentally so there isn't anything special I should do.  He's just, quite literally, a little man.  And that's okay.  I figure I would rather have this problem than a problem being too big.  Anyway, the appointment went very well with him pretty much smiling the whole time at the NP and barely whimpering when they gave him his one shot.

This week has obviously been a little different as we adjust to life without a dog.  The major downside, besides missing all of the love and affection, is that we no longer have a vacuum cleaner, mop, highchair cleaner upper,etc.  I don't know how many times this week I've thought to myself, "Oh Dewey will just get it" when the numerous peas, hot dog pieces, soup, you name it, have landed on the floor from one of the kids.  Not to mention all the bits and pieces Brady leaves behind in his highchair.  These things would have gotten eaten up in the blink of an eye before.  Now, gasp!, I have to clean it all up myself.  What a pain.  But there has been an upside too.  Aubree has been very nonchalant about Dewey's demise which was very clear on Sunday afternoon when she meandered into the living room with a bowl of food, set it down on the floor, and stated to me, "It's okay.  Dewey died."  Previously, you would NEVER leave a bowl of food on the floor because, well, you know what would happen.  A few days later Calleigh was struck with another bright idea, "Mom!"  She says to me, "Since Dewey died, can we put a playground on the back porch?!!"  Yes, this is another bright spot.  We can now take ownership of our porch back.  It was the dogs' hangout and litter box area.  Now it is a clean slate and a potential money saver since we were able to remove the doggie door.  I don't think we have quite the room for a "playground" but we'll try and do something nice out there. Despite these dog-free advantages, I still miss him like crazy.

Going back to the activities of the week....We had a nice Sabbath last week.  It was neat to hang out in Sabbath School like a regular person instead of teaching.  Duncan, however, got recruited to do the computer for the music again, much to his chagrin.  After some naps, we enjoyed the Minnehaha playground and then on home for some supper and then a big treat.  Calleigh somehow got it into her head that she wanted to watch a movie and have popcorn and hot chocolate.  I could not resist her enthusiasm so Duncan went in search of a suitable family movie and finally stumbled upon Babe, a story about a pig.  The girls set up all their bedding in front of the TV and got into their jammies but Calleigh told me quite sternly, they would NOT be brushing their teeth until after they had their popcorn and hot chocolate. The movie held their attention very well and was a great success which is more than I can say for Aubree's hot (aka, luke warm) chocolate drinking.  That's just not a good combination.  

Fooling around in Aunt Wanda's classroom.

She's only in a diaper because she spilled the hot chocolate on her pajamas.  Shocker!

Pooped out afterwards.

Sunday morning, we were in the hunt, once again, for our new dining room table.  We went to Rooms To Go and Kane's but couldn't quite find what we were looking for.  The girls had such a great time looking at and climbing on all the kids' bedroom sets so the trip wasn't a complete waste.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty routine days with trips to the mall, playground, and Publix.  Wednesday morning I was off to the dentist for a cleaning so Elaine came over to watch the kids.  They traipsed off to Phelps Park and got completely worn out because Calleigh fell asleep for a nap at about 3:00 which almost never happens.  If she does sleep, usually it's like at 4:15 right when the other two are getting close to waking up.  The excitement of the evening was that our front door got stuck.  The metal thing that goes from the door into the door frame, wouldn't come out of the door frame when you turned the lock.  Duncan had to take the door of the hinges but that still wouldn't work.  He finally had to take a hammer and smash the lock as hard as he could to get it out.  Of course, that completely broke it so he had to head off to Lowe's to get a new doorknob at 8:00 pm.  Not what he had in mind after a hard day at work.  So we have a new doorknob which is a little annoying because now we have two different keys...one for the deadbolt and one for the doorknob.

Trying on Easter hats at JCPenney

Brady is thrilled to be mobile at the mall playground.

Elaine put him in the kitchen sink while she made lunch for the girls.  Why didn't I ever think of that??

Although we have plans to go out tomorrow night for Duncan's birthday, I thought it would still be nice to do something with the kids to celebrate the day.  That's when I got the bright idea to go to Kobe, Japanese Steakhouse for dinner.  We've been wanting to go there because the chef makes the food right at the table in front of you and I had heard how neat it is for the kids to watch.  The best part is that you get $25 towards you meal on your birthday.  So I thought...Perfect!  We made a plan to meet Ron and Elaine there.  Things did not start off on a good foot.  We made a reservation for 6:00 but then at about 5:15 Duncan calls from work to tell me that his truck won't start.  That's very typical since about every four to six months, his truck will randomly not start for several minutes or hours.  We've taken it in and they can never find anything wrong with it.  We just deal it and hope it doesn't come at an inopportune time.  Fortunately, one of Duncan's colleagues was able to drop him off here...where I was going crazy because Aubree would not get dressed.  She is going through this phase where she only wants to wear long dresses (what we could call "Ellen White" dresses when I was a teenager) and unfortunately, most of her wardrobe does not meet this criteria.  She's even taken to wearing some of Calleigh's clothes since they're obviously longer but the ridiculously long sleeves make it completely impractical.  At any rate, she refused to get dressed because there wasn't a suitable dress.  Finally after my threats that I would take her in just her diaper but I was sure they wouldn't let her in the restaurant and she would have to stay in the van, she finally gave in, very begrudgingly.  I finally got us all downstairs and that's when I noticed that Calleigh's shirt had a bunch of stains on it.  It's those kind of stains that must occur when detergent gets directly on it.  The type that you can't readily see when you're putting something on but then when you look at it in good lighting you see what a mess it is.  So that prompted a whole wardrobe change for Calleigh who freaked out because it had matched perfectly with her new purple flip flops.  Then, finally, to top it off, Brady spits up on himself and we have the perfect trifecta of clothes changing.  And that, folks, is why it is impossible to get out of the house in a timely manner when you have three kids.

We finally make it to the restaurant and get seated with another couple.  It kind of reminds me of a cruise where you get randomly seated at a table with strangers.  The tables seat ten people and since there were only seven of us, they put us with two other folks. It turns out that the guy works at Cribs For Life which his father owns.  That's where we got our two cribs which we LOVE.  So that was kind of neat.  The waiter comes and asks us if anyone was having a birthday and Duncan raises his hand and goes to his wallet to get his ID...which is when he realized that he left it in his shorts pocket from when he went to the gym the night before.  Devastating!  Of course, they won't just take our word for it, who can blame them, and there went $25 down the drain.  Things didn't improve from there.  Being the horrible vegetarian that I am not liking tofu (other than the stuff Allen made), the only thing on the menu that appealed to me was some side order items like noodles and veggies.  Well, I could only make out about 25% of what he was saying (because of his heavy accent) but I was told emphatically by the waiter that I had to order an entree.  I could not order side items.  I was also trying to order that for the kids since the kid meals were all meat.  It was quite the ordeal.  In the end, I had to pay a $7 charge to "share" Duncan's meal (which obviously I wasn't going to actually share) so that I could then order those sides.  It was all very confusing and frustrating.  Thankfully the couple seated with us were good sports because I felt bad for them.  Anyway, after we got over that, things went pretty well the rest of the way.  The kids were all intrigued with the cooking process although Aubree cowered a little in my chair when the fire and smoke first started.  Brady was just wide eyed the whole time but didn't cry or anything.  In fact, the kids were all really good and surprised me with what they ate.  All in all, it was a great time although the check was obviously much steeper than I had anticipated.

Brady watching in awe.

She gave chopsticks a whirl.  

They at least gave him a birthday cupcake..much to Calleigh's delight.  

Afterwards, Ron took Duncan back to this office to see if the truck would start while Elaine came home with the kids and me.  Thankfully the truck started right up... a real answer to prayer.  When they got home we had cake and opened presents.

Decorating Daddy's cake on Thursday afternoon.

This morning we did our yard sale-ing and save for a few shirts for me and one for Duncan, it was a dud.  I was excited to be looking for stuff for our porch but didn't find anything.

One thing that I wanted to mention was this really cool app I found for my phone.  Have you ever wished when you were grocery shopping that you had some way to quickly tell if something was good for your or not?  Yeah, you can read the food labels but sometimes it's hard to tell or often, if you have your kids with you, you don't have time to go through all that.  Well, I found this app where you can just scan the bar code and it will immediately give you the grade (A through F) of the product, give you a description of why it got that grade and then also give you better alternatives.  The app is called Fooducate and it's free.  It's really, really nifty.

That's a wrap.  Have a Happy Sabbath!

Calleigh is really into climbing things lately.

Good-Bye Dewey, R.I.P

I can't even believe I'm writing this but Dewey died today, quite unexpectedly.  He's had a lump, which almost looked like a dislocated shoulder, on his left side for a number of weeks that was diagnosed, clearly misdiagnosed, as a muscle problem.  He was given some meds but the problem kept getting worse so much so that he had basically been just hobbling around.  Duncan took him in last Friday and they recommended several options with us choosing surgery to go and remove what was there.  Because the problem hadn't gotten better, the thought by the doctor was that it was likely the same Hemangiosarcoma (i.e., cancer) that he had on his belly and had removed in October 2009.  


Duncan dropped him off this morning and then at about 11:40, the vet called me to say that they were in surgery and had been working on the mass for 20 - 30 minutes and it was so big and up against the muscle that they just couldn't get it out...it was too dangerous.  Nor could they take a piece of it to biopsy because she was afraid it wouldn't stop bleeding.  They were going to just stop what they were doing and close him up.  This was obviously not good news since it meant he would be in practically a crippled, or at least very hobbled, state for the rest of his life.  


At 3:18, they called me again to say that they were having a problem - - Dewey's heart had stopped beating and he wasn't breathing.  She was literally standing three feet away from him as someone else gave him CPR (which, I'm just a bit curious to know how that works on a dog) and she thought it would be a good idea to come there right away.  Of course, I knew that meant he was probably done.  Duncan fortunately pulled in from work a few minutes later and I was able to go.  As I expected, when I got there, they confirmed that they hadn't been able to revive him.  The doctor was very nice.  She explained that he had come to, very slowly, from the anesthesia but wasn't really standing up but just lifting his head up a little.  They were watching him closely and finally at one point, he gave a last big breath, and that was it.  They tried the CPR but to no avail...which, I think, was probably the way it should be.  She went on to say how everyone there just loved him and knew him by name.  I'm sure it's because there aren't many Italian Greyhounds but I would like to think it's also because he was such a wonderful dog...he really was.  


The worst part of this whole thing is that I'm so terribly saddened by the fact that I didn't get to say good-bye while he was still alive.  Obviously I had no way of knowing this would happen but other times when he's had surgery, I've actually thought in mind how some dogs never wake up from surgery so I'll take a good look and give an extra pat before they would go out the door.  This time, I think I was upstairs with the kids when Duncan left.  I knew I still needed to say my good-byes so I had them bring him out to me in one of the little exam rooms.  So, so, tough.  He just celebrated his 12th birthday and it's nearly impossible for me to believe that it's been nearly 12 years since I opened that crate at the airport and this adorable little creature greeted me with a wagging tail.  And he's been our pal ever since.  Of course, at that time, he was Dewey Brace since Duncan and I were just dating but he quickly became Duncan's best friend (well, besides me).  I had researched that male Italian Greyhounds seem to have better personalities than females so I had decided to get a male and they were right.  He had such a friendly, happy, loving personality.  I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but it was better than his sister's personality, for sure.  It took me all of about five seconds to name him.  Let's see, what are things I love?  Mountain Dew.  Dewey, it is!  I should probably be having one right now in his memory...


I know this is all for the best because, honestly, how great of a life was it going to be in his condition, taking pain meds every day?  Then we would have been faced with trying to figure out when it was the right time to end things and the horrible good-bye process.  So really, it's a blessing.  It ended painlessly they said.


The girls are handling it well.  Calleigh was with me when the vet had called and I told her that I thought Dewey had died and she started crying.  I gave her a hug and said it would be okay, we would see Dewey again in heaven when Jesus comes back.  This has been their mantra.  When Aubree woke up from her nap, Calleigh yelled up the stairs that Dewey had died and Aubree responded that it was okay, he was having surgery and we would see him tomorrow.  We told her, no, he isn't coming back and she said it was okay, we would see him in heaven.  Calleigh was really sweet because she told us "In one more day, it will be closer to go to heaven, and then the next day will be closer, and then the next day will be closer, and then the next day, and then the next."    So I think they're going to be fine.  But how weird is it to think that Brady will never remember (or probably Aubree for that matter) him?


Life goes on.  It stops for no one.  Ron and Elaine just got back from Pennsylvania where they paid their respects to a great friend that passed away from cancer.  It's an ugly, ugly disease.  But how truly awesome is it to know that this isn't the end for us?  We have the hope of heaven where we will be reunited and most importantly, will see Jesus!  What joy I get each day as we talk about that with the girls and see their excitement when they think of sitting on Jesus' lap to hear his stories.  It reminds me of the day when we got up early to go to Legoland and I told Calleigh "Get up.  It's going to be an exciting day!"  And Calleigh said "You know what's the most exciting?  Going to heaven!" 


There is other news, naturally.  Until this happened, the headline on the blog was going to be that Brady Brother is now crawling and got his first tooth.  He went a little ways on Sunday evening and then made it officially official on Monday morning. I got it on video which, ironically, has Dewey in it too which is the last video I have of him.  It's a two-for-one special I guess you could say.  Brady isn't crawling from the living room to the kitchen quite yet but he's definitely doing his thing...and finding every minute piece of lint while he's at it which promptly goes into his mouth if there isn't a binky lodged there.  The tooth, meanwhile, made an appearance on Wednesday.  It's his bottom left and it looks like the bottom right is close behind.  So far I haven't noticed any discomfort for him which corresponds to my experience with the girls and the teething process.  Strangely enough, both of the girls started crawling and got their first tooth in the same week (Calleigh - 7 1/2 months, Aubree - 11 months).   Sort of strange.  Anyway, I'm glad that Brady seems to be falling more into the Calleigh camp, timing wise, then Aubree since he clocked in at just a bit over 8 1/2 months with these milestones.  

Now that he's crawling, this maneuver is his favorite.  It's like he's trying to do push ups or something. 

We're getting the eating thing revved up for him too.  I had mentioned the gagging he did with the strawberries last week.  Thankfully that was just a fluke and he hasn't gagged since.  I've been giving him stage 3 baby food (which comes with textured food) and then also subsidizing that with pieces of strawberries, watermelon, cheese, and most recently, fri-chik.  Boy, did he go to town on that fri-chik last night.  He was loving it.  Tonight we were over at Ron and Elaine's for supper and Elaine gave him just a dab of whip cream.  Well, that was extremely well received and I ended up giving him about five more squirts of the stuff.  We need to get that boy fattened up for his nine month appointment next week.  I need to make sure he stays on the growth chart!  And besides, I'm getting really sick of the 3-6 month clothes.  He's actually pretty much ready for the next size, thankfully.  I'm just dreading the whole cleaning out the drawer thing.  

Can't get enough of the whip cream.  He even tried to lick the tray.

In other news, Allen and I wrapped up our last week of teaching, for now, this past Sabbath.  It was a fun time, I must say.  I do enjoy teaching although something can be said for having a little break and getting to enjoy it from your chair.  It was such a nice day out on Sabbath that I had the idea to go and have a picnic supper after naptime.  I had discovered a cute new park when I was yard sale-ing the day before so it seemed like the perfect outing.  Well, it was and it wasn't.  It was great to go to a new playground but then, on the other hand, it ended up getting pretty darn cold by the time it was getting dark and we were shivering.  It was kind of weird though.  When we got there, we noticed an Asian mother and her two girls and boy playing and Duncan said to me "They look familiar.  Do they go to our church?"  I said, "Of course, they look familiar, those are our neighbors!"  Sure enough, it was our neighbors from across the street who we would see all the time but rarely talked to because they didn't seem to speak English.  I had ascertained that they had moved awhile back because a new Asian family was living there.  After a little bit, the mother came over to me to say hello and, as it turns out, she does speak English!  She obviously recognized us too.  So yeah, I feel kind of bad that we had a lengthier conversation after meeting randomly in a park then practically  the whole time they had lived there.  

After the our picnic supper, we made a stop to pick up Duncan's suit from the Oviedo Mall (he got it months ago but finally picked it up after the alterations) and then a final stop at TCBY for a little Saturday night treat.   Brady was the happy recipient of many spoonfuls of my vanilla although the tiny M&M he accidentally got in one bit threw him off a little.   The crescendo of my evening was sneaking off to see a movie with Jennifer and Tangie once the kids were all in bed.  We saw "The Vow" which is based on the true story of a women who gets in a car accident and can't remember that she's married.  I thought it was very good.  Man, I've already seen a movie this year and it was only February.  Unbelievable.  

Sunday morning after First Watch, we hit up Ikea to look at dining room tables since the chairs on ours are basically broken and making scratches on our wood floor.  We tried to check the girls in to the play area where you can leave them while you shop but alas, Aubree was about an inch too short (you have to be 37 inches).  That did not end well since we had gotten all the way to the front of the line only to be turned away by the person in charge (we thought she could get away with it because with her shoes and hood on, she was just about there but then he made her do it without shoes).  Poor thing.  As you can imagine, within about five minutes Calleigh was doing her, "This is boring" thing.  We're glad that she at least has progressed from "This is bored."  I found a table and chairs I liked but Duncan couldn't commit in the end.  


Sunday afternoon I stayed home with Brady, since it was nap time, and Duncan took the girls to a birthday party for Lindsey and Ethan at the RDV.  There was no swimming involved this year but the girls had a great time in the gym...so I'm told.  

The birthday kids

All the kids...notice Aubree snuggling up to a little boy (Maddux) at your bottom left.

Monday morning my friend Jenny came over with her daughter, Lexi, who is about five weeks older than Brady but much bigger (no surprise there).  We had a nice little play date and it's always nice to talk to other mother's who have a baby at a similar age so you can share progress and get ideas.  

Monday was a big deal for me as I got my hair cut.  Every few years I decide to shake it up, which as I look back, usually happens in either January or February.  It was my birthday two years ago that I got it cut fairly short (and by fairly short, I mean around shoulder length).  Jennifer helped me pick out a new hairstyle to try.  It's based on a celebrity but I won't mention it here so that you can't try and compare!  Since Elaine was out of town and Duncan wouldn't be home in time, I ended up dropping the girls off at Jennifer's for Bruce to watch.  Brady came with me since Jennifer was going to get her hair cut too afterwards. Well, you can tell that I don't get my hair done very often because I didn't really think about the time it would take to get your hair washed, cut, color (highlights) put in, color washed out, and styled.  Fortunately Duncan was able to come get Brady at about 7:30 (I nursed him while I was waiting for the color to set).  By the time I picked up the girls it was about 9:00 and I felt bad for Bruce having to watch the girls for so long but he seemed to be taking it all in stride.  The hair, meanwhile, is growing on me.  

Self portrait.  This is a few days later because I didn't like any of the ones Duncan took  the night I got it.  

I don't know that there's a whole lot to say about the rest of the week so in the interest of saving time, I'll skip over a daily recap of all that.  If there was anything interesting, I'm sure I'll have a picture of it that I'll reference below.  Oh, one big thing that did happen is that I've FINALLY figured out what Aubree means by "crunchy" binky.  A few days ago I had been looking through her assortment of binkies and noticed that not all of the binkies are the same size.  They sell the binkies in various sizes like 0+, 6+ months, etc.  Naturally, when we last bought binkies, I got her the largest size which, as we know, were deemed "crunchy."  So I started thinking if the size had anything to do with it because she'll just look at a binky and tell you if it's crunchy.  Yesterday we were in a consignment store and I saw some (new) binkies for sale.  They were various sizes so I picked out the smallest ones and asked her if they were crunchy.  She took a look through the package and said, nope.  I then showed her the same exact looking ones but the next size up. She took a look and said "Yup, these are crunchy."  She then proceeded to announce, "Well, I like crunchy nuts but not crunchy binkies" which is a rather weird statement until your realize she is talking about the cereal Crunchy Nuts.  Anyway, I bought her the little binkies and they were fine.  So there you go.  I'm still not quite sure why she calls them "crunchy" but at least now I know which ones are crunchy.  


Here are my two embarrassing/funny comments for the week, both courtesy of Aubree:


As we get out of the car at the library for story time, Aubree spots a lady with rather short hair getting out of the car next to us. 
Aubree:  "Mom, look at that lady.  She looks like a boy."  
Did I mention we were all getting out of our cars so there were no sounds barriers?  Ahhhh!


Aubree notices I'm wearing a new skirt that has a slit in the back.
Aubree: "Look, Mom, turn around. There's a hole in the back."  


Some random pictures...

We had a nice picnic lunch at the green playground on Wednesday. 

It's getting hot so time to bring out the hats.

 I've become a little obsessed with taking pictures of the girls after they've fallen asleep at night because, quite frankly, I get both amused and a little misty eyed (for the sister I never had) when I see the various positions they've fallen asleep in.  Now that Aubree isn't in a crib, they've been falling asleep together just about every night although it seems to be a different spot each night whether on a bed or some random spot on the floor.

Wednesday night.

Thursday night.  

Just now.

Have a Happy Sabbath.  I'm heading upstairs now and I think I just looked around the room to see where Dewey was to put in his crate.  This will take some getting used to.

Leaving Las Vegas

That is what Duncan did on Thursday and I sure was thankful!  He left on Sunday afternoon to go to a HIMSS (Health Information Management Systems Society) conference for his work.  HIMSS is like the big daddy in the world of healthcare IT.  So he was gone for a total of four days and we sure missed him.  Obviously the days were pretty much the same because he's not home anyway during that time but during the evenings there's a notable difference.  The nice thing is that with the beauty of smart phones, he texted me frequently along with many random pictures and movies of all the interesting things happening around Vegas like men on stilts (which the girls love), Barney walking randomly down the street, street performers, etc.  That kept us pretty entertained.  But none of it was nearly exciting as having the front door open on Thursday afternoon and the girls go flying into his arms with excitement, "Daddy's home!"  Calleigh was a hoot because she used it all to her advantage when, during nap time on Thursday, she quietly gets out the Girl Scout Cookies and says to me "Since Daddy is coming home, can I have a special treat?"

One of his mean texts which shows this fresh crepe he got.  What a stinker!

Where he stayed...Paris.

How many steps he took in one day and he still wasn't done.

Sunday morning was a glorious time for me as I got to go to Ross all alone to shop.  Since Duncan had gone to Kohl's solo the night before and since he was leaving me alone (albeit for work purposes) for the next several days, I figured it was my chance for "me time".  Plus, I had my generous birthday gift from the hospital burning a hole in my pocket.  Off I went and it was fantastic.  Since it was a gift for me, I didn't feel guilty for buying myself some stuff instead of putting it towards a more worthy cause (e.g., saving it).  I came away with a good number of dresses which are my favorite things to wear during the warm season which given the temps today (one degree away from breaking the high for the month of February, ever), is upon us.   Also during my trip to Ross, I made another stop at Publix to stock up on more stuff.   It was VERY successful.  Sunday evening the kids and I went over to Ron & Elaine's for some supper and fellowship.

I paid $30.97 for this.  Full price would have been $176.95.  You can't even see everything in the picture, either.

Monday morning we went over to Yolanda's house.  We haven't seen them in ages because her mother was visiting from Spain for the past month and obviously she wanted to make the most out of that time.  Her older girls were off because of the holiday so it was an extra fun time.  Hannah and Alyssa just love Brady and wanted to hold him practically the entire time.  It was funny because since they are a family of all girls, they kept referring to Brady as "she" which is what we did too at the beginning.  It's hard to get out of that habit.

Hmm, who are these people?

Now we're talking!

Tuesday morning we went to Publix (yes, again), story time and then on to a playground to get in at least a little outdoor time.  I'm noticing more and more that Aubree ins't taking a nap unless she gets in some exercise.  Tuesday evening, it was an ideal time to go to kid's night at Chik-Fil-A where we met up with Jennifer, Bruce, and their boys and Karis and his boys.  The really good face painter was there and it seemed fitting for the girls to get dolphins after watching Dolphin Tale.  There was one awkward moment when we were there though.  After we were done eating I had gone up to the register to get our ice cream when a man was there getting dinner and I could hear him telling the manager that he though his wife wanted the sandwich but she really wanted the salad.  This was after he had paid for it.  The manager was really nice (he is really nice, let me just say) and told him it was no problem to switch it out.  I was chuckling to myself thinking "Oh poor guy.  He wants to keep the wife happy."  But then when I got back to our table, they were seated right near by and I could hear him speaking so horribly to her about how she ordered the wrong thing and then one of his kids bumped him and he spilled all the food and then next thing I know he's yelling at the wife, very loudly, where everyone in the restaurant could practically hear.  It was most startling.  Jennifer and I had to purposely talk louder and try to pretend not to hear.  Thankfully the kids were all in the play area although the man's children, who were two girls about Calleigh and Aubree's age, were not.  You can't help but feel sorry for them. How sad.

She also made them balloon swords.

Wednesday morning Jennifer invited us over to her house since it's their craft day and they were going to make bird feeders out of bird seed and gelatin.  You pour it into a cookie cutter and let it get hard.  That was a neat activity but I think even more fun was a game called "Don't Eat Pete" which involves eating Chex cereal and yelling...so a winning combination!  It was actually a really cute game she got off Pinterest.  But even more fun than that, was playing "Married."  This is what they call playing house.  Blake and Zachary were the dads, Calleigh was the mom, and Kaleb, Evan, and Aubree were the children.  Come to find out, there was kissing going on!  I found out after we got home so I asked Calleigh, "Were you kissing the boys?"  Yup, she says.  I say, "Where did you kiss them?  On the cheek or on the lips?"  She replies "All over."  All I can say is thank goodness she isn't ten or that answer would be very concerning.  I'm not really sure if this is something that should be going on.  I mean, obviously it's all very innocent at this age but by letting them do it now does it just make it seem fine for later on when it wouldn't be so acceptable?  I don't know.    

Stirring the seeds and the jello.

The finished product.

It's not just girls that love Brady!

Wednesday evening was Adventurers and Elaine came over to take the girls.  Just as they got in the van, it started raining.  A few minutes later, I got this knock on the door and it's Elaine asking me how to turn the wipers on.  Well, she was soaked and then after I ran out to try and advise her, I was soaked.  It was a torrential rain and then lightening and thunder started.  I told her, "You know, if you don't want to drive in this, I dont't blame you at all."  So back in she came with the girls who were disappointed but then we let Calleigh watch something on TV and that seemed to make up for it just fine.  The only flaw in this plan is that I had planned on making a final run to Publix since it was the last day of the sale and now my plans were all askew.  Fortunately Elaine volunteered to stick around with the kids so I could go.  We threw her stuff into the dryer and she wore something of Duncan's.  The rain had let up dramatically a short bit later when I left.  But, there was still rain on my parade.  When I checked out at Publix with my $31 total of items, I handed them my $5 of $30 Publix coupon and my $5 off $25 coupon for Save-a-Lot just as I had done numerous times all week.  This time the cashier told me I couldn't do it because the total had to be the total of the two coupons ($55) to use both.  She brought a manager over who confirmed it.  Doggone it.  I guess, unbeknownst to me, I had been getting away with something I shouldn't have.  So that put a damper on things.  It was great getting $10 off right off the top but now I'll have to settle for $5.

Thursday morning we fiddlefarted around the house and worked on making "welcome home" cards for Daddy's return.  Calleigh did the whole card herself but I told her I'd write in it what she wanted to say.  She told me to write "I love you with all my might."  I thought that was pretty cute.  After Duncan got home, he wasn't quite ready to give up on the fabulous buffets he had enjoyed in Vegas so we decided to eat out at Cici's Pizza.  I've been there exactly one in my lifetime but I knew it was cheap and it was food (albeit not exactly healthy) that the girls would eat so off we went.  Indeed, we all ate for $12.59 (thanks in part to a coupon, of course!) and it was delicious although I'm sure incredibly fattening.

This morning we finally had more than two yard sales to go to.  I found a very nice suitcase for $10, some clothes for Calleigh, and then at this one place I got a cool purse/bag that I stuffed with cooking magazines and an Easter book for the girls all for $1.  It was the strangest yard sale I had ever been too as it was being run by two guys in their 30's and a guy in his 60's.  Not your typical people running a yard sale.  They didn't seem all that interested in making money hence the $1 price tag.  The girls were most delighted, though, with the one sale that had lemonade and muffins.  Jackpot!

I have exactly one purse to my name but I thought this was cute.

This afternoon Duncan had to take Dewey back to the vet.  You may recall we took him a few weeks ago because of his shoulder problem which they had deemed to be a muscle issue because nothing showed up on the x-ray.  Well, the problem has not gone away and in fact, his shoulder looks worse.  It almost looks like he dislocated it (although we are certain he didn't) because there's this bulge there.  He walks very gingerly and very rarely goes upstairs now.  They gave us several options on how to proceed including going to a specialist to get more advanced imaging done (very pricey, I'm sure) or basically doing surgery to go in there and see what they see.  We've taken the latter option which will happen next week (which I need to schedule).  In the meantime, we have have some pain meds for him.  He turned 12 on Sunday - - not a very nice birthday present to say the least.

Yesterday I faced the reality of Aubree's sleeping situation and had Duncan take off the bar for her crib to make into a toddler bed.  This has happened seven months sooner than with Calleigh.  But with Calleigh in the room with her, she's gotten to the point where she refuses to go into her crib. We've just been moving her into it once she's fallen asleep on the cot or on the floor.  I can't really blame her because Calleigh will be there playing in the room while she would be stuck in her crib.  This morning she told me she was a big girl now and made a dramatic toss of her binky into the trash.  Of course, as soon as nap time rolled around, she went to the garbage can and pulled it out.  Yup, that's exactly what I thought would happen.  But speaking of binkies, Calleigh had gotten into the unfortunate habit the last few days of sucking on binkies, primarily Brady's.  Brady has the same kind of binky that Calleigh used to have and somehow the idea came into her little brain to put one into her mouth and now I've caught her taking and hiding Brady's binkies in her bed.  This better not be the start of something.

Brady is THIS CLOSE to crawling.  I'm almost sure that next week at this time I'll be reporting that he crawls.  This week he did have a big achievement though.  He started clapping his hands and looks to be attempting to wave.  I'm trying to progress with his eating too so I cut up tiny pieces of strawberry and put them on his tray.  Well, it didn't go too well.  He started gagging on it and some throw up/spit up ended up coming out.  Don't tell me I have a gagger!  He eats Puffs fine although I realize they aren't the same thing.  So then I decided to go a different route but getting some baby food that has some texture to it....like macaroni and cheese that isn't quite pureed but has kind of smallish chunks of pasta.  Fortunately he hasn't gagged on it but he definitely doesn't eat it quickly.

Although not necessarily humorous, I've had some interesting conversations with the girls this week.  The first one was where I talked about their private parts and who should be touching them.  I've talked about this with them before but clearly, a refresher was necessary.

Me: "Okay girls, you remember what I said about your private parts.  Nobody should be touching that area except Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Gigi, or maybe a friend like Jennifer who is helping you wipe after you you go potty."
Aubree:  "It's okay.  It's okay.  I can just touch myself."
Calleigh, "Yeah, so the people who can touch us are like Mommy, Daddy, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends...."
Me: "Oh boy."

Since we were on these kind of topics, I forayed into what to do if someone tried to take them.

Me: "If someone tried to grab you, what you should do is scream, 'This isn't my mommy' and then you do whatever you can do to get away like hit and kick as hard as you can."
Calleigh: "Can we punch them?"
Me: "Yes."
Calleigh: "Can we bite?"
Me: "Yes."
Awhile later...
Calleigh: "So can we use our fingers to press into their eyes?"
Me: "Yes, whatever you need to do."  Note to self, where are they getting these ideas from???

This topic would not seem to die.  Around the dinner table a little later, it continues.

Calleigh: "Can we say bad words if someone tries to take us?"
Me: "No, I don't think that's neccessary."
Aubree: "Well, Camden says bad words."
Calleigh: "Aubree!  Don't say the word.  But it starts with "Stu-"

Apparently while we were at my parents for Christmas, Camden said the word stupid which we've deemed a bad word.  The girls mention this about every other day even though it was almost two months ago.  Good grief!

Well, that's it for now.  I'll close with some pictures as usual.  Have a Happy Sabbath.

No nap on Sunday afternoon and this is what we get come about 5:00.   And no, she didn't fall down the stairs.  Sort of looks like it, I know.

Did you know it was already hurricane season?

They feel asleep together on the cot.  Awww!

He can give as good as he gets.

Calleigh fashioned this baby sling all on her own using one of my scarves.

Brady liked the scarves too.

Taking a walk with Daddy this afternoon.

Calleigh fell off her bike and put on this sad face.  No major damage done.