Indian Rocks...Again

I sure could get used to this.  If only we were millionaires so we could tell people in a stuffy voice (and I imagine it with a British accent for some reason), "I'm going to my condo for the weekend."  Alas, it's just a rental.  We're back at the same place we were at in May when we took a mini vacation with Ron and Elaine.  Sort of like a last hurrah before the family unit changed.  We were so impressed with our time here that we were looking for any excuse to come again and fortunately, my mother was that excuse when she decided to come down for a visit.  She's a sucker for the ocean/gulf.  Ron and Elaine are with us again and it works out perfectly with the three bedrooms.  The girls are bunking with Gigi.  If you want to check out where we are staying, click here.  The only downside of coming here is the Tampa traffic that we got stuck in right during rush hour.  Duncan was very frustrated (as was I) and he kept muttering, "This sitting in traffic is torture."  I quickly pointed out, "No, sitting in traffic with your baby screaming is torture."  Thankfully that never happened.  He only woke for about the last 10 minutes of the trip.  My mother flew in to Tampa so we were especially excited to get here.  We'll be here for three nights and then my mother flies out of here Monday night.  Short trip but very worthy.

This week started off very slowly as Aubree was recovering from her pink eye.  Thankfully, the redness and basically, freakishness, of it went away pretty quickly.  But trying to put those drops in her eyes was torturous (I'm convinced more so for me than for her).  The only way I could manage it was by putting a pillow over her chest with her arms and hands pinned under it.   Afterwards, she got rewarded with an M&M.  Somehow, Calleigh got in on it too and she would get one M&M every time Aubree did the drops.  I'm sure you can guess what that lead to.  Yup.  Every few hours Calleigh would ask "Is it time for Aubree to get her drops again?"  Eventually, whether it was from the candy or maybe because she realized it wasn't that big of a deal, Aubree doesn't mind getting the drops any more.  But the strangest thing is that she asks for a pillow on her chest every time she gets them.  It's like she thinks that's a requirement or something.  Go figure.  I had heard that after even one dose of the drops, you aren't contagious any more.  I really don't know if that's true or not but what I do know is that Calleigh's eye is starting to look red today so we had to start with the drops for her.  She was not a happy camper.

The first few days of the week we didn't do a whole lot.  Oh yes.  I do know that on Tuesday we did make a CVS and Walgreens run.  I haven't been doing much couponing at the drug strores lately because I have a pretty good stockpile of stuff and frankly, I just haven't been wild about dragging the three kids in there.  But the deals seem to be heating up there so off we went.  I won't talk about what we got since it might be stocking stuffers in a few months!  Wednesday we went to a huge consignment sale, Boutique for a Week, that they were having at a nearby church.  It was a very successful outing.

Wednesday evening was Calleigh's first Adventurer's meeting.  It was at the church.  It was quite a rush to get there on time.  Usually I'm working until about 4:45 and with us needing to leave by 5:50, it didn't leave much time.  I had to get Brady fed, the girls changed, myself dressed (I work in my sweats, of course), and then the house was in disarray and it pretty much stayed that way.  I couldn't figure out what to do about supper because we usually don't eat until 7:00 and we had eaten lunch at almost 2:00.  In the end, I just brought along a cheese stick, fruit bites, and a granola bar.  I think I'll have to come up with a different game plan for next week.  Actually, I'm hoping things will go differently next time.  Duncan is the one going with her to the meetings but because he couldn't get out of work any earlier, he just met us there.  Anyway, the evening went very well. There are probably about 40 - 50 kids in total with about seven or eight the same age as Calleigh.  The 4-year olds are officially called "Little Lambs."  Her best buddy Braelyn is in it too and it was funny watching them take it all in.  They sat in the front row with their mouths agape pretty much the whole evening especially when a lady known as the "Mad Scientist" did a whole show with experiments and such.  I stuck around for about half the program and then I took Brady and Aubree to the airport to pick up Ron and Elaine who were returning from a work/pleasure trip to Pennsylvania.

Going over the pledge and law.  Don't ask me why these pictures are in black and white.  I'm sure from Calleigh messing with my phone as usual.

The "Mad Scientist"

Thursday it was time for Swim & Gym.  We started loading up the van to go (mind you, time is very tight because it starts at 9:30 and we need to get on the road by 9:05) and Calleigh yells out "Where's my car seat???"  I knew it.  Duncan had forgotten to move the car seat out of his truck and back into the van.  He had taken it out the night before to drive her home from Adventurer's.  What to do, what to do.  I knew time was ticking so I quickly came up with the resolution of her sitting on Aubree's portable highchair thingy and using the regular seatbelt.  So it pretty much resembled her sitting in a booster seat (which is legal in Florida for 4-year olds).  Definitely not the ideal solution but it was pretty much the only option for getting to Swim & Gym on time or at least at a reasonable time.  As soon as Duncan got home from work I reminded him of the car seat but he put it off saying he was too wiped.  Yup, you guessed it.  I was brushing my teeth this morning and it occurred to me that he had never gotten the car seat out of the truck again.  At least this morning I was able to go over Ron and Elaine's and get an actual booster seat for her to use.

Last night, Calleigh had another little accident.  The week before it was falling off the couch.  This week it was a wipe out on her scooter.  Yes, she rides her scooter (it has three wheels) in the house.  She half fell off it, which would have been fine, but then the bar ended up coming up and hitting in the mouth.  I saw a bunch of blood and she was covering up her bottom lip and I was so freaked out that she had done something to her teeth.  For some reason, my very worst nightmare is that she loses a baby tooth because they don't put those back in.  It's kind of like the bad dream you have of your teeth falling out.  Except in this case, I'm so worried it's going to happen for real.  Thankfully, it was only a busted up lip and a Creamsicle eventually cured it.

This morning we went to one yard sale and then it was back to Boutique for a Week where we met Jennifer and her gaggle of boys.  It was an excellent diversion for the girls so that Jennifer and I could get a some shopping done.  At one point, they were all up on the stage playing and I could see Calleigh bossing the boys (mainly Evan and Kaleb since they're younger and smaller and will listen to her) around.  Today most everything at the sale was 50% off so it was very hard not to go too crazy.

Calleigh really impressed me this week with her dedication.  Not too long ago, Grandma had taken them shopping and got each of them a hula hoop.  Calleigh has used it here and there, mainly to just goof off with. Well, this week she decided to pick it up a notch and she in fact, taught herself to hula hoop.  Seriously, she must have spun that thing around herself like 100 times.  She did it again, and again, and again.  And finally, after about 40 tries of it, she was able to get it to stay up for about 5 to 10 seconds.  Since then, she's been going pretty crazy with the hula hooping.  I have to hand it to her...I don't know that I have that kind of stamina in learning something like that.

By the way, I did get my new camera battery charger but unfortunately forgot to bring my little tool to the condo that transfers the pictures to my computer.  Oops.

In Brady news, he still has his cough.  He is coughing much less often but you can definitely still hear the cough in his chest.  This week, I'm glad to say, I haven't had to take him downstairs to the swing at all.  He's slept until 6:00 or even 7:00 in his rock n' sleeper every night.  When he wakes up before 7:00, I just put him in our bed and he goes back to sleep.  He's usually been going to sleep between 9:00 and 9:30 and then I wake him up to feed him before I go to bed between 11:00 and 11:30.  I think I'll try to get his last meal moved up though once we get home.  I'm sure he could be going without such a late feeding but it's just worked out to be the easiest thing for me to just feed him before I go to bed.

In closing, I'll share a little story about the girls.  They were in the tub one morning this week and Calleigh let out a yelp and said "Aubree just hit me with that rubber ducky."  Aubree was completely outraged.  "I did NOT hit her with the rubber ducky."  Pause. "I hit her with this boat."