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.