Palm Sunday Kids

All four kids looked so nice for church this last Sunday, I coerced them into a little photo session.

The kids walked into the service waving palm branches as they do each year on Palm Sunday. Grant led the procession this time, and Kari played the piano for it. The kids are always so cute!

Spring Break--Rockaway Beach

The first half of our spring break was filled with dental and doctor appointments, but the second half was amazing. We went to Rockaway Beach with our friends, the Wilsons, for two nights and made it stretch to three full days of vacation. Our first stop, as usual on a trip to Rockaway, was the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We took the tour, learned a little more about cheese-making, tasted some cheese, ate lunch, and topped it off with ice cream.

We drove on up to Rockaway, hauled all our stuff into the house, and then headed to the beach. Can you believe it looked like this on the Oregon coast in March?!

I didn't even need a coat, and I eventually even took off my sweatshirt--seriously warm weather. Seriously cold water, though. Brrr!

A couple hours later, these folks showed up for the afternoon. We were so excited to get to spend a few hours with the Millers. 

We played some parents vs. kids kickball on the beach, which was pretty fun. Several of us parents paid for that activity later--sore backs, knees, legs. We're getting old!

 We paid in another way, too. Some serious sunburns. In March. Greg and I didn't even think to bring sunscreen! And that was a very dumb move on our part. The Wilsons got a little toasted, and the Moffats got FRIED. I brought some prescription-strength burn cream in our first aid kit, thinking of small campfire burns, but I ended up using it on Greg and the fair-haired kids' shoulders, necks, backs, and tops of the feet that got scorched by the sweltering spring sun. ;-) The photos don't quite do it justice. That little oversight was the only bummer of the entire weekend, though. It was such a great, fun, and relaxing vacation with our friends--couldn't have asked for more...except maybe a little less sunburn.

We played games, watched movies, ate yummy food, walked on the beach, and played at the pond. Both mornings the guys led a pre-Easter devotional time for the kids, getting them thinking of the upcoming celebration.

On our way out of town, we hit the cheese factory again for end-of-vacation ice cream cones.

We stopped at the Tillamook Forest Center on the way home. It's a place we've driven by many times but have never stopped to see before. It's really cool! It's free, educational, beautiful, and just an interesting place to visit. We learned some Oregon history and all about the Tillamook Burn. I had no idea that the forest we drive through on the way to the beach is relatively new, with all the trees only about 50 years old. 

We attempted some family photos on the suspension bridge. Always the kids' favorite thing to do--stop the fun and pose for a photo. ;-)

Such good memories and fun times with family and friends. We're savoring this time with our kids and are thankful for the blessing of great friends with great kids!

Stories

Every time we visit Great-Grandma Carrie, I learn something new, hear a new story. I guess when you've lived 98 years, there are lots of stories to tell!

Today Grant and I went to visit her, and I was telling her about how our family has had to go to the doctor a lot in the last couple months. She said, "You know, used to be, we never went to the doctor. We rarely saw the doctor, but when we did, he rode a horse to our house!" Grant thought that was pretty funny.

Then she told me about the day my Grandpa Carl was born. She said that morning she got up on a horse and rode out to the fields and worked in the fields with Hayden (Papa) for a couple hours before she started not feeling well. She rode back to the house and prepared lunch for him, still not feeling well at all. She went to bed, and that night Papa rode his horse to fetch the doctor and brought him back to help Grandma have the baby.  She never saw the doctor the whole 9 months until delivery.

The world is such a different place now than it was then!

She's told us about picking beans in the field as a kid and getting sunburned over and over again (she was a red-head--no sunscreen back then). This last fall when we were telling her about the costumes the kids were going to wear for Halloween, she told us about how Papa scared her one time with a real-looking Hitler mask, scared her so bad she sat and cried and cried. He felt really bad about playing that trick on her, but it didn't stop him from scaring others with it. Another time when I telling her about the work holiday party Greg and I had gone to, she told me about the fancy dresses she used to wear to all the functions she and Papa went to when he was on the police force.  I've heard stories about when they lived in Hawaii and stories about when they lived in Eugene in the "big house up on the hill." I loved the story about how she got back from a wedding once and realized she couldn't reach to unzip her dress. No one else was home at the time, so she called the next door neighbors. The wife was passed out on the couch (too much partying), so the neighbor husband answered, and they met at the back door. He asked her how far down he should unzip it, and she said, "Just far enough that I can reach it!" :) I've heard stories of when Jeri was little, as well. I like those because Jeri and my mom are close in age, so I get to hear stories about my mom, too. When I told her about our kids taking swim lessons, she told me how Jeri was scared of swimming because of the mean swim teacher who made her crawl on the bottom of the pool and scraped up her knees.  I showed her a picture of Kari smiling with her new braces, and she told me about how Jeri cried when they took the braces off her teeth because she loved the braces so much.  The stories from Grandma's years working at the Emporium are always funny. I've heard about when Grandma's boys, my Grandpa Carl and Great-Uncle Gene, were school-age and in all kinds of sports and activities, and how Grandma would make fried chicken and pack dinners on those nights. No grabbing "fast food" in those days.

I love listening to her tell stories. I really need to write more of them down, so I can remember.

To do: Play with Grant

I learned a new trick today. I learned how to clean up battery acid/corrosion and fix toys with baking soda, water, and a q-tip! (What did parents do before they could Google things??) Grant's drill wasn't working, and that's what started it all. I got excited about my new-found skill and fixed all kinds of toys this morning. Grant is good at playing independently, but lately he's been asking me to play with him more, so I've been putting "play with Grant" on my to-do list. We worked on putting Lego people together one afternoon. Today we played with the drill set, remote control cars, and trains, in between household chores. 

It was nice to have a quiet day at home today. Over the weekend, we had more health issues. Grant was helping me plant some bulbs in the backyard and got some dirt and bark dust in his eye. We flushed it out with water, but it bothered him the rest of the day. He slept all night but woke up screaming the next morning and wouldn't open his eye. It was puffy and red, and it was obviously causing him a lot of pain. My mom took the kids to church, and Greg and I took Grant to urgent care, thinking it might take two of us to help wrestle him while they took a look at his eye. The doctor didn't even attempt it, though. She took a quick peek and decided it was likely a scratch on his eyeball and sent us home with antibiotic drops. Thankfully, that was all it took. Two days later, his eye was looking and feeling back to normal. 

Friday night we got a kid-free date night, as Mom and Dad M. babysat for Greg's birthday. We had a great time together and enjoyed the time relaxing but also getting some things done around the house. I'm glad we had that date night when we did because he started feeling sick again on Saturday. He had just finished his antibiotics from last week's tonsil issue, so it seemed strange that was sick again. He felt crummy all day Sunday (him with his cough and Grant with his eye, made them a good pair), went to work Monday, but came home early and fell asleep. Tuesday he went to the doctor and found out he has bronchitis. So, he's back on antibiotics, along with an inhaler and some immune-boosting supplements. We have GOT to get him healthy again. 

Spelling Bee

East Orient had their first Spelling Bee (since our kids have been there) last Thursday. The top few spellers in each class participated, and Kari and Joel were both in it. I was able to go watch, and it was so much fun! It was so intense! The kids really got into it. Joel made it a few rounds and got out on the word "raisin," and Kari made it to the top four before missing an "e" in the word "veteran." I was proud of them both!

 We don't get the local paper, but when we were at the doctor's office yesterday, I noticed this! Do you see Joel? He's in the orange shirt.

You can't see Kari because she was in the row behind Joel, but she's mentioned in the article, just not by name. "The audience gasped when one speller was defeated by the word 'veteran'..." :-)

Sickness

We have had a rough couple of months around here, health-wise. Kari was sick with a fever, sore throat, cough, etc. for a week at the end of January. Grant got a sinus infection that week, so I had to take him to the doctor. I felt pretty crummy and run down the week after that. Then the second week of February, Joel and Kari both came home with fevers Monday after school and were sick that whole week. We all got flu shots in the fall, but according to the doctor, it wasn't very effective this year. I'm not sure if Kari got two different viruses or just never recovered fully from the first one.

Just as they were feeling better, Oregon decided it wanted an early spring, and all the flowers and trees started blooming. We are still having some frosty mornings, but pollen counts have been high, and my allergies got out of control. I ended up with a sinus infection the weekend of Aubrey's friend party--not good! It was antibiotics and a week of recovery for me. In the meantime, Grant was on his second round of antibiotics for an ear infection and sinus infection.

And then, as I mentioned already, Aubrey got sick the day after her birthday party and had a fever for the next 4 days. She got well in time for the busy weekend, but then Greg started not feeling well. His throat was hurting him, but it's been that way off and on for the last month, so I figured it just must be allergies. Well, it got worse and worse, and by Sunday he was really hurting. He made it through church and playing the drum on the worship team that morning and made it through Aubrey's party that started at 2pm, but an hour and half before our community group Bible study was supposed to start, he was hurting pretty badly. I convinced him to go to Urgent Care at 5pm. It's a good thing he went, too, because he had a serious tonsil infection called a peritonsillar abscess. They gave him two shots, one antibiotic and one cortisone, and sent him home with three prescriptions and a follow-up appointment for the next day. The strange thing is that I had this exact same thing a couple years ago, and according to the doctor, it's not very common. Odd. The pain medication helped him sleep that night, and he's been slowly but steadily feeling better this week. 

Grant finished his second round of antibiotics, but the sinus infection never did go away, and he started feeling and looking worse. He cried twice at preschool on Tuesday, which was very unusual. His teachers let me know when I went to pick him up, and they said, "He must be getting sick because that wasn't like him at all!" I decided I'd better take him back in and decided I may as well take Joel in, too, since he's had a bad cough and congestion since he was sick three weeks ago, and he has just been looking and sounding not so good. He's had no voice for the last week, which has been kind of funny but has been getting old. We came away from that doctor's appointment with antibiotics for both boys, and a referral to the ENT (good ol' Dr. Wobig) for Grant to get his big, ugly tonsils checked out and to see what they think about his ongoing sinus problem. 

I've been thinking about how it's a good thing I don't work outside the home right now. I'd never be at work! When I was feeling frustrated by all the sickness, that's what I chose to be thankful for. I thanked God that I could be home to take care of sick kids. The last time we had this much sickness was when Grant was a baby, and we ended up with Joel getting his tonsils out and Grant getting tubes in his ears. That year was much, much worse, though (multiple ear infections, RSV, multiple cases of strep throat). Hopefully, everyone will be all well here again very soon! 

Aubrey's 7th Birthday (Week)

Aubrey got a week of birthday this year. She went to breakfast with Grandpa, and then had her very first "friend" party that afternoon. Grandpa said she's the biggest breakfast eater of our bunch. :)

Aubrey has been planning her birthday party for months. She made the list of invites and helped plan the activities and games for her butterfly-themed party.

the whole family got in on the decorating

All four kids worked together to create the pin-the-butterfly-on-the-flower poster/game.

party bags

activity control center ;-)

the crew--9 little girls

The girls painted butterfly sun-catchers, colored butterflies and used them to play the pin-the-butterfly game, played the unwrap-the-ball-of-candy game, ate cupcakes and ice cream, and played some more of the candy ball game at the end.  I made the shrink wrap ball too difficult for the girls to unwrap, so the game lasted a LONG time. We did the same thing for Kari's party this year, but I made it too easy (didn't tape any of the layers). Next time I'll use scotch tape instead of packing tape. :) We didn't have time to do all the activities I had planned, so we sent home a couple of the crafts with the girls. I'd rather have too much planned than too little at a party like this. It was a success!

We were supposed to have her family birthday party after church the next day, but when we got home from church, Aubrey had a fever and was not feeling well at all. So, we quickly called everyone and postponed until the following Sunday. It was such a bummer, after we were all ready and everything. Aubrey was sick for 4 days and even had to miss school on her real birthday!

She and I had to stay home while the rest of the family went to the Barlow basketball game where Joel and Kari were going to be performing with their jump-rope club from school. She schooled me in a couple of rounds of Uno while they were gone.

By the evening of her actual birthday, she was feeling much better, so she was able to enjoy some cake and ice cream and open a couple presents from us.

It was a little rough preparing for the family party the second time, but we managed. I remade cupcakes and dessert. We brought out all the decorations we had saved from the week before and refreshed the butterfly balloons that had deflated. Aubrey was happy and feeling great, and we enjoyed chatting with family. We successfully made it through another birthday gauntlet. :)