Spring Breaking into Easter!

I have not had a real Spring Break since I was in college 13 years ago, but now that I have a school aged kid it all starts again! I am fortunate enough to work somewhere that has "come and go" hours during Spring Break so people with kids or grandkids can be with them. So, since Noah is out of school all week I decided to take off Monday to take the kids to the zoo. We have went to the zoo during Spring Break for years now. Unfortunately, due to distance and joint custodys, my kids were the only ones who could make it this time. So, me and my mom and the kids went for the afternoon. The weather was perfect and the kids had a great time! They were not very busy at all - we even got front row parking! It was a perfect day!

Tuesday through Thursday I worked and the kids went to daycare. Ryan gets so excited when Noah goes back to Ms. Lauries with her and he loves it! There are special privileges for the older kids (no naps and can sit on the big couch) and he feels so big when he goes there now :) The evenings have been nice so we have been getting some ball practice in. Noah has played t-ball 2 years already with the girls club but this will be his first year of baseball with the boys club so we are getting ready for tryouts next week!

Ryan wanted in on the action too :)

Thursday night there were early showings of Batman vs. Superman and Noah has been dying to see it so we decided to go. It was 2.5 hours and very packed but the kids did great! I won't spoil the ending, but we had one sad little boy (crying big tears) but they made it look like there will be a promising sequel that everything will be ok, so he was ok with that.

On Friday I was supposed to take the kids to the Janet Huckabee Nature Center in Fort Smith. During the movie the night before my back started hurting, but I assumed it was because it was a long movie and Ryan was squirming in my lap during most of it. But, it got worse all night and the next morning. I showed Nathan where it hurt and described it to him and he said that is how his was hurting when he had his kidney stone. So, that freaked me out and I decided to get it looked at before the weekend. So, that meant I had to take the kids to daycare and cancel our day trip :( Luckily, it turned out to just be back pain - which I have been fortunate enough not to experience until now. I was so relieved when it felt better after taking some anti-inflammatories. Since we missed the bleach tye-dying shirt activity at the nature center, we decided to try it ourselves. I looked it up online and did it how the instructions said (against my better judgment) so the shirts didn't turn out exactly right. But, we had a lot of fun and plan to try it again soon! We ended our Spring Break week with dinner at Rivertowne :)

Saturday we hunted eggs like crazy! We went to a local city hunt and then to my brother-in-laws for another hunt. The local hunt started about 2 minutes after we got there and lasted about 5 minutes! Those kids are fast! We managed to get 77 eggs though, the kids were excited.

My brother-in-law had us over for a cookout and egg hunt at their beautiful house. The kids played, dyed eggs, and we hid almost 200 eggs there for the 4 kids to hunt! It was so much fun!

Daddy was going to the races that night to help a friend, once the kids heard that they HAD to go too. So, the kids and I drove up to watch a little. This was the first Saturday night of the season and the line to get in was SO long! It was literally miles long. It went by fast thankfully. The kids loved watching the fast cars and eating nachos :) They did argue over who was going to "put the pedal to the metal better" though :) We even went up in the tower where they do the announcing from and Noah and Ryan got to announce some races on the speaker - Noah said "we have a red car versus a red car" :) and Ryan just kept yelling "Daddy! Daddy!" :)

Ryan helping Eric announce the races :)

He liked the racing a little more than I wanted him to :)

Sunday was finally Easter! We went to Church where the kids got to see the Easter Bunny. Then lunch and a visit to my Grandmas. We then had to head home for a little t-ball practice in the yard, playing in the dirt and a four-wheeler ride to end a very eventful week or memories!

Playing with bunnies at Great Grandmas house :)

Pink Eye, Memphis, Pink Eye

We went back to Fox & Fork on Tuesday to celebrate my stepdad David's birthday. Both my brothers and their families were there and my grandparents. It was so much fun! Good food, piano music, presents and ice cream cake! While we were there Noah told me his eyes had been itching that day. I saw he had some "sleep" in his eye, which was strange since he hadn't been asleep. I told Nathan while we were eating that I was betting he had pink eye - since it was going around really bad. I lost count of how many kids I knew that had it recently.

I knew all I could do was start disinfecting and washing hands extra and see what it looked like the next morning. Well, he woke up and freaked out! He could not open his left eye because it was so matted up! Four warm washcloths later he was able to open it. So, he got to spend the day with mom going to the doctor and work with me. Of course he requested Emerald Dragon for lunch so he could eat fried rice with carrots in it so they would help heal his eyes :)

On Thursday I made a trip to the airport to get my best friend Cassie. I love getting to see her for any amount of time I can, whenever I can, since she lives in Hawaii. But, I wish she were here under better circumstances. Her father is not doing well and her family could use all the extra prayers they can get - so please include them in yours! This was also St. Patrick's day and I must say I had two cute little pots of gold that day :)

Friday, after I volunteered at Noah's school, Nathan and I left for a little weekend getaway to Memphis to watch drag races. I asked if I could plan a few stops on Friday and Nathan was fine with whatever. So, we stopped at a shopping center an hour from home so I could do some Easter shopping without the kids at Target (I LOVE Target). After that I wanted TGI Friday for a late lunch. When we were leaving the house that day, Nathan was complaining that something was in his eye but that he figured it would work it's way out and it wasn't unbearable. Well, while we were eating, he decided it was unbearable. So, since it was 4:00 on a Friday afternoon we decided we had to act fast is we were going to find someone in this town to see him before the weekend. On my third call I got lucky and found a place! We had to hurry and pay our ticket and drive across town. They got him in right away and examined him. The doctor found something pretty immediately and let me look through the lens to see it - it was a piece of metal! It was so cool to see, it looked like a bullet in his eyeball! Then the doctor said he was going to need to drill it out. That got Nathan a little nervous and made me a little sick. So, he numbed him and drilled away! He got it all out and said there were a lot of little cuts on his lids too. He put a bandaid contact in and we were on our way again!

My other requested stop was at Bass Pro Shop in the Pyramid. Due to our pit stop we didn't get there until 8:00 p.m., but that gave us 2 hours to check it out. You can buy tickets to the top of the Pyramid so we decided to do that. The view was so pretty! The floor was glass too, which was cool! There was a restaurant at the top also. So, we decided to eat dinner up there before we left. The food was really good and the atmosphere was awesome. It felt like a lot of the restaurants we went to in Las Vegas. From there we met up with friends at Chili's for drinks and then finally to our hotel to check-in.

Saturday we got up and I was layering clothes on - insulated underwear and all and Nathan was laughing at me. I told him I knew how to read a weather app and he wouldn't be laughing later. We went to IHOP and then Nathan had me stop at Walmart to get him some more layers - maybe someday he will listen to me ;) The weather at the track was not great, but not snowing like last year! It was 55 degrees, but the wind was awful! When the sun was out it was actually nice, but it was rarely out all day. I wasn't miserable or anything - I had layers and a blanket to keep warm. As always, we made the best of it and had a great time!

Sunday, as we were driving home I got a text from my mother-in-law that had a picture of Ryan with pink eye and said "ready for round two?" UGH. So, she was started on Noah's eye drops then and I redisinfected everything I could in the house again. Nathan made chicken ka-bobs and we all ended our weekend with dinner and a movie.

We are SO thankful to our moms for always watching our kids so we can take little trips together and not worry about the kids at all. Now, we are ready to celebrate Spring Break for the first time with a school aged kid! We plan to squeeze a few adventures in where we can!

Kindergarten & Lazy Days

On Friday it was my turn to read to Noah's class again. It is funny to me how nervous this made me in the beginning of the school year and now I look forward to it! Noah picked out the book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" as one of the books this week. I got the idea to do a craft with it and have each child draw where a purple crayon could take them on paper like it takes Harold in the book. Noah was SO excited! The kids had a great time with it too. I got lots of hugs and saw so much creativity with the things they drew. I also had Noah's parent/teacher conference while I was there volunteering. Once again, his teacher had nothing but good things to say about him. He still needs to work on his cutting and gluing - but we agreed we think this is more of an issue of him hurrying and not him lacking the skills to do it. I was SO happy when the reading specialist told me that Noah came and read to her and she said that the way he reads and writes that he should be reading on the first grade level. So, she had me printed some of the first grade readers and Noah has been reading them to me at home. I am amazed at how well he can read them - it feels like all of a sudden he just took off reading. It literally is all I can do not to cry when he reads to me and I pretty much smile the whole time :) I cannot believe we are in the last semester of Kindergarten already!

Friday night I volunteered at the Rhea Lana sale. This is always so fun! The other girls I volunteer with are so nice and it is fun helping people find treasures for their kids! I did very well at this sale and am so excited to add that money to our Disney fund for the trip I am planning for this Christmas! (Yes, it is already Christmas at Disney World in November) :)

Saturday was our first day with absolutely nothing planned for the entire day. So, I cleaned house and the kids played all day. The weather wasn't the best but we did manage to play outside a little in between showers. We played Ninja Turtles, read Ninja Turtle Comics on the tv, Noah read me and Ryan stories, Ryan rode her four-wheeler, found a bird egg in the yard, played remote control cars, Ryan got to pretend she was a ballerina (she gets to take ballet once she is completely potty-trained), and played doctor. 

We I was a little stir-crazy that night so we decided to go glow-in-the-dark bowling - which is always fun!

Sunday, after church, I had a bridesmaid meeting for my friend Laikkens wedding coming up. We planned out the whole shower with good laughs and chocolate cupcakes on the side :)