Been a While

My father-in-law likes to remind me (in a totally non-passive aggressive way) when it has been too long since I updated my blog.

I feel like we’re finally coming up for air (for just a brief pause before I go under again—Grant has class all next week!). Let’s backtrack a bit, shall we?

The last time I took pictures on my camera was May 24th. I think that’s because things got pretty crazy for a while after that. And I finally got a smart phone, so I took a few pictures here and there on that instead of my camera. It’s so nice to finally join the smart phone crowd! I think my favorite benefits to the smart phone are being able to see the entire conversation in a text (and not having to send 10 texts for 2 sentences) and being able to take video!

Here’s what we were doing on May 24th:

Phaedra got to go to work with her daddy since she didn’t get to go on take your child to work day. While she was gone, it was just Curtis and me at home, so I let him do one of his favorite activities: painting!

After Phae spent a few hours at work with her daddy, they came home to watch Curtis so I could go to the movie party that Eleanor earned. All the kids at her school who read over 10,000 minutes got to go to the local dinner theater to watch a movie and have pizza and popcorn. She also got to go to the pizza party on a different day that was for all the kids who read over 5,000 minutes. I’m so proud of her and her love for reading. Out of her class, only she and one other boy got to go to the movie party, and there were only 30 kids out of the whole school. She was the top reader in her class. And after I worked so hard to make arrangements to go to the party with her, she wanted to sit by two friends instead of me. I shrugged it off and sat behind her. Once the movie got going, she got scared and came to sit by me. So we both got our way .

That evening, we went to visit Studio Grandma for a while. I had to take a picture of Phaedra before we got her cleaned up for bed. This is what happens to Phaedra after a little time playing outside. Look at those feet. She is such an outside girl! I think her idea of a perfect day would be playing in the mud and dirt all day and finding worms and slugs.

That Sunday, the girls were playing rough while Eleanor was wearing a baseball cap, and the cap got shoved down onto Eleanor’s open eye. She screamed and cried and wouldn’t let us look at it. When we finally did get a look, we could tell she had what looked like a corneal abrasion. The next day was Memorial Day, so we couldn’t get her to a doctor. We went to a family gathering, and she spent the whole day with her eyes closed (she said it hurt her sore eye to open the other one). I sat by her some of the time and read to her, and her cousins had a good time helping her eat. We got her to the doctor on Tuesday, and what we thought was confirmed. She was healing, though, with no signs of infection.

That Friday, we took the girls to a birthday party, and Grant and I went out to dinner with Curtis. When we picked up the girls, I nearly got in a car accident because someone wasn’t watching where they were going. It was so close, the elderly gentleman pulled over to apologize to me. That’s certainly something that doesn’t happen every day.

The next morning around 3am, Eleanor started throwing up and didn’t quit until dawn. The next Tuesday was Phaedra’s turn. Grant went to class on Thursday, and during that night, Curtis had his turn to vomit all night. Thank goodness I had help from Grandma and a friend to help me get a break and catch up on some sleep. After we thought we were in the clear, Grant got sick early Monday morning. I finally was the last to fall last Thursday. Altogether, it was 2 weeks of the stomach flu at our house, and it was awful!

Phaedra once she finally fell asleep after being sick in the night.Curtis during his sick night. He got to watch plenty of Shaun the Sheep with Mommy.

There were other things that happened during the last few weeks, but our ailments have pretty much overshadowed them. Eleanor got out of school for the summer, and we’ve finally been able to enjoy it a bit this week. I certainly have been appreciative of our health this week.

The much awaited verdict on the job for Grant seems to have past the time when we would have received a yes. That’s okay. I’m sure we’ll end up where it will be best for us when the time is right. Having the patience to get to that point is the main issue for me.

I’m looking forward to getting going on our summer. I want us to have all sorts of fun with friends and family. I want us to go camping and hiking. I want to get the girls into swim lessons again. Ah! Summer is too short already!