Saturday, April 30th

Started off the day getting little house things done....changing the beds, changing the towels, doing laundry, putting things away, etc. Then it was off to Saturday Zumba. There were 133 people there in the gym zumba'ing away today! And Crystal brought out some new songs and choreo. My only problem with that...I CANNOT do the Running man for the life of me! I feel like a complete spaz!!! I wish that with some serious concentration I could pull off the new moves, but alas! I've pleaded with the girls to teach me how!!! After zumba the boys and I headed off to the car wash while Casey and Pete went to fetch the poker table for the party next weekend. It was here, while the boys were so very excited, that I realized how fun it is to see the world through their eyes. It gives me a chance to relive childhood, and appreciate the little, simple things in life much more. They squealed with delight when the water was squirting the car and making a ton of noise. And they squealed with delight once or twice more when I was getting them with the vacuum. They love the carwash!!!!! We came home and took a spin on the bikes and made it back inside just in time to see Uncle Pete! They love Pete!! Then it was time to break out the fingerpaint and create some awe inspiring masterpieces! It took them awhile because they're both a bit OCD like their mom, and aren't too sure about getting dirty when it comes to having paint all over their fingers/hands. They went back to putting their stickers on plain paper, and tracing around them. That's when I decided it was time to go enjoy the sun, outside, in the cold. I cannot freaking believe how cold it still is here, when tomorrow is freaking May. But oh well, enough said about that. We put batteries in the new bubble gun and they had a bubble duel! I just bought a thing of bubbles on Wednesday, and I'm sure it will be gone after a couple more bubble sessions...and the jug is ginormous! My cousin suggested a recipe for homemade bubbles...may have to give it a try!! After a wonderful cobb pasta toss we decided it's family movie night. So we're now enjoying the movie Tangled. The boys are so funny. They have denied wanting to watch it ever since it came out on dvd...but they really seem to like it thus far. Even though it's about a princess... I love my boys so dearly! : ) We shall see if I decide to watch a movie with the hubby tonight, or if I decide to head back down and scrap some more...lord knows I have enough to get done down there!!!!

Friday, April 29th

Another terrific Friday on the books! Started the day off with another kindergarten readiness program. Today the focus was on PE and music. They had a couple of BSU basketball players and one football player come to help with the PE portion. Lucas had a ball!!!! He was dying to do more than just dribble the ball with the bball players, but they wouldn't let them shoot baskets. He was really shy about letting me take his picture with any of the BSU guys, but finally gave in and humored me!! Zach was feeling much better thankfully, and made it the whole day without vomiting or any diarrhea!!!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!! We were able to go grocery shopping without any problems. We found another bubble gun, so that there will be less fighting about there only being one gun!!!!! Once Casey was done working from home, we headed over to the mall. Dinner was at Old Chicago...I had earned my adult beverage, bad news though, they switched their cider, so no more Ace Pear Cider...it's some granny apple cider now...meh! My big reward, and early mother's day present came when we headed out into the mall. Two new bras, after another fitting. The girls have settled into place and the previous ones weren't fitting properly any longer. Come to find out that I needed to go up a cup size...not going to complain since they fit properly now! We headed down to the store with the waterfall for the boys, and were on our way to see the puppies when we realized that the pet store isn't there anymore! SAD day for my boys. Upstairs to ride the cars. I checked out Lady Foot Locker for the pair of dance Nike shoes that I'd like to buy, but they didn't have any in black that I liked. So over to Roth's we headed, and I instead spent at least twice as much on a new pair of Dansko's. I love those clogs! And this pair is tooled, so they are brown, with dark, almost black designs all over them...thus, I can wear one pair with either brown or black instead of needing one brown pair and one black pair! If these last 6+ years like the last 2 pairs, then the hubby will be able to justify spending so much on one pair of shoes!! I am spoiled by my 3 boys! Lucky, lucky me!! And the night just got better once the boys went to bed...another 10 pages of pictures scrapbooked! I finished Zach's 2nd birthday party!!! And then I did 6 pages of Lucas' 11th month of life. And I came to the sad realization that it's gonna take me forever if I literally scrap every picture I've printed of my boys. So I'm going to have to stick to some highlights, and be picky with the rest! Easier said than done because I look at those pictures of Lucas, and his many expressions, and I have THE hardest time eliminating any of them! Oh well, he'll be 6 in September, so I really do need to get at least his first year done finally!! And Zach will be 4 in July, and I've only got 2 months done for him. Need to get on it! : )

Thursday, April 28th

Lucas attempting to fly his mini kite at the school behind our house

Some of my beautiful tulips

We woke up to a grumpy whiney Zach again this morning. He had about a 1/4 of his glass of milk and maybe that much of his breakfast bar, and he puked. So I decided that day 5 of this is long enough to not know what the heck is going on with this kid, and I took him to the doctor. Dr Bateman was out so we saw one of his colleagues, and Zach was not really into that, even though Dr Jordan was a very nice guy! He said that Zach's throat and tonsils were fine, no ear infection, his urine had a lot of ketones in it and was very concentrated (to be expected given his history of 5 days of this crap) but no signs of infection there, and he ruled out antibiotic induced c diff colitis from the azithromycin he'd had last week for his bronchitis. So his official diagnosis, prolonged viral gastroenteritis. Good news that it wasn't something horrible....bad news that we have no idea what's really causing this, nor when it will end! His butt is raw from the diarrhea, and obviously hurts badly since he wants me to put diaper cream on it. My poor little man!!!!!!! Had to cancel swim lessons today since I don't want to pay the cost of cleaning up puke from the pool...and/or diarrhea! Lucas is driving me absolutely insane because he's been cooped up in the house too much these past several days with mom and brother being ill. So tonight after dinner I took him back to the school (in front of our dining room windows, so dad and brother could watch) and had him try out his mini kite. The wind had been howling so I thought it would be perfect weather for it, but alas, the wind wasn't constant, and he's not good enough to keep it going! But he ran up and down the length of the school several times trying to get it going good... and more importantly, he had a lot of fun trying! Can't wait to do it again when Zach is feeling better and can try too!! I noticed as we were coming home from the doctor's office this morning how beautiful my tulips are this year. Not sure if it's a combination of all the precip we've had and the mild/cold temps....or what it is....but they are BEAUTIFUL! I had to take a moment to smell the tulips and grab a few pics of them as well. Hard to believe I was enjoying photographing something so much when it wasn't my kids or some big event! ; ) And my biggest accomplishment of the day...the blog is FINALLY caught up!!!!!!! I'm going to kick myself in the butt if I let myself get this far behind again! Afterall, what is a journal if there aren't any entries in it!?!

Wednesday, April 27th

Zach woke up running around and looking like he was back to 100%! Woohoo...or so I thought! We dropped Lucas off at school, and then headed over to Target. The boys and I all got new sandals, and the boys got some new swim trunks. We were running critically low on bubbles so we bought the biggest jug that I could find! Then we made a Costco run. Brought everything home and put stuff in the freezer and fridge, and left to go get Lucas from school. I had just put gas in the car at Costco. And I came up with this totally random idea to head down to see Shoshone Falls on Thursday after swim lessons. I called Casey to see what he thought, and since he wasn't exactly dying to go (after growing up in Jerome and having seen the falls a million times) he was fine if I wanted to do it. Lucas asked if we could go now instead of waiting until tomorrow, so I called Casey back and informed him of the change in plans. I located the portable dvd players and put them in the car, grabbed some snacks for the return trip, and we left right after lunch! We had to make a stop in Mountain Home for Zach to poop, but he seemed fine, so onward we went. The falls were absolutely beautiful, and noisy to boot. Lucas had been asking me if there would be people waiting to ride over the falls, and if we could. Zach thought it sounded fun...and then they saw the falls! Lucas told me to be careful when I walked up to the railing of the fence to take a picture. He wanted to make sure that I'd never get my camera back if it fell down! Haha!! We didn't stay too long as Zach was starting to get really whiney. I figured he needed a nap, and the car ride home would be perfect timing. We made a slight detour in Jerome to see the house where daddy grew up, which Lucas thought was way cool. Only he didn't understand why he didn't get to see more of it. I told him that there were other people living there now, and they wouldn't want us to ring the doorbell and ask to see the inside of the house where daddy grew up...he still doesn't understand why that isn't polite! Zach could've cared less, but he was so tired and cranky at that point. We headed back down the road and Zach finally decided to sleep when he hit the off ramp at the mall. So he got about 15 minutes of nap, since we hit Boise straight up 5 o'clock and rush hour traffic. We weren't even home 5 minutes, and as I was taking sleepy, cranky boy's shoes off he puked all over me and the floor. Arghhhhhh!!! Here we go again!!!! He crashed on the blankets at the side of the couch, Casey cooked dinner, and I got to clean up the mess. After dinner Casey and Lucas headed outside to water the sod where the construction had torn up a part of our lawn. Zach perked up and decided to go out and play with dad and brother. He was out there having a grand old time playing with bubbles and such. That kid loves to keep me guessing as to what he's up to. The boys also got their first real shower tonight. Lucas has decided that it's time to learn how to shower, so that means that they both get to learn how to shower! Lucas should be good to go on his own here after a few more times with my help. Zach on the other hand...it shall be awhile!!

Tuesday, April 26th

Woke up feeling a tiny bit better, but oh so tired from Zach being awake one million times throughout the night. The craving for my Starbucks was intense, but I didn't figure that it would be good for my tummy. My Sprite and Cherry Coke Zero was going to have to do the trick. I get to work and my tech was not feeling well either, so he went home as soon as my 2nd tech got there. Thankfully, even though we had our warehouse order to put away, it was a relatively slow day, and it didn't beat me up too bad. We ordered Papa John's pizza since I hadn't had much nausea that day. Zach hadn't puked all day, although he thought he had to a couple of times. I was lazy and watched Biggest Loser and the new Voice show before calling it a night.

Monday, April 25th

Woke up feeling terrible, dealing with immense nausea and diarrhea for myself....and more puking from Zach. Called in to work, but decided not to call in for Tuesday morning, which I was sure to regret after the fact. And to top off all of this, my damn cell phone was giving me much grief. I had to plug the magic jack back in so that we could use the home phone. Come to find out that Casey was having the exact same issues with his cell phone...at least he had a work phone to use in the meantime. While commiserating with Zach, mother nature entertained us with quite a springtime thunder and lightning storm. The rain was pounding down, and Lucas tells me, 'wow mom, that cow has a really full bladder today'. Made me laugh quite hard! It's because I'm always telling him that it's raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock. One of the things I always heard my dad say to me growing up. I so needed that on a day like this...there's nothing worse than a sick kid except when mom is sick too! I didn't have energy to even load the dishwasher or do some dishes. I had no choice but to do a few loads of laundry however, with all of the puking that was going on. And the movie filled afternoon with us lying around was the perfect time to work on getting my dear blog caught up. I'm getting there, and vowing not to get so darn far behind again!!!!! A few minutes a day is all that's necessary, but somehow it just doesn't get high enough on the priority list most days! I've decided that the picture thing is part of my mental block against it, so I'll focus on the words rather than the pictures, and if I should happen to have a picture it'll be a bonus for the day! I tried at the last minute to call Krystle and switch shifts with her for Tuesday, but she wasn't feeling well either, so it was an early bedtime for me, in the hopes that I may be semi ready for Tuesday morning at work (with no Starbucks no less).

Happy Easter, Sunday, April 24th

Easter morning! Such fun for the boys! The EB put an egg right next to Lucas' clock, and so even though he was awake long before it, he waited patiently until 7:30 to start the hunting, and came running ever so excitedly into our room to inform us that the EB had been here! They discovered their baskets and their goodies! Megamind and Bolt were the 'big' gifts. They also got new color wonder coloring books and markers, mini kites and chocolate bunnies. It was so much fun to have both boys sooooo into the holiday spirit this year! They went to church with Grandma after breakfast. Casey and I went for a bike ride since I didn't have time for 1 and 1/2 hours of running, and hadn't done any of my long runs. As soon as I was done with that it was time for all of the preparations to begin. Ham, twice baked potatoes, spinach dip, salad, dinner rolls, jello salad, green bean casserole and veggies for the dip were what's for dinner. I had also planned a beautiful egg shaped fruit pizza for dessert, and it turned out marvelously! And then 15 minutes before everyone arrived, and 45 minutes before dinner was to be served, Zach started puking! Talk about stress...I hadn't finished cooking, and with Grandpa's surgery just over a week away, I was worried about him or Grandma getting sick. UGHHHHH!!!!! So what started off as a very happy Easter ended up in misery for Casey and I, and my poor little man!