What a Week!

This week was a little different for us.

Paige was home every day with the boys as her play was over, which made our afternoons so much less stressful as we weren't travelling back and forth multiple times a day.

I also babysat three days this week: Tuesday was my friend's two kiddos while she had a doctors appointment, Wednesday was my honorary nieces, and Saturday was our friend's little boy while they had a conference all day. It was sooo nice getting my little kid fix in!

Building houses on Tuesday with some littles!

There were a lot of random and fun things thrown into our week as well:

We had a beautiful sunset one night...

My shipment of The Adventures of Boathouse Mouse Book 3 The Wrong Direction came in...

I started photographing newly made jewelry with a new set up for my Etsy store...

Ryan and I played Rummy....

...lots and lots of Rummy (he was home sick on Thursday)...

The boys got their summer hair cuts, leaving a small hair creature on the floor....

I got to see Nate's art work on display at school...

Each letter of his name is made up of a different animal!

I got bit by the one toothed vampire (routine blood work, nothing to worry about!)...

we started working on prepping our garden beds for the year...

and Mason looooved having little kids in the house all week! Yes, he chose to lay in the pile of toys rather than the clear spot on the rug!!!! Such a silly pupper.

This next week should be a little different as well. I have a doctor's appointment, the kids have their spring concert, I'm volunteering in Ry's class, I'm helping at the library in preparation for our open house Saturday, and then other normal activities/house projects fit in as well.

What have you been up to this past week? What are you looking forward to this upcoming week?

Recap of Vacation

Last week was Spring Break for Pete and the kids.

We had some projects to accomplish, places to go, and things to do.

But Mommy got sick. And slept. A lot.

It was just a nasty head cold; I think I caught it because Ryan had a cold on top of his spring allergies, so he was up a lot over a few nights (anywhere from 2 - 12 times a night!).

Sleep deprivation + a sick kid = Sick Mommy.

I was sleeping 10 or so hours a night, then getting a 2-3 hour nap in for a few days. I don't remember the last time I had been so tired!

I felt bad that I put a damper on some of our plans, but then the weather didn't cooperate too well either.

Here's what we did do over our week together:

- Took inventory of what needed to be done this spring/summer in our side yard, and got started on the projects:

Berry patch, three garden beds, and our apple trees
before we started to work

- We redid our veggie garden plan for this year. We're now able to fit what was in our three beds into two of our beds, freeing up the third bed for transplanting our raspberries into part and then planting our blackberry bushes that we ordered in the other part of the bed.

- Ryan fell asleep on Daddy:

Love this :)

- We celebrated Easter:

So much for a pretty picture!

- I had a PLUS (it's our school's PTA/PTO) meeting at Tim Horton's on Tuesday. Luckily I was feeling well enough to go. It was nice to get out of pajamas and hang out with some other adults over coffee and put finishing details on some of the awesome things we'll be doing for Teacher Appreciation week in May :)

- I had some much needed Mommy and Ryan time; he was thrown off having everyone home, so he asked if I could play with him in his room, just the two of us. How could I refuse?

We built a train track together

- I worked at the library for a four hour shift on Wednesday. I LOVE libraries. I feel like I've grown up in one; my mom used to volunteer and then work in the elementary school's library when I was in school, then when I was in high school I began volunteering there as well. In college I worked at their library, and I think it's one of the best jobs I've ever had. Working at a library again, even just for an afternoon, recharged my batteries and I can't wait to fill in again next time I'm needed :)

- We celebrated a birthday!!!! We now have a three year old in the house :)

- We went to the aquarium for Ry's birthday:
 

The penguins are one of their favorites

- We went to our church's annual chicken barbecue and auction. The barbecue raises money for our youth group; they support a child through Compassion, and this helps them provide for their child's needs throughout the year. The auction raises money for short term missions that some of our church's members go on throughout the year. The auction raised about $5400, and was a blast, as always! The theme for the auction is always "bid high, bid often". It is rare to get a good deal on something; food items (cheese cakes, pies, cream puffs) usually go for $50+; cheesecakes tend to go upwards of $100! The only things we walked away with this year were an Almond Joy cheesecake (Pete always makes sure I win that!), an all in one seed started for basil and parsley (my basil didn't survive the winter, and my herb garden doesn't have parsley), and a raccoon hat and mitten set for Ryan.

- We had Ryan's birthday party:

Ryan and his Grandpa opening gifts

Things that didn't get done:

- Our playroom didn't get painted. However, Pete and I did plan out what's getting painted what color, where we need trim still, and I did rip up the carpeting from the stairs. The stairs are actually in better condition than we thought, so we get to save money there. Yay!

Before...

....and after!

- We wanted to go over to Pete's parent's house to shoot pistols; we've submitted our pistol permits and are waiting to receive them. We're in the market for a pistol, but as I've never shot anything but a BB gun, we want to see what we like and would be interested in purchasing. We can do this at another time, but we were hoping to shoot then go shopping over break.

- I didn't get any organizing done in the basement. Not even 5 minutes worth. Oh well!

All in all, we got a lot done. I always make these huge long lists of things do do over vacations, and get disappointed when not everything gets done. But the important things were taken care of: we spent time as a family :)


What have you been up to lately?

Recovering

Ahhh, feeling somewhat healthy again is a wonderful feeling.

Over the past couple weeks, Nate has had 2 stomach bugs (a 5 day one and a 24 hour one), Ryan had the 5 day bug, Pete and Paige had the 24 hour bug, and looking back over the past week, it looks like I either had the 5 day bug or the 24 hour bug twice.

Not fun.

In the past 24 hours I have lost 4 lbs. Now normally I'd be cheering about that, but in 24 hours? No thank you. I'm pretty dehydrated, so I'm weak and uncomfortable. I'm trying to push the fluids to get my system back to where it needs to be; I feel like my insides slosh as I walk around I've had so much water this morning.

The part I always hate about getting over the flu or a stomach bug is that when I finally start to feel better, my brain is all "YES! Let's clean and do this project and this project and clean out this closet and oh, can't forget about this project!" and my body's all "Umm...you want me to stand up? AND walk 10 feet to the bathroom? You're kidding, right?".

No matter what my brain might say, I've learned in the past to take it easy when recovering. There is a Calvin and Hobbes book by Bill Watterson called Scientific Progress Goes "Boink". We were huge fans of Calvin and Hobbes when I was growing up (still are, in fact), and whenever I was recovering from the flu, some sort of bug, or a high fever, I had a tendency of passing out. Since my initials used to be SP, I was dubbed 'Scientific Progress' by my parents, and passing out became 'boink'. I called my parents today, and both of them warned me to watch it, saying that Scientific Progress was not allowed to go boink today without severe consequences from Drs. Mom and Dad.

So telling my brain to be quiet has been quite a challenge today. My house has barely been cleaned let alone picked up in the past week or so that I've been out of commission, and when it's cluttered like this, I get crazy and almost panicky. I'm only trying to do jobs that I can sit while I work, like fold laundry, but it's tough. I want to clean, I want to wrestle with my kids, I want to get up off the couch and not have to watch another movie.

But for today, I must relax and take it easy. Again.

Oh, and be thankful that I have an appetite finally :)


Am I alone in my crazy recovery brain/body battle?