Our Inside Picnics!

We are all starting to get a little bit of cabin fever. We were very excited with some of the weather we had last week. On Friday it was so NICE out! The kids ran around and played outside. The only downside is the mud, but I can deal with that. The kids thought it was great and I just let them go. The girls are getting older and know our rules of outside. We have the one road beside us that some cars go way too fast on. So they always have to come talk to me before going across (with me watching). It's been good for them to stop, look and look again, before crossing to go see the cats at our neighbours house.



With the cold, windy, snowy and just plain yucky weather we've had, I've had to think of different things to do. One of my kids favorites is a picnic for lunch time. They always do it in my room while they watch "Clifford". It's an easy lunch and they all eat it so good, including DJ! So we've done it a few times. I'm afraid to say with all this gross weather we've gotten into a bad habit of watching too much tv. I think it's the combination of sick kids and cold weather. The girls have been complaining about the weather too and asking if winter is ever going away! They want to play outside!


Last Tuesday I watched Ali and Mary for the day. They all decided that they needed a bath. So we took turns and that's what we did in the morning was play in the bathtub! I got a picture of my girls with Ali in the bathtub together. They had so much fun. DJ and Mary had fun in the bath too! It's was the perfect way to get through the morning!
Here is Brianna, Cadence, Ali and Abbi in the bathtub about 3 years ago. So my girls were 2 1/2 yrs and Ali was 2 yrs old.

Now here they are today, Abbi, Brianna, Ali and Cadence! They had a blast in the bathtub!
Here's Ali, Mary and DJ. DJ thought it was great to show Mary his car toys in the bathtub!

Then for lunch they all had a picnic in my room. The kids all thought it was great and it was great for me too. Easy to clean up and everyone was happy!
Lunch time! Brianna, Cadence, DJ, Ali, Abbi and Mary eating their lunch!

We had a pretty good week. Cadence got sick last weekend. It happened quickly and it actually a very violent 24hr flu for her. I ended up taking her into the hospital at midnight, Sunday morning. She couldn't stop throwing up and dry heaving. She had nothing left to throw up, but she still couldn't stop. I got scared when blood started coming up, so I ran her in. The doctor was really good and checked her out and was initially worried about her appendix. But we both had our doubts. He said that she must of popped a blood vessel and that's why there was blood. They gave her gravol, in a way that she couldn't throw it up! We came home and she slept ok. By Tuesday she was feeling great. Luckily nobody else got it. Still not sure where she got it from, it came on so fast, poor girl!

Nothing too exciting happened this week. I was just busy with kids in school and keeping the house clean. You know, the normal. Yesterday we cleaned up the yard and house really good. It was pretty nice out and it felt good to clean things up. The wind blew ALL our toys and stuff outside EVERYWHERE. The kids and I took our bottles in too. They helped me and I stopped afterwards and they each got to pick a treat out. While they were eating that I quickly wash our very dirty burb!

In the afternoon the girls were bugging me about playing with friends. I told them they could run over to Lilly's house and ask her to come out to play. She lives at the end of our block. They've never gone over before. I didn't realize she lived there (she's in the girls class at school) till later. I thought it was a family with older kids. Which it is, but Lilly is the youngest. Anyways I told the girls to do it on their own. It took them about an half hour, between running back and forth, to finally get the courage to knock on the door! They ended up going inside the house, so I walked over to make sure everything was good. Abbi and Cadence ended up staying for a couple hours, while we ran to my parents house so Richard could look at their hot water tank. I wasn't planning on leaving them there, but when we stopped by to pick them up Barb (Lilly's mom) insisted that they stay, since they were having so much fun together. So we just had Brianna (she chose to come with us) and DJ with us. Kind of nice! Brianna, Abbi and Cadence playing with the cats at the neighbours house. It was so nice out and they loved running around outside. They all fell asleep so quickly that night!

Last night after the kids had their baths, I decided to put curlers in Cadence's hair. Of course, the other two wanted them to so I did. This morning I took the curlers out and we had some pretty curly hair. Cadence was out of this world curly, though! It was so tight that it looked like she had a curly wig on. Abbi summed it up perfectly when she said, "You look like a clown Cadence." That didn't phase her at all, Cadence replied, "That's ok I look like a clown, but I'm no clown, right mom." While she was happily bouncing around as she was watching herself in a hand held mirror. So funny! She loved her hair. Abbi on the other hand was not impressed with hers and I caught her in the bathroom spraying her hair and brushing the curls out.....grrrrr. I stopped her before too much damage was done and showed her how I was going to put her hair half up. Then she was happy!

Cadence loved to look at herself in the mirror. She walked around with the mirror for most of the morning!

Cadence's crazy curly hair! So cute!
Ready to go to church. I wasn't quick enough to get everyone, me and Cadence were the slow pokes. Everyone else were already in the burb ready to go!

At church today we got there 15 mins early and got the kids settled and had them go to the bathroom before it started. It worked out great. Well during the sacrament song DJ got annoyed with Brianna, who was bossing him around. Before I could stop him he turned and threw his little truck at Brianna's head. It hit her right in the middle of her forehead. She started sobbing, but luckily I got her settled down on my lap. He can be a little stinker sometimes!

Every week the girls always take their scriptures to church. The primary presidency has tried so hard to get all the kids to bring them. So they started a thing where whoever brings their scriptures can put a penny into a big jar. The idea is to earn enough money to buy scriptures for someone. It's worked so good, almost 95% of the kids bring their scriptures. My girls kept telling me they needed some. So I bought them a tiny Book of Mormon and a scripture carrier for each of them. We just decorated their carrier with their names on it. They love them! So every week they bring their scriptures to church.

Well that kind of summarizes what we've been up to the past week or so. Hope everyone has a GREAT week!