Spring Break

Day 1:
In the interest of keeping myself sane during Spring Break, I decided to tackle one major project a day and do at least one fun thing with the kids. So, the project of the day was to clean out and organize the hall closet. We were successful! We threw out 2 grocery bags of junk and have a neat, clean closet that will last for at least a day. ;) (See Mom, I *can* tidy up!)

For our fun thing, I picked something out of the latest Family Fun magazine. We cut pictures out of a magazine and glued them onto cardstock. Then we shuffled the cards and told a story with the picture. The kids didn't know what we were going to do with the cards when we finished, so they got a lot of interesting pictures and told good stories. Even Eldon enjoyed it, because he begged to tell more stories, but at the same time telling me it wasn't any fun. I think he's trying to grow up and pretend he's not interested in what we're doing, but he really is. Oh boy, we're starting to grow up! P.S. Later that night, I heard Eldon telling James about the incredibly fun thing he did making story cards. :)

Day 2:
Laundry Day! Eldon went to his friend's house to play for the day, and we had some friends come over to our house to play. It was a lot of fun.

Day 3:
Eldon went to the IMAX with his friend to see Planet Earth. They also donated some used books in celebration of Earth Day. I went to the first class of a cake class. Lots of fun! My tulips are huge! I took a picture of this one that I picked. It opened up as big as my hand.

Day 4:
What a day. Erica had an MRI, so a wonderful lady in our ward came over at 6:30AM (see, told you she was wonderful) to stay with the kids (side note - and there were many others that would have done it if their schedules had allowed. Such great people around!) Went to CCMC, and Erica yelled at every nurse that tried to talk to her because she did *not* want to get an IV. It was finally our turn (about 8:30) took her into the MRI room where they put the gas mask on her to knock her out. It worked. After the MRI it took her a while to wake up. Drank some ginger ale and pulled out of sedation. When she was ready to go, she tried to sit up and flopped right over to the other side. We put her in her wheelchair and she was ready to go (about 11:00). But she was floppy and loooooooopy! We went to go see the neurosurgeon and the nurse kept asking her how many martinis she'd had. She was silly and giggly and just plain loopy.
The doctor said, yes, she has a tethered cord, but let's check the shunt first before doing an invasive tethered cord surgery. So the wonderful nurse get a CT scan for us that day, we head downstairs for a quick lunch to eat while we waited in the waiting room for our appointment. Erica got pizza, and I cut it up into bite size pieces and put it in a cup so she could hold on to it easier while we waited. She thought it was hilarious to eat pizza out of a cup. Score one for the mom!
Erica was very good and still during the CT scan. Then we were free to come home (about 1:30). Thanked my friend profusely for babysitting, and played with the kids for a while. Zachary went down for a nap, put a movie on for the kids, then *I* went down for a nap. Nice...
Woke up about 3:45 to my cell phone ringing in my pocket. It's the nurse telling me that Erica's ventricles are indeed enlarged and she will need shunt surgery. On Tuesday. This Tuesday. Oh boy. Call James and let him know, then start making dinner.
Eat waffles for dinner. So fast, so easy, and the kids *love* it. James came home from work, I left to go grocery shopping (no, even I can't take 4 kids grocery shopping), came home so James could leave to give a ride to someone. Put the kids to bed and crash on the computer. What a day! I'm done now.

Day 5:
Beautiful day! We took a walk after dinner to enjoy the day. Eldon cooked dinner (spaghetti and garlic bread) for one of his cub scout requirements. He did a great job. He even did the dishes, too. Our one chore/one fun thing a day thing never really panned out, but oh well!

Recent Happenings

I keep thinking I should blog about NY and Easter.  But I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say.  But I suppose I'll do it anyway to get it off my mind.

First, we had a lot family here for Eldon's baptism.  12 of us in the house and lots of fun.  That's what prompted the whole NY trip.  I'm glad we did it.

NYC

Day 1: Drove to New Jersey where our hotel was.  We only got lost once, but quickly found our way via a shady left turn.  No cops around, no accidents, all is well.  Settled into the hotel, went for a quick swim with the kids, and then took the bus into NY to go see Guys and Dolls at a Broadway Theater.  The bus took longer than we expected, so we got into the theater, said, "Whew, we made it," sat down, and the show began.  Literally.  Good show, a bit different than the high school production, in that when high school students perform a burlesque show, it's a bit tamer than Broadway performing a burlesque show.  Imagine that.  Then we walked around NYC for a bit until we caught a bus home.  We didn't stop anywhere for dinner, so we got something at a restaurant in the bus depot.  James - "I came all the way to NY to eat bus station pizza."

Day 2: Drove to Liberty Park to catch a ferry for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  Saw both.  A bit cold, but good times.  Perk: Having a daughter in a wheelchair moves you up to the front of all the lines.

Day 3: Went swimming with the kids, packed, and drove home.

It was a short trip, but a good one, because now I've been to NY, and I didn't even get mugged or pick-pocketed. ;)

Easter

Saturday morning we had a ward breakfast and Easter egg hunt.  Then we colored eggs at home.  I tried a new Easter egg dye that was at Aldi's.  You paint on the eggs instead of dying them, so you can do more things with it.  Good concept, bad reality.  One, the paint never really dried, it's *still* very sticky.  Two, 3 three kids & 1 paint pallet.  That's all I'm saying.  But they had fun and liked the new way of painting.  They were so sticky that we decided to hide the plastic Easter eggs rather than risk getting sticky goo all over our house.

I made the girls some skirts for Easter.  I got the inspiration from ChristyNelson.net and the directions from Kuky Ideas.  Friday night, while Erica was sleeping, I tried hers on and decided it was too short, so I had to add another layer.  I don't like the four layers, but it had to be done.  When I tried them on Sunday morning, Jessie's about fell off her itsy bitsy hips.  So we got out the safety pins, and they worked fine.

Dinner was the traditional ham (although it was actually leftover from when the family was visiting), potatoes, corn, breadsticks, and Easter bunny blueberry pie.  What, you don't have Easter bunny blueberry pie for Easter?  Neither do we, usually, but it sounded good and it was De.Lish.Us!

My favorite Easter thing: Eldon took me aside as I was going to the store and said, "Mom, since you and Dad are the Easter Bunny, maybe while you're at the store you can get some candy to put in the plastic Easter eggs we got at the ward Easter egg hunt."  Thanks, Eldon.  It's a good thing you're here to help out your completely incompetent parents.

Scouts

Eldon's officially a Cub Scout now.  He earned his Bobcat award last night at the Blue and Gold.  He had to memorize 7 things to earned it, and he did it in two nights.  We're so proud of him!