The Puddles

This weekend is going to be fun!  We are all going on a Cub Scout campout tomorrow.  Cub scouts like to camp “family style”, so we are all going including the girls.  It is going to make for an interesting time.  Boy is so pumped. He created his supply list as soon as he got home on Thursday from the meeting.  He thought he needed everything . . . especially a mosquito net hat.  Seriously.  Ainsley , Ben , and I ran errands this afternoon to get a few camping supplies and as soon as he found one, we had to buy it.  (Side note . . . Ben wants two things for his birthday.  1.  A survival kit by Bear Gryll. It was so awesome.  2.  Special flashlight that has a red, blue, green, and white light all built into one.  It is $30.00, so he didn’t get it tonight.  This flashlight allows you to see in the dark, see blood, and hide from animals.  Very cool.  Right up Ben’s alley.).

It is supposed to be really hot and humid tomorrow.  But there was no way I was going to let him miss his first scout campout.   We have his camel back, plenty of shade, ice, water, and everything else to get him cool and hydrated.  Ben’s list didn’t include any of the previous items, but it did include axe, knife, and hatchet.  Not yet, Ben, not yet.

Well . . . it is only 12:30am and we are all packed.  It only took three trips to the stores to get everything, and to make it worse . . . I still forgot the charcoal!  I guess I’ll pick it up in the morning.  Chris and Ben head out early.  Madie has a Girl Scout event and Ainsley has art class, so we won’t be at the camp site until after lunch.  But I’ve packed plenty of the essentials . . . bread and peanut butter.  They shouldn’t starve before I get there. (Chris said I only needed to pack those two things to eat, but I’ve inherited my mother’s propensity to be very prepared in the food and snack department.  So there are apples, pudding, cheese, chips, cookies, gatorade, popsicles, etc.  It is going to be a good day! )  Chris has to leave at night in order to sleep and prepare for worship in the morning, so it is going to be just me taking everything down and packing it up.  But I think I can handle it!

It is going to be a fun weekend!

Ainsley started the morning upset because she has mileage club in p.e. today.  She doesn’t like mileage club.  You have to run/walk for an hour. I told her to just walk and she said, “but you don’t get as many points!”  She is upset by this. So she decide (on her own) to make the best of it.

She comes bounding down the stairs wearing these socks (see picture) with beads on them. I said, “Wow, those are SOME socks.”  She says, “Yes, I know.  They will make good noise when I run today!”

You go, Ainsley. That is a way to make a positive out of a negative!

Ainsley is facing some consequences for not getting ready for bed in a timely manner (btw . . . the consequence was she and I didn’t read a book before bed.  After all, it was after 9:00pm.).  She is crying because she is not getting what she wants, but she is at least crying in a rational way. Not a full blown meltdown.  In her pleas to me, she says . . .

“Why is hard work so hard?”

By this point, she is so endearing that I am laughing.  She still didn’t get a book, but she did get extra snuggles for her plight.

Ainsley and Ben were picked to help Sam Houston students learn how to teach kids to write. In fact, Ainsley was selected to be the professor’s student. She was used as an example for all of the students. Ainsley kept telling me that she had tons of fans. She was right . . . 24 of them. They applauded every time she did something.

Carrying on one of our favorite traditions from Nebraska, we made May Day Baskets to share with all three classes at school. It was fun. All of the kids got involved. They designed the baskets, picked the goodies to add the baskets, and figured out how put together an assembly line to make all 70 baskets.
The kids are excited to share tomorrow. They spent dinner time trying to figure out how to leave the cups at the door, knock and then run away for the full tradition. But then they decided it was “silly”. Tomorrow will be a fun day!

We stopped at Children’s Place and picked Ben up some secret agent glasses. He looks fabulously awesome!!! My little man is growing up.

Who knew that I was still so behind. How is this blog suppose to be a chronicle of my children’s lives, when I can’t even keep up with it???!!!!  It is insane!  But still fun and worth it.  Each year I have all of the posts printed and bound in a book.  It is fun to see the kids look through the books and talk about the “old days.” The books are beautiful hardback books and it makes it look “real official” (according to Ainsley). So as much as I get behind, it really is worth it to try to catch up.  I want to remember all of it!

The kids are tired today.  Having gymnastics on Fridays was not my best choice.  By Fridays the kids are worn out and ready for being and home and doing nothing.  But unfortunately, this semester Friday was my only choice.  So I generally try to get Ainsley to take a nap before we go and I pray that Ben is not too distracted by the TV in the room next to him in gymnastics.  He can’t hear it, but he sure does love watching it!  It always has Cartoon Network or SpongeBob on.  All things that he is not allowed to watch on tv. So of course, he is mesmerized.  Today it got him in trouble with the teacher for not listening and he got so embarrassed that he couldn’t finish the class and cried on my shoulder for 10 minutes. He apologized to the teacher afterwards for not listening and she was absolutely gracious towards him.  Thank goodness. But in the next half hour after that, Ainsley got wacked in the head by a swinging door, bit her tongue in the middle creating some nasty blood and future scares, and finally she came home to take a shower and proceeded to get soap really badly in her eyes.  It took awhile to rinse it out.  Yuck. Poor thing.

Madie has had an equally horrible week due to STAARS.  Last night she was so anxious over who-knows-what, that was up until 2am (and so was mom). She went to school today, but when I went to do the AR party this afternoon she was a walking zombie.  I tried to bring some smiles to the class.  I bought the two classrooms Bluebell ice cream. The kids thought it was a neat surprise to show up too. So I scored brownie points today on that one. Plus the other kids walked around handing out the remaining ice cream to the other staff and teachers.  A great way to end a week of nasty testing.

Daddy is almost done with the bathroom!!!  The finishing touches are going up today.  Plus he is finishing the re-wiring project from a year ago so double SCORE!  It is a good day for results.  Hopefully we can keep it up tomorrow too!  He is working right now and making a light for my door so that the kids know when to not come in.  I think every work-at-home mom needs this one!! Maybe he can market it and we can retire!!

Madie wants me to post her violin recital but I can’t until I get caught up with the other pictures.  Hopefully I’ll get it done over the weekend.  Because Madie deserves to shine over her beautiful recital!

After gymnastics today, Ainsley asked to stop at the park. It is a gorgeous cool (although it is still almost 80degrees) evening and perfect for playing at the park. But alas, I still had to make dinner so we had to go home after only 20 minutes. It was a good way to end the week.

Madie sang in the choir representing Wilkinson Elementary.  The kids did a great job. Madie looked beautiful as always.  When they told the parents to come forward before the concert and take pictures, it was mass chaos.  It took nearly 10 minutes to clear out the parents so they could start singing.  The kids were fabulous.  Madie had a lot of fun doing it!

We certainly have a weird cat.  Chris called me down to see what was under the fridge. None of us realized where all of the ponytails were going in the house.  The cat has been collecting them from the bathrooms and bedrooms and bringing them downstairs to “store” under the fridge.