The Puddles

Swamped.  Swamped. Swamped. We are trying to get ready to go tomorrow.  The kids and I went to the store on the way home from church to hopefully get everything that we need to get for the journey.  My plan is to buy the rest we need in Nebraska. The kids think that we are going on a field trip to the grocery store.  I swear Hilty’s should sell tickets, because my kids are more excited about going shopping there then they were when I offered to take them to the museum this week.  I stayed up until 3am last night trying to get more laundry done and get to the bottom of the mountain of papers on my desk (I’m pretty close to that one.).

We are looking for dead family members on the way home from Nebraska and I have almost all of my homework done on that one.  Satellite photos of cemeteries, lists of who to look for, maps to the cemeteries, and Dad’s phone number written in black on the notebook and we are ready.  The kids are excited.  They like running around cemeteries looking for names on the list.  Chris not so much.  But he is doing it for me and for his mom.

He is still working.  I just hope that he makes it home before dark so that he can fix my car before we leave on our trip.  He has worked since he got home from camp.  He did come home yesterday at 5:00 to go to the movies with us (which we have not gone to movies as a family since we moved here.) and then promptly went back to work (luckily he brought everything home to do it but still).

The kids are outside swimming in the little pool while I try to finish all of the laundry so we can back.  I just hope that I can get it done.  Well I’m off to put stamps on envelopes while I watch the kids swim (I’ll be about 10 feet away from pool so I don’t get the papers wet)!

“Madie took the last fudgy bar, but I accept her apology,” says Ainsley.  Not sure why Madie felt the need to apologize, but Ainsley was ok with it in the end.

We are so excited about tomorrow.  Madie comes  home.  I don’t know who is more excited. Me or the other two in the house.  There have been actual tears for the last two mornings because Madie wasn’t here. And by the way . . . they came from Ben.  He may give the quickest hugs on record but secretly he loves to love.

I am sure that Madie will not be overly thrilled to come home to our boring abode but she will get excited again once she realizes that we are leaving for Nebraska on Monday.  Way cool!  We are all excited.  We are excited about getting to see old friends and a bonus will be getting out of Conroe and the great state of Texas for awhile.  The borders of this state have kept me in for two years and it will finally release me on Monday! Yea!

Chris and Julie have done an awesome job posting wonderful pictures from camp.  I was asking too many questions from Chris tonight about how Madie was doing.  I told him that she looked troubled in a few of the photos.  He told me he wouldn’t put up any more pictures if I continued to read into them like that.  Whew! That was close.  I would have been devastated if he took pictures away.  Seeing the smiles on everyone’s faces in the pictures has me geared up to have another church garage sale in the spring.  We have to earn more money again to send everybody next year.  There are already five kids who didn’t get to go this year and who have said that they want to go next year.  That is really cool.  Chris will be excited for me to part with more of our stuff (he says we didn’t part with nearly enough).  Maybe we’ll have some baby items to sell.  My youngest did just turn five this week!!!  I can’t hang on to this stuff forever!

Chris’ video is awesome!  He posted it on his blog.  I am so happy to have my husband there with Madie. Especially when he does things like this!!  The photos were taken by Julie Weeks.  Thank goodness for both of their talents! I am almost feel like I’m there!

Day one with Madie at camp as been a rather laid back kind of day.  I let the other two kids play, play, play. No chores, too many snacks, let Ainsley play with makeup kind of day.  The house has yet to recover from the birthday party or today’s fun day.  I have to clean up tonight because Gordon’s coming in the morning and the poor boy should have at least a picked up house to play in.

We tried to have movie night tonight but nothing seemed to be going our way.  I couldn’t find the movie they wanted to watch. Then the movie that they did pick was so scratched up that we couldn’t see the picture but were able to listen to all of the words (weird). So . . . we just had to call it a night and go to bed.  This upset Ainsley who went to bed crying.  Then she cried so hard that her cough acted up which in turn caused her to throw up.  Poor thing. She didn’t make it to the trash can which upset her even more.  “I hate vomit on my clothes!  I don’t want to go to sleep on throw up, Mommy!”  Poor thing.  This got her so worked up that she threw up again.

So . . . her vomit covered clothes and bed covers are in the wash and she is fast asleep in the extra bed in Ben’s room.  So it’s off to bed for everyone because 6:30am comes awfully quick.  And I would like to have a least one cup of coffee on board before Gordon’s arrives.

“Listen, Ainsley.  It sounds different now that Madie isn’t in the car.  It’s . . . quiet.”  says Ben to his sister Ainsley as we drive out of camp where we left an upset Madie behind for an entire week of camp.

I am sure that Madie’s tears were just for my benefit and she’s settled into camp nicely.  Either way . . . Ben and Ainsley enjoyed each other the entire trip home without any arguments! Sounds like the beginning of a great week.

“It was perfect! It was just want I wanted!” said Ainsley in regards to her fifth birthday party tonight.

Ben has possible strep throat and Madie has microplasma (something like that.  some bacterial infection. same as Ben and I had last week.) So they both got antibiotics.  We’ll find out Monday whether it is actual strep with Ben. The rapid strep came up “maybe”.  According to the doctor, some of the nurses swear there was a line on the test while she couldn’t see one.  To be safe, the doctor is giving Ben medicine anyway.  Hopefully the poor boy will feel better soon.  We’ve been to the pharmacy to pick up meds, to the regular store to get Gatorade and disinfectant, and now we are home getting all of the sick ones tucked into bed.  Now we must pray that the illnesses stop and Madie doesn’t develop the Ben illness while at camp!

“Mom, will you tell the room to stop moving up and down?” asks Ben.

I turn off the lights. “Is that better?”

“No.  The room is now going wibber-wobber. It’s probably because I drank orange juice.” declares Ben.

Or could it be the 102 fever that he is suffering from?  Poor guy.