Guess who got braces today?!! Here is our Erin before braces this morning, as we were waiting for her to be called back.
And after the 2 hour process.
She chose orange and green rubber bands. (They were out of blue.) She did well...is a bit sore, but is anxious for a beautiful smile! She is disappointed in the long DO NOT EAT list. That will take some getting used to, but well worth it.Last nite was another pack mtg for our Josh. They started out with a balloon relay, splitting the boys up. younger vs. older. They had to run down the parking lot with the balloon tucked between their legs. They could do anything, run jump, skip...anything to get the balloon down, except for touching it with their hands.
The younger boys won! :)
Then they raced with ALL the boys.
These two tied.
Then it was another game inside...follow the leader, but then on fella went outside and didn't know who the leader was. He had to guess which boy was the leader. Josh had a fun time last night!Since moving to the Emerald City, I have looked forward to this time of year every year. It is berry pickin' time. The Wardlings and I drove by our local strawberry farm this week and made notice of the sign that said the farm was open. This morning after speech, Jacob, Penny and I were o.f.t. to the fields to pick some berries. The actual picking doesn't take long when the berries are being picked by 3 sets of hands. Penny was thrilled to be able to hold the basket, while Jacob was simply on the prowl for the biggest, reddest berries. We accomplished our goal of filling up our basket with the juiciest berries we could. When we came home to the brown house, we washed, sliced, froze a bag and sliced another bag for dessert tonight...minus the pound we probably ate in the process. The big Wardlings had to get on the juicy strawberry action too with some yummy strawberry/banana smoothies after school. mmm...strawberries.
Yesterday we had to travel back to Duke for a follow up MRI for Erin. After a rocky start, we made it to Durham with 2 minutes to spare. {A special shout out to R and her girls & my v'ter, J who watched the Wardlings for us. You gals are spectacular!} We found a great parking spot in the Duke parking lot too! I am so glad that we made it on time, because the Radiology dept. was backed up and had we been just 5 minutes later, we would have had to have waited much, much longer than we did; which would have been extremely hard on our fasting Erin. Once Erin was back having her MRI, there was this toddler, barely 18 months old who was having a scan done and was so hungry and thirsty that she screamed for nearly an hour straight. She screamed herself to sleep. Erin did really well. She did wake up when she had 20 minutes left and she toughed it out without sedation. I am so very proud of Erin! Being in the MRI scanner for 2 1/2 hours is so difficult and she did beautifully!!
Today was a blood drive at church. One of my New Year's resolutions is to donate blood twice this year. This being @ church was the perfect opportunity to go. I walked in, filled out my questions and donated blood. I bleed fast, so it really didn't take long to fill up the bag. My parents were there, along with some dear friends from our old ward in Asheboro...{you know who you are! :)} Everything went well, until I sat @ table. I was chatting with one of the gals on my visiting teaching list and all of a sudden, I felt very light headed. Kudos to the American Cross people. They were there lickity split and moved me behind a partition thing, blew a fan on me and gave me more juice and crackers. Talk about embarrassing. Plus -I totally freaked my parents out. Way to go me!
Then of course, in pure Ashley style, the near fainting today, when donating a simple pint of blood. I have always thought that I had donated enough blood in childbirth, but it was nagging @ me to donate, since I am not pregnant or nursing a baby. My favorite quote of the day was said by a fella, one of the volunteers from my folks' ward, "Don't sit by Ashley, she faints." I will fulfill my New Years resolution of donating @ least one more time this year. I'll just come in to the donation center with an asterick beside my name..."Fainter." :)We are so very proud of our Wardlings! They all got A's and B's on their report cards. There was one lower grade, but we are happy with their report cards. To reward Libby, for being on the A/B Honor Roll, she was invited to an Honor Roll Breakfast. Jacob decided that he was wearing his Spiderman costume for the day. Now Jacob isn't one to draw too much attention to himself, so I told him that if he wore Spiderman that he would be getting looks and comments. He didn't seem to mind until we got into the library for the breakfast. He got loads of comments and even more looks. He asked me why people were saying stuff about him and all I could say was that I had warned him about wearing the costume and that we as adults were jealous.
Wouldn't it be great to 'dress-up' for work or play everyday and have it totally understood. I mean think about it...mmmm....Monday, I'm wearing my cape, Tuesday is Wonderwoman, Wednesday is Supergirl, Thursday Elmo all the way, and Friday is Rainbow Brite day. Then Saturday, while going to Costco, I'll sport my camo Princess Leia. Sweet! We, as adults, only get Halloween and let's face it gals, we are either witches, some type of fuzzy animal...cat, rabbit, or something like a street walker. It'd be great to be 5 again sporting our tutu or jedi cape and light saber where ever we went and have no one think anything, besides how darn cute we were.
Alrighty- enough of my ramblings on....
Jacob was adorable in his spiderman suit as was even a hit when we went to have the oil changed in the van. Jacob, our Spiderman...You ROCK!!
I started this sweater last week. I am undecided if I like it or not. It was started as a gift for a boy I know, but I'm unsure if it is masculine enough. It is knitted with just plain celery green cotton yarn that our Maylee and her Jared gave me. thoughts? opinions? I didn't want to go any further until I thought about it some more.
Sunday night this is how we found our boys sleeping. It is no wonder that Josh wakes up tired most mornings.
First day back to school for 2 of the Wardlings today, after a week of Spring break. 6 am kicked my butt, merely because I couldn't fall asleep last night. The last time I checked the clock, it was 3:34am. blech. I hate nights where my mind is still awake racing. Or the nights where I am exhausted and falling asleep on the couch, but when I go upstairs and get into bed, I'm awake. Maybe after speech this afternoon, I can sneak in a nap. maybe...
Spring break for Clyde and Erin was a joke. Their county canceled the majority of spring break due to the last snow storm. They only had Good Friday and yesterday off from school. While our county schools still have this entire week off. The perk to Clyde and Erin is that their school ends a week earlier than Libby and Josh's. We only had a few days so we decided to take the chance to get out of town and we headed to the beach to visit family. We had a great weekend. Friday felt like Saturday though. We made it to the flea market on Saturday and Clyde and I did go eat @ the crab legs buffet. Awesome.
When we were finished eating we were stopped by one of those tour people and decided to take a tour of a 'vacation opportunity.' Really we went for the $80 that they would give us @ the end of the tour. As promised it took nearly 3 hours. At the end of a very long demo, video all about 'owning your vacation' we, along with our guide went to tour one of the condos that we could stay in. It was beautiful. However, knowing our budget, I know that there was no way, right now, that we could pay the nearly $600 per month for the next 10 years to 'own' our vacations. After explaining it to them, our guide brought in the 'closer' to try to get us to finance it, sign a paper giving consent to check our credit and was getting really pushy. (He lost my respect...the closer...from the get go when he insulted us about having 5 children. He said that it was "cheaper to buy a VCR." creep.) So when he...the closer brought out his pen and paper and tried his best to sell us something, I snapped. After a brief bold few minutes, of firmly telling him NO!, he got up and left. And so did we, but with $80 and no contract. I would go on a tour again, for the gift. The funny thing about this vacation deal, was how big they were on 'owning your vacation.' When in the end, after we kept telling them no, they offered us a lease on our vacation. Twenty-two months of $118, so many points to spend and no obligation. So really we could still 'rent' our vacation.
We went to the ocean once we returned from our tour. It was so pretty. It was 7pm by the time we got down to the water, but it was still light enough to play. I really enjoy sitting and watching the Wardlings play @ the beach. The Wardlings had so much fun, feeding the birds, playing in the sand, looking for sea shells etc., that the time flew while we were on the beach. We did have one rule...not to get wet. We understand about getting wet up to your ankles, but the weather was still chilly, very breezy, and the water was freezing. Of course a few of the Wardlings didn't listen and thus Clyde was the bad guy as shown on the video.
Sunday we got up and headed for sacrament. I was excited when I saw that there was going to be a special music number with "I know My Redeemer Lives." (It's one of my favorite hymns.) And yet very sad when it wasn't done. There were 2 gals who spoke about either leaving for her mission or returning, but the talks were not Easter Sunday material. I was a bit disappointed, truth be known. However, we were still together and that was what was important.
After sacrament we went outside of Grammy and Papa's ward building to take pictures in our Easter clothes. I was slow this year in my planning and thus the clothes were made within a day or two. I knew what I wanted to do, had the fabric, but I was just slow. The boys got matching Star Wars ties, Libby and Penny got a dress, while Erin got a shirt and a skirt. I had cut out 2 dresses like Libby's, but the sizing was off, even though I cut out the right size for Erin's measurements. I didn't do a muslin dress one first, which was my fault, so I got a beautiful dress that only fit our beautiful Libby. That left me scrambling for Erin. I was so glad that I had enough fabric for a skirt for Erin (which I made without a pattern. I'm very proud...) and a peasant top shirt. The shirt turned out so pretty. I used a white cotton eyelet and then tied a ribbon around her waist and boy was she pretty. She looked like a model. Penny wanted yellow, of course and so that's what she got. She was so mad that she couldn't wear the yellow dress as soon as it was finished. I don't think that she would have taken it off.
Grammy, Papa and the Wardlings dyed eggs and Grammy and Libby hid them for the other Wardlings to find. It was cute to see them run around Grammy and Papa's yard looking for eggs. Penny really got into it this year.
Libby and Josh were invited to stay the remainder of the week with Grammy and Papa. It feels weird without them here. Overall, we had a spectacular weekend. Now...it is back to work/ school for Clyde and Erin and a mountain of laundry to do. :)
A few nights ago, Erin wanted to straighten her hair. Clyde was so sweet and volunteered to do it for her. She jumped @ the chance for Dad to do her hair. He used to dry it and straighten it all the time when the girls were younger. Now that they can do it on their own, we have stopped doing it for them. {sigh} It was just a nice moment. He brushed the boys' hair and styled it as well. My Paul Mitchell Clyde...
The same day, Jacob ran into our dining room table...face first. The bruise was instantaneously purple. Then there was the swelling. We put a bag of frozen corn over it and the swelling did go down a bit, thankfully. He looks like he lost a fight, AKA Rocky. Then the next day, Josh came home with a bruise on his cheek. He said that a boy in his class and he were playing Star Wars, on the playground, and that he ran into a pole. Boys.
A few years ago, Penny was really sick. She maintained a high fever of 104- 105 for days. We had taken her into the pediatrician several times, to which they couldn't figure out why she had the fever. She didn't have an ear infection, strept, the flu, pneumonia, or anything bacterial, warranting antibiotics. After several days of this high fever, Clyde took Penny back into the dr. and her recent blood work, yep, blood work, showed a high white count, indicating an infection but they didn't know where. To rule out a UTI, they had to use a catheter, on our 15 month old. This she hated, but she hated Clyde even more for taking her and allowing the dr.'s and nurses to do what they did. That dr.'s visit seriously damaged Clyde and Penny's relationship. She didn't trust him anymore. Since that visit, she has been wary of Clyde. It has taken nearly 2 years for Clyde to gain her trust back. She has been warming up alot lately and we can say that 'lellow' has something to do with it. We have never named our cars. They are what they are...the van, the wagon, the fox etc, until we bought the beetle. It has been lovingly named Yellow by Penny. When we saw the beetle on craigslist, we liked it for being a turbo, a 5-speed, & a VW beetle. It was Libby who pointed out that Penny would be in (say in a high pitched voice) Heaven, because it was yellow.
Clyde and Penny had a real bonding moment this past Saturday when they washed yellow. She loves to be a helper and Saturday was no different. She helped Clyde scrub yellow. She had her hand crocheted dishtowel scrubbing away. She lifted up the windshield wipers to wash the glass even. When it was time to rinse the car she stood behind Clyde, holding the hose with him.
Then he gave Penny the hose and she delicately rinsed Yellow, taking her time on the rims, the handles to the car,the windows, it's doors & the inside of our garage. :)
Then when Clyde was giving Yellow a final rinse, she walked over and just held his hand. What a sweet moment to have witnessed. And we owe it all to Yellow.
This is just our typical Jacob. I turned around to find this:
Our Friday was a busy Friday. We started out with a Terrific Kids ceremony for Josh @ school. Their school has a ceremony and then serves a small breakfast. We are very proud of Josh and his wonderful accomplishments. His teacher had some really kind words to say about him. Way to go Josh!
Josh was a bit nervous when accepting his certificate, pencil, and bumper sticker.
Once the ceremony was completed we then had to race to a lab to have some blood work done for Miss Penny. She was a trooper and thankfully there was a spare pair of hands to help hold her down. She was so upset. Of course, in true big brother style, Jacob laughed. Penny didn't even want the nurse to put a band aid on her after she was done. When we were leaving the building, Penny was still crying and screaming, but screaming for her Dadda. I felt really small. I know though had Clyde taken her for blood work, she wouldn't have spoken to him for a week.
(Penny's speech teacher gave her this really cute yellow rain jacket & a yellow duck umbrella. She carried the umbrella around everywhere yesterday and only took the raincoat off when she became too hot to wear it. This girl loves yellow!)
We made it home in time to open the door for the older Wardlings to get off the bus. We had a bit of a breather, when a friend called to remind me about the Family Support Network's annual Children's Museum Night. We hurried to get our shoes on and we were out the door again for some family fun @ the Museum. Clyde and Erin met us there on their way home from school. The Wardlings loved the museum. After we checked in Penny ran into the market of the museum. She was really excited to play. In the dr's office, in the museum, Clyde found a shot needle and thought that Penny would totally flip, since she had just had blood work herself, but instead Penny was brave and stuck out her arm like a pro. The boys were total monkeys climbing on everything. The big girls played just as hard as everyone else. It was a fun nite. I was so exhausted from our day, that I put myself to bed around 8:30; haven't done that in a long time. It felt really nice.
