First day of school...

We had a great first day of school last week. Parker went gloriously well! It was a miracle after all we endured last year. I'm giving the credit to neurofeedback and our summer of those treatments and getting him off SSRIs. He started 5th grade at the intermediate school. He won't admit that he likes it but I think he does!

Not 2nd grade...

Caden started 7th grade at ISMS. There are a lot of changes in 7th grade that he was nervous about. Now that a week has passed, he is getting the hang of changing classes, showers after athletics and the logistics of getting his clothes, towels, saxophone, lunch box, and everything else home.

Allie started 8th grade at ISMS. 8th grade!?! As usual she flowed right into a new year. She is excited about being a library aide, her theatre class and band. Her school won the Texas honor band competition last year (a BIG deal!) and she is in the best band this year that gets to perform at TMEA in San Antonio in February.

We have been taking Caden to school each morning at 7:30 for cross-country. Bob has been taking Parker then as well. Allie has been riding the bus in the mornings. Today Parker got himself up early and rode the bus as well. He's found some friends on the bus and always has something to tell about the bus crew when he gets home. I think it's going to be a good year!

Fun at Green Lake

It was nice to be able to do big kid things without interruption from little girls. We played lots of hands of cards - Rook, Casino, & Monopoly Deal were most popular. War was a favorite of the kids until Grandpa banned it from his tent because of early morning bickering.

The boys went fishing everyday at the lake. I really only fished one day while there but it was so nice to be out there fishing again. We caught several brook and splake trout

The boys enjoyed fishing too. Allie enjoyed it for about an hour and then was ready to do something else. She read several books while others were fishing.

Beautiful green lake - the continental divide is to the right.

Caden was pretty happy to catch this larger brook trout. Kiss! Kiss!

I loved these flowers growing out of the side of a rock. (We know it as Bobby's rock.)

On Sunday we went exploring in the afternoon. We found a cool little shallow pond where we observed its ecosystem and skipped rocks and pine cones on its surface.

On Monday Allie and I walked to the snow cave and explored down the creek there. SO beautiful! I love running mountain water!

We had a great time in the mountains!

Dumping Water Fun...

We've been storing water in these jugs in our storage room (this is just some of what we had). Thankfully we've never had to use them. In preparation for our move, I decided to take them out and let the kids dump them. Sydney, Parker and Sage had a great time with it!

When I had the camera out, Sydney was having a hard time. She put on her swimsuit after this (as did Sage) and had fun making rivers in the cracks. I didn't get pictures because by then I was busy hauling jugs for them and cleaning up.

Parker had me being shampoo and soap so he could count this as his shower!

Fun morning activity for my water lovers!

And now our recycling bin is full of old orange juice bottles!

Family Time...

This was the first weekend in several weeks that we have been home for the whole weekend. Our neighbors who have a beautiful backyard with a new pool were out of town and asked if we would watch their dogs for them. They said we were welcome to swim while they were away.

I was excited to go swimming as a family Friday night. I pictured this fun relaxing time just the 7 of us playing together. It didn't quite go like that.

While everyone else was eating dinner, Allie and I were talking (and crying) over some tough things that had happened that day. By the time we wrapped up, the rest of the family was ready to swim. I quickly put on my suit to go with them but Allie still had to eat. I helped Bob get the other 4 kids to the pool and Allie was going to come shortly. When everyone was swimming and Allie still hadn't shown up I decided to go home and check on her. She couldn't find her swimsuit bottoms. Together we found the things she needed and then headed over to the neighbors.

While I was away Bob had been working with Sage on how to swim with her floatie. I was excited for her to show me what she had been doing. Before I could even get in the water with her, I realized she had pooped her pants. She has been pooping in the potty for over a month now and I didn't think she would need a swim diaper for our little excursion. I was wrong! Most of the poo (and there was A LOT) was contained in her swimsuit but some had fallen into the pool on the step where she was standing! We were all freaking out. Bob and I took her to the grass to care of things. We sent Allie inside for some wipes and a diaper from their baby's room to help in the process. We did the best we could there and then Bob took her home for a bath and bed. I cleaned out the mess from the pool as best as I could with a net and some wipes all the while trying to keep the other kids quiet so all the neighbors didn't hear what had happened. It was gross and stressful.

I stayed with the other kids for a while longer. We had to set rules because they were fighting and there wasn't much that was relaxing about swimming with them. It was mostly just loud. Altogether our family time was about 5-10 minutes of us freaking out about and trying to clean up Sage's mess.

I was also excited about taking the big kids on a hike Saturday morning at Eagle Mountain Park nearby. We are working on getting our bodies prepared to hike up to Green Lake this summer while my Dad and brother ride up with horses and our stuff. I arranged for a babysitter to come over to watch the little girls so we could go. Caden who was short on sleep had a bad headache and needed to stay home to rest. I gave him some medicine and sent him to bed right before we left. Allie was getting ready to go with us when she realized she forgot her tennis shoes at school and didn't have any hiking appropriate shoes at home. Parker, Bob and I had a great hike together even though it didn't go as I had planned. This was only our 3rd hike in a period of several months and we still haven't all 5 made it on one.

Halloween 2013

Back in September we decided what we were going to do for Halloween this year. Allie still had her white princess dress from last year (we let out the hem) & Sydney had a purple princess dress that Allie wore when she was little. I didn't think it would be hard to make Sage a simple princess dress to go along with her older sisters. The boys decided to be dragon slayer knights to have a family kid theme. We ordered costumes for them. The first set of costumes came but were slightly too small. We sent those back and got online to find bigger replacements. We found something suitable on another website and ordered those. I had to call in because they had a price matching promotion that I wanted to tap into. I placed my order. A couple of weeks went by and the costumes never came. When I thought back on it, I never received an email confirmation either. The money had been withdrawn from account so I figured the costumes were still coming. By the time I had a chance to call about it, it was the Thursday before Halloween. The company wasn't able to find my order or figure out what happened (bank has to dispute the charge). They were willing to give me a discount on a new order and expedite shipping but we kept missing each other on the phone to make it happen. The boys weren't too heartbroken thankfully. Caden decided to be the zombie guy from last year and Parker decided to be a boxer. He was actually really excited about putting that costume together! We didn't have a theme but everyone was happy (including Bob who was happy not to spend much $ on costumes this year!)

Here are the pictures from Halloween night. The kids went trick or treating with some families from church. Bob followed behind with Sydney (she was slower than the rest). Sage was fussy that night and I was exhausted so the two of us just sat on our steps and gave away candy. Sage had a sucker when we started. She decided she was done with that before it was gone and started trying different flavors from the bowl. We had at least 6 half eaten suckers by the end of the night. Funny girl!

P.S. This was the first year we had the kids sign a contract about what to do with their candy. They could eat all they wanted that night, keep 10 pieces for the rest of the weekend, save 10 pieces for later, and put the rest in a bag (we wanted them to give it to Bob to share at work but it is in our treasure box for now).

What's Happening...

I spent some time this weekend cleaning up and organizing my picture files from the last year. I decided that iPhoto wasn't working for me and my photo workflow. I'm back to Picasa and pulled all of my files out of their encrypted state in iPhoto. I think this is going to make it easier for me to see and share my photos. Here are a few photos from the last 2 months. Sage loves my make-up right now especially my pink lipgloss. She often puts it on her eyes like eye shadow. She also likes to see what's going on in the kitchen. And of course test things out!

Caden got an award in the 1st six weeks. He was chosen out of all the boys in his class to receive an award for being respectful. So proud of him!

Sydney talked Bob into painting her toenails one morning. He did a great job and she was so happy! Both little girls like having their nails painted. 

It's been fun to have Parker home with us. It has been fun to see him really enjoy being a little boy. It has also been fun to see his creativity come out. He is much more creative than I ever realized!

He and Sydney like to have trike races from the garage to the rock barrier across the driveway. She gets mad if she loses so he lets her win sometimes. He also enjoys hearing her scream and so tries his hardest at times too.

I thought this was pretty funny - making the trike more comfortable with the addition of a stadium chair.

Two happy kids playing DS.

Sydney got to bring home her preschool class' Pooh bear. He got to hang out with us for the weekend and she LOVED it!

 Drawing away. She uses both hands right now. Will she be a lefty or a righty?

I've been having some issues with fatigue and depression. Been back to my hormone doctor to try to get things figured out. Parker has been along twice for the journey. My diagnosis is adrenal fatigue. Taking some adrenal support supplements and Zoloft. Also trying to follow the other suggestions for adrenal fatigue but it's been a hard couple of months and fitting in exercise, eating better, yoga, etc. is not very easy. Hopefully the next couple of months will be better.

When the girls are at preschool, Parker and I like to run or ride bikes through the neighborhood greenbelt. I have seen turtles a couple of times before but Parker hadn't. We went several times and looked in all the good places with no success. Finally he spotted three turtles sunning on this log. Two of them climbed back in before I could get a picture. He was so happy! We have also been working on a tree project to identify the trees in our neighborhood. We took pictures of trees and then used this website to try to identify each tree and learn about them. He was really happy to done with his part of this project on Friday.

The kids have been eating a lot of popcorn lately. Sage likes to share her food with us. She is also always looking out for Sydney. If she gets a cheese stick out of the fridge, she always wants to get a second one for "Nydney". So sweet!

Beds...

Three of our five kids are sleeping on the floor almost every night. The boys are still sleeping on the floor in separate rooms. Parker has claimed the storage room as his room for sleeping and playing. It actually works pretty well. I think they are both sleeping more this way.

Sydney sleeps on the floor a lot too. We have found her in this sleeping spot a few times this week. Sometimes I will move her out but she wants to remain on the floor, not in her bed. When she comes into our room at night (which happens more often than not), she sleeps on a little "fixer" bed in there. I guess when we have company it will be easy to find open beds for them to sleep in. : )

First Day of School...

Parker started 3rd grade with Mrs. Games and Ms. Gurley.

Sydney wanted her picture taken.

Caden started 5th grade with Mrs. Garcia.

We took these pictures before the boys left for elementary school. School for them is from 7:45-2:45.

Allie started 6th grade at Wilson Middle School. She wanted me to braid her hair for the first day of school.

Her school starts at 9:20 so we had plenty of time. She doesn't get out until 4:30 which seems so late.

She loves it though! Middle school has been good to her so far.