The end of May

This year the last part of May has been a trial. Our fav places are too busy with field trips but the weather has been too crummy to play in the backyard/park. It even snowed this week! My kids don't know if they should get ready for Santa or the pool! But it is coming to an end, tomorrow is the last day of school and the field trip problem will soon pass. However, having the kids out of school causes busy issues in other ways too. We always manage to have a good time anyway I suppose. Best of all Lowell's job gets easier. With the kids gone, he still works but his hours are more flexible and it is easier for him to get time off. We sure love playing with him. My pregnant brain is in full effect, I am forgetting so much. I am trying to think through the week to just remember what we did. Wednesday we went to the gym. When we got home our new friends the caterpillars had come in the mail (the boys think the mail man is the greatest person ever, he gets them the best stuff!): See how teeny they are? They are from insectlore.com and are part of a caterpillar-butterfly kit.

Here they are just over a week later--huge! They grow so fast. The boys love them, Davis especially. At first I tried to keep them put up for their own survival, but I gave in and just let him enjoy them (with the understanding that the lid "doesn't" come off. They sleep with him most nights and enjoy an occasional turn on the swings. :) I expect they'll be forming their chrysallises soon.

Wednesday night I enjoyed Mom's night out with the twin club. We had yummy Mexican food thanks to Haydee. Good food and good visiting, yeah!

Thursday my sister said there weren't too many field trips at the Dino museum so we went for a visit. We went to see the new 3D movie, Sea Rex (the boys hadn't been to a movie on the IMAX before)

They sure enjoyed the glasses and the 3D. Unfortunately spatial perception in the dark, with glasses on, up the stairs was lacking as they both fell but Davis bashed his lip a good one. Poor kiddo, I didn't even realize how bad it was until the movie was over. It's still scabbed a bit. They did like the movie though and graciously it wasn't too scary. I always love when they try to reach for the 3D images. It was perhaps overly educational for their taste, but I enjoyed that part. While there were more field trips than anticipated once we got in the museum, the boys still did pretty well and were happy to visit, it had been a while. We ran into one of my new twin mom friends at the sand box at the end and the boys sure liked chatting with her and playing with her twins. It was a good day, successful.

Friday we went grocery shopping. Thanks to Cyndel for helping, no thanks to my kids for their horrid behavior. Shopping will have to be rearranged in the future to not include them. They did make up for it by picking this lovely weed bouquet for me:

They were so proud of themselves bringing me the flowers and were insistent they be put in water. It was very cute and sweet, and hey, they were also weeding, score.

Saturday Lowell had to work early in the am and most of the day--booo! I took the boys to soccer by myself (go me--I know it's my own kids I shouldn't be that proud, but with the amount of sleep I had gotten, I felt pretty accomplished) and it went fairly well. Carter has slowly warmed up to the game and gotten more and more involved in playing and Davis, well, he'll go on the field and try for the most part, but prefers to be on the sideline playing with the girls. That boy is going to be trouble. We then had lunch with Daddy and waited for him to come home so I could take a nap and then we went to the NICU graduate reunion. This was for UVRMC NICU where Carter spent the beginning of his life on a ventilator. It was their 30th birthday. Oh my goodness, what a great time! The boys both voluntarily thanked us for taking them there, they so enjoyed it. Bounce slide, kiddy games with prizes, hot dogs and ice cream--seriously they were so thrilled. It was all tailored so well for their age group. I was surprised with how active Carter had been that later that night he spiked a good fever. He wasn't that interested in eating and was acting lethargic by the time we got home. Well, that turned into vomiting over night and more fevers/vomiting throughout Sunday. When my kids will happily sit still for 30 minutes, you know they aren't feeling well. But I soaked it up and just snuggled my bug pretty well the whole day. Lowell took Davis to church (he is getting so much better at going) and Carter and I had our time. By evening he was past the vomiting and by morning the fever was gone. Just a quick one.

That night Lowell and I enjoyed a "date night" watching the Lost finale and having some snacks planned for the occasion. We both enjoyed it, and have been talking about it ever since.

Monday Carter felt well enough that we went to Ikea with my mom and sister. I got one of their Expedit book cases which are on sale. I have a plan to turn it into a big chest of drawers for the boys with the little drawers I got. Those bookcases are so versatile. The boys' closets are just out of control with clothes and I really need to get a handle on it, but need more space. Plus little sister needs their old chest of drawers. Work in progress on that one. We also got some fabric for a car seat canopy and the boys got to play in the playland for most of that. I so love Ikea! That was also the day it snowed, so yea for being able to burn some energy inside.

Tuesday dawned a much brighter day and so we ventured to the children's garden before school gets out. Considering it had snowed the day before I was surprised to see the wading pool/fountains on but the kids were thrilled so why not. I rolled up their pants and they played and played. We had such a great time with everything there that day until I asked someone the time and I was nearly late for work. Oops--they were just having such a good time and it was such a nice day. That night I was able to get out of work (thanks so much Tara!) to catch the bub's last soccer game. Oh but this time despite playing hard all morning, Davis spiked a fever. I wanted him to be able to get his end of the season medal, so Lowell brought him to the game where he was happy as he didn't have to play but could sit on the sidelines playing with more girls. Carter played hard and even scored a goal.

Go super Carter!

Davis with his medal, they have both slept with them and worn them all over.

Congrats to the Giants on a winning season and C&D for learning and growing a lot. It was often a challenge but they have learned a lot about how to play the game and slowly improved in actually playing it. They also made some friends and improved in their ability to take direction from their coach. We're proud of them!

Their 2010 soccer pics, Davis

The Giants, C&D are lower right

Carter

Davis followed the same course as Carter with a good fever off and on and vomiting Wednesday. So Carter played Wii and snuggled some while I mostly cared for my sicky Davis. We took a little nap together. I never regret the time I get snuggling my little men, even if they have to be sick to let me do it. Lowell came home and took over letting me nap off a long week and then we got the recovering Davis the pizza he wanted. He's been fine since. Hillary kindly came over and Lowell and I got a late dinner date night at Mimi's. Yum and relaxing, being able to finish a conversation with Lowell is such a blessing.

Then today (I've remembered better than I thought I would) I had a follow up ultrasound and a dr. appt. We finally got to look at little sister's face:

Very exciting, she's been holding out on us for a while. Now she's kicking me in retribution (:)) or maybe it's the orange I ate. I got the box of ebay clothes in the mail yesterday and surprisingly Davis was the most excited. He oohed and ahhed over each piece and talked about how cute everything was for his little sister. Cute little guy! The rest of the morning the boys and I spent at 2 different parks and then came home to make snow cones. Happy for another relatively nice day (a storm was working its way in and should be here tomorrow--boo!). A big thanks to Becky for sitting with the boys during my appt. Just too hard to control them while I'm on my back!

I am sure this gets terribly boring for anyone who is still reading--but as my journal I try to record what we've been up to so I can remember. Betweeen being pregnant and my thyroid issues, my memory just sucks. I won't recall most of this soon, but I can print it out in a book later and show the boys all the fun things we did.

A word of congrats to my sweet hubby as he finishes up another school year. We love you and appreciate all the hard work you do for our family. Now enjoy the summer with only our 2 monsters to contend with (not all the jr. high school brats he usually also has to deal with).

Have a good week all!