Notes From the Past Week

Wow. Last week was incredibly busy. Besides our regular 4 days of dance, we had something EVERY! NIGHT!! A few notes about life last week.....

Monday night hubs had a meeting at church and it was A's classes night to lead PTO so the rest of us went to that. They showed us that they are learning to "skip count" in 1st grade.

Tuesday night hubs again had a meeting at church and A and M had girl scouts. They came home telling me all about girl scout camp this summer and "Can we go Mom?" Because it is "Pony Daze" camp and what girl doesn't want to go to Girl Scout camp and ride horses for a week......Did I mention that the camp itself is about 2 hours away and it is day camp -- except for 1 night is sleepover? AND that it costs an $300 each for them to go?

Wednesday night was our regularly scheduled activities at church.

On Thursday K and I both had to be at a board meeting at 4pm for the new Early Learning Center we are starting at our church with the two new staff members that were hired. Then we had to be back at church at 6:30PM because we are now doing Financial Peace University that night. And while I am learning lots, Dave is stepping all over my non-manicured(pedicured?) toes!

Friday was, of course, Valentine's parties at school. My girls all had so much fun at their parties. I was flabbergasted when I picked up A and found that she was given a stuffed puppy by a little boy in her classroom and as she said "I was the only one he gave one to"......1st grade......I can't believe it!

Friday night was the Father Daughter Valentine's Dance. It was held at our church but was sponsored by the Downtown association. There were many of my daughters' friends there so they had a blast! Not to mention getting to put on a pretty dress, a corsage from Daddy (made by Mommy) and go dance with Daddy,too. But as M told me when the got home "I danced with Daddy a little bit, but mostly I danced with Natalie and Samantha". I'd show you pictures, bu my camera (of course) batteries went completely dead right at the moment I was going to take some. I did get this one picture of M. They did take pictures at the dance, and as soon as I get them, I will share.

My family left the dance early and at 8PM we were in the car and made the 3.5 hour trip to Climax, NC. We arrived to my inlaws empty house and fell in bed at about midnight only to get up at 6 AM yesterday (saturday) morning. We got up and continued on to Wake Forest, NC (another 2 hours away) where my hubs officiated the funeral of my step-MIL's father. Her father died from lung cancer. I found it very ironic at that after the graveside there were people standing around smoking. I also realized that my children haven't been around too many people who smoke when we had this conversation while sitting in the car waiting on Daddy to join us.

M "What are those white things in those people's mouths?"

Me "Cigarettes. Those are really bad for you. You should never start smoking. They can make you very sick and can even cause you to die. They also make you cough a lot and make your clothes smell like smoke all the time and it is really hard to quit if you start smoking." (Can you tell I'm really trying to discourage them from smoking!!!???)

A "But you can quit, there is a special gum you can chew and it makes you quit."

Me "Well, there is gum that can help you TRY to quit but it is very hard to quit. Cigarettes are addictive and it is hard to quit once you start smoking."

A "Yeah, like drugs."

Me "Yes."

A "And candy."

Me "Candy's not really addictive but it can seem like we are addicted sometimes."

A "I think I'm a little addicted, though." (I tend to agree)

We then drove all the way (6 1/2 hours including two stops) home on Saturday. And did I mention that as is par for the course for us whenever we travel, we had a sick kid. B is running a fever and coughing and is all snotty again. I'm hoping we aren't having a repeat of RSV.....

One of the places we stopped was to eat supper at our fav. Mexican Restaurant, in our previous hometown, called El Paso. If you read this and you are from there, let me go ahead and say I'm sorry we didn't let you know we were coming thru.....it was 6 pm on Valentine's Day......I figured you already had plans. We do love Mexican. All of us. The girls converge on chips and salsa like a bunch of vultures.....especially L.

And B., he just loves real food. I was hoping to only nurse until he is 6 months old. Not gonna happen. This 5 1/2 month old boy wants to eat! He actually cried one night when the rest of the family ate chili and no one would give him any. Here he is trying a tortilla chip last night.

It worked great until he figured out he could break it into smaller pieces. That was the end of chips for him.

And now, here I sit on Sunday --at 12:09 pm, having missed church with the aforementioned sick baby,thinking that this upcoming week looks just as busy....so, if you don't hear much from me, you'll know why.