This Weekend I had the biggest freakout yet!

Thursday—Another morning, another night without sleep.  That Makenna goes all day long without coughing a single time (even during nap time); the second it gets dark outside, she can’t stop coughing! She has a very dry cough (I say it’s the kind old people get because I can remember my grandma constantly hacking like that!), and absolutely nothing is working for her! So, once again, we didn’t sleep last night! I’m getting grumpier by the day, people!

Anyway, today was a school day and we had it at our house again. Here are some things we did today:

Played with play dough:

 

Practiced writing Hh, Nn, Jj, 3, and a square:

Had show-and-tell.  The kids were all supposed to bring something that started with a H, N, or J.

Makenna shared her doll.  She said it’s name was Natalie—just like her best friend Natalie in Arizona. : )

Max shared a “horsey”:

Made a college with different squares:

Had snack time.  For snack time I made monster heads with a snack mix brain:

 

And I made spider cookies served with milk (the spider cookies were actually for the Halloween Party yesterday, but since we didn’t get to go I served them today):

    

Worked with our fundamentals by making fundamental cards (this month’s fundamentals were the letters H, N, and J; the number 3; a square; the A-A-B pattern; and the colors orange and black. They need to also be able to say the letters’ sounds and to do their letters and numbers in sign language.):

We also played some games, sang some songs, and made a haunted house drawing.  When it’s my turn to teach, I do take pictures of the other kids too—but I just crop them out of the picture on my personal blog. : )       

After school, we quickly  had lunch (which Makenna is still not eating any of!) and the kids went down for their naps.

Today was another fun dance class, because the little dancers got to wear their Halloween costumes to dance class! However, this time Makenna decided she just wanted to wear one of her dress-up dresses.  So instead of Minnie Mouse, she was Cinderella at dance class. : )

 

Since it was another wet and cold day, the Mr. and I hung out at the library during dance time.  Max had fun looking at the hamsters. He is getting so talkative (which is good) and so LOUD (which isn’t good in certain situations!). He kept yelling, “They are sleeping! In the hole! There’s toilet paper in there! Why are they in there?” Ha ha, he had lots of questions and wasn’t very shy or quiet about asking them!

Then he found the giant Barney…

And attacked it!

He yelled, “I’m just hugging and kissing the Barney, Mom!!!”

I’m pretty sure the librarians were glad when we left!

After picking up Makenna at dance, we went to the Dollar Tree so the kids could pick up their prize (they have now filled up three sticker charts since Austin has been gone!).

Max chose a set that had two trucks in it (“Not trucks, GARBAGE trucks, Mom!!!”):

And Makenna chose a set that had fake purple fingernails, pretend lipstick, and pretend finger nail polish in it:

Their toy choices crack me up—totally boy or totally girl with no in between! However, Max did have fun letting Makenna pretend to  paint his fingernails! : )

We were all pretty tired so we hit the hay early.  I talked to Austin—he stayed the night in Denver, Colorado, and there was SNOW on the ground there.  Stay away, snow!!! Don’t visit us in Michigan quite yet!

Friday— Last night the kids only got me up five times during the night.  Honestly, it is an improvement! But I’m still hoping they will hurry up and start sleeping through the night again!

This morning, Makenna had another birthday party to attend.  While she was at the party, Mr. Max and I wondered around Target.  I KNEW he had to go potty, but he wouldn’t go! So I said, “I’ll give you a piece of gum if you go potty!” So then he started negotiating with me, “A piece of gum, water from the drinking fountain, AND a candy!” Wow, I’m thinking he is getting a little good at this! It’s probably time to start weaning him off the “treat if you go potty” thing!

Next we went back to the birthday party and had lunch and cake and ice cream with all the kids.  It was SUCH a fun party and Makenna (and Max there at the end!) had a blast!

I stole a TON of pictures of the birthday party from my friend’s Facebook.  The pictures are SO cute so I had to post them.  Plus, I thought it would be great fun to post pictures that aren’t blurry for a change! They have a NICE, totally professional looking camera!

Makenna posing at the cute “Sweet Shoppe” with some friends:

 

Playing games (can you believe these pictures turned out so great and they were taken in a BASEMENT?!?):

   

By this point, Max and I had arrived back.  So both Makenna and Max are in this picture, watching a “puppet show".” : )

 

Enjoying lunch:

Opening presents (Makenna got the cute birthday girl some craft supplies to do crafts with her mommy):

I also love that they fed the kids lunch at the party—so as soon as we got home it was straight down for nap time! However, it took Max quite a while to finally go to sleep.  So although we were supposed to go to the grocery store this afternoon, he ended up finally going to sleep and sleeping until after 4. I guess we will have to try to fit in grocery shopping tomorrow!

Saturday—Today we had to quickly run to the grocery store first thing in the morning.  Then we literally ran inside the house, put the groceries away, and then jumped into the car to go to the Barnes and Noble Halloween Trick or Treating. 

When we got to Barnes and Noble, the kids spent a little while playing with the train table in the children’s section.

Then they had a reading of a couple of Halloween stories.

And ended by getting to go “trick or treating” around the store:

 

We got home right at noon—time for lunch and nap times! However, things didn’t go as I had planned.  In fact, we had a pretty big catastrophe! I was pulling out the can opener to prepare lunches, when I noticed some of the strings from my pastry brushes on the can opener.  I was like, “What the heck?” so I pulled out the pastry brushes—and it looked like a chunk had been bit out of it!!! So I start pulling everything out of my drawer—and in the bottom of the drawer was mouse poop!!! Oh. My. Goodness!  I freaked out! If anyone knows me, they know the two things I fear more than anything else in the whole entire world are mice and snakes! Oh my gosh, so I DIED! I took everything out of the drawer and put it in the dishwasher, and then I scrubbed out the drawer with Clorox!  I even went through all of my cupboards and threw away every single bit of opened food! Any bags of pasta that I had in ziplock bags, any opened snacks that were just folded down and clipped—I tossed it all! I don’t want to tempt that disgusting creature! Of course then, I couldn’t eat a bite either! Anyway, but I fed the kids and put them to bed.  Well, I called Austin, crying, about it all. And while I was talking to him THE MOUSE RAN ACROSS THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR! I probably had a mild heart attack and I totally hyperventilated (and also burst Austin’s ear drums). I seriously FREAKED OUT! My plan was to immediately get in the car and drive to Alabama and stay with my family until Austin got back home in December and could take care of the mouse! But, as my mom said, if I did that, the mouse could multiply while I was gone and I could end up with a house full! So instead I got in the car and went to Wal-Mart and bought $30 worth of traps! Then we went to get ice cream (cause I wasn’t going back in that house!).

Makenna got strawberry and gummy bears:

 

And Mr. Max got cotton candy ice cream and marshmallows:

 

Then, because I still didn’t want to go home, we killed a little time and then headed to the ward Trunk or Treat.  I was afraid we wouldn’t get to have it (because it was raining on and off), but luckily the weather cleared off!

The kids had fun running around playing with friends:

 

And then we had our Trunk or Treat. The whole activity only lasted an hour but was a lot of fun. But then, unfortunately, we had to head home. We had some friends follow us home and the husband came in and helped me set up a couple of traps.  After they left, I scrubbed counters and the table and sink, and cleaned every inch of the floors, and even cleaned the carpets.  I don’t know if any of this is going to help, but oh how I’m so scared of that mouse! The people I talked to at the ward activity tonight said that unfortunately houses in Michigan get mice in the Winter.  I guess it gets so cold, the mice come in from the fields.  But I don’t care if other houses get mice-- I want the one in my house GONE!

After all of our cleaning, I let Makenna stay up late (she doesn’t sleep anyway!) to keep me company because I was too scared to be up alone! I know that’s being a pretty lame mom, but I did it anyway! Here’s hoping I sleep tonight without constantly waking up thinking I see or hear a mouse!

And as tomorrow is just a normal Sunday, I think I will go ahead and post this! I shouldn’t have any big news (unless I DO have a heart attack tonight!), so it shouldn’t be a big deal to post a day early. : )

Also, don’t think I’m a gross person for having a mouse in my house! I promise I try to keep things clean. : (