As long as I don’t see a mouse, I’m doing ok!

Thursday: Today it seemed like we were in the car a LOT! First, we had our 30 minute drive to preschool (this particular friend’s house will be our longest drive). We dropped Makenna off at school, and Max and I drove the 30 minutes back home so he and I could do school.

I never know how Max will do in school.  Somedays he is really into it; somedays he refuses to do anything.  Somedays he tries REALLY hard but doesn’t seem to “get” anything; somedays he is on point and seems to already know everything I’m trying to teach him. Today was the “try really hard but don’t seem to learn anything” type of day.  He had a lot of fun doing school, but didn’t remember the sound the letters made or didn’t count things correctly. But the cute guy tried really hard!

We started school by practicing with all of our fundamental cards—our colors (orange—which although Max always says perfectly, today he called blue each and every time—and brown), number (4), shape (rectangle—which he called triangle each time), and pattern.

This is Max doing our A-B-B pattern.  Instead of pointing at the picture and reading, “tricycle, car, car, tricycle, car, car,” each and every time he said, “tricycle, tricycle, car, tricycle, tricycle, car.” The goofy boy would point to the car and call it a tricycle.  He did the same with the apples and oranges.  He would point to the pictures and say, “Apple, apple, orange.  Apple, apple, orange.” He only wanted to do an A-A-B pattern today I guess!

 

One of our crafts today was to make a school bus.  Max played with his bus forever, driving it around the table while we sang “The Wheels On the Bus.” He LOVED his bus!

 

Another thing he really loved was “reading” his transportation book.  “I can go-go-go on a bus. I can go-go-go on a bicycle.” etc. He wanted to read this book over and over and over!

Decorating a z (which Max HONESTLY cannot pronounce the sound of!) with zig-zags:

 

Making a “big truck”:

For a math activity today, I would give Max a number and he would have to count out that many cars to place on his road:

By this point, it was already time to pick up Makenna! So we had to just leave all of our school things on the table, and we hopped in the car to make our 30 minute drive back to get her.  Then the kids ate their lunch in the car while we made the 30 minute trek back home.  So before lunch, we spent two hours in the car!!!

When we got home, I rushed the kids in the house to take naps (which no one actually went to sleep during), and then we hopped back in the car to drive 20 minutes to Makenna’s dance class.  While she was in class, Max and I headed to the library to hang out. Once again, Max was such a funny, silly little boy.  He had to push the wheelchair buttons to go into the library, he had to potty in the little potty, and drink tons of water from the fountain.  Then he had to play with the Barney and the monkey—he has so much fun doing such silly little things! ; )

Also, did you notice in ALL the pictures that Max refused to take his hood off his head the whole entire day?!?

After picking Makenna up at dance, we had a hour and a half to kill before we were supposed to be at the Jensen’s house for dinner (we had them over last night and they had us over tonight!), but I didn’t want to drive all the way back home just to have to turn around and come back. So I called and asked if we could come over early. : ) That may have been a little rude, but we had already been in the car for 3 hours today—I’m poor and can’t afford all of that gas money! Anyway, so the rest of the night was spent playing with our friends and eating dinner. As always, so much fun!

Here are some pictures of Makenna from school this week (the mom this week used her cell phone camera as well, so the pictures are basically just like all of mine—a little dark and blurry! We all need new cameras I think!):

The theme this week is “Go, Go, Go”—so basically a transportation theme.  For snack one day, they made traffic lights with graham crackers, chocolate, and m&ms:

On Thursday they made school buses for snack using graham crackers, chocolate, and bananas and cheerios for wheels:

Playing with toy cars:

Makenna really loves her preschool! Ha ha, and I can always tell which pictures were from which day because of Makenna’s hair—if you ever notice, Makenna’s hair is always up in some sort of a bun on Thursday because she has “dancing girl” class on Thursday afternoons!

Friday: We didn’t really have anything planned for today, so we spent our day playing at home. The kids rode their bikes in the basement and played dress-up most of the morning.  My mom is getting Max some BOY dress-up clothes for Christmas.  Good thing, cause he came out of Makenna’s room today like this:

 

Sorry, Daddy, but Max is now a princess! : )

Of course, I don’t know many princesses who roll around on the floor like puppies, wrestling with their sister…

 

But in the end, the two princesses danced around my front room singing, “Cinderella! Cinderella!” Aren’t they beautiful? ; )

 

Those silly kids!

After lunch and naps, we just mostly hung out at home the rest of the day! That night, we went over to our friends the Bentley’s house for dinner and some play time.  It was nice because they actually have FOUR kids, so it was fun to be around a big family for dinner! Thanks for having us over and looking out for us while our Daddy is gone! : )

Saturday:This morning we went to the grocery store bright and early.  After we got home, the kids skyped with Grandma Becky while I worked on meal prep for the coming week.

I use a meal planner to plan my meals and my grocery list.  My current fave is 5dinners1hour (I think it’s at blogspot.com, but I don’t remember.  Google it!). You go grocery shopping, using their grocery list for the week, and then spend one hour doing dinner prep (it usually doesn’t even take me a full hour).  By the end of that hour, you have five meals in your fridge.  Then, during the week, all you have to do is poor your dinner in the crockpot or stick it in the oven.  Love it! It is a paid program, but at $5 a month it is totally worth it because I no longer have the headache of menu planning! : ) I also like this planner over other meal planners I have tried because it gets all of my prep work out of the way.  So many times, 5 pm rolls around and I’m too tired to get dinner ready or we are just getting home and I don’t have time to prep something before the kids starve to death.  I love that all I have to do is stick something in the oven! By the way, I’m not getting paid to promote these guys. : ) I just see so many people wanting meal ideas, so I thought (while I was thinking about it) I would share what I use!

Anyway, the rest of the day was basically spent playing at home.  We didn’t really do anything today either! After weeks of being busy, busy, busy, this week seemed super slow!

Sunday: This morning I was SO nervous about the time change! The kids usually get up at about 7:15 or so, and I was so afraid they would be getting up at 6:15 now.  However, somehow they still got up about 7:15.  My body was VERY happy because it felt like I got to sleep in until 8:15. Yes!

The kids didn’t watch TV this week, so this morning they have watched probably about a million Church movies! On Sundays, they always want to watch “The Joseph Smith” movie and then “The Tree of Life” (is that what that movie is called?) and then they watch an awful lot of Veggie Tales movies. They definitely caught up on their movie watching this morning! : )

At around 11, I got a call that a lady I visit teach had a death in her family last week and would I please bring a dessert and bread to church today to be delivered to her after church. So the next hour and a half until church were spent making rolls and pie, feeding and bathing the kids, and trying to get everything (and everyone!) ready for church.  Busy, busy!

Here are the kiddos before Church this morning. Makenna had a candy in her mouth, hence the goofy smile. : )

 

Aren’t the so big now?!? Max especially looks grown-up!

After Church, we had dinner and talked to Austin on the computer. Then Max went to bed and Makenna and I watched a little TV. Isn’t she a cute TV buddy?

And thus we ended our week! : )

By the way, I still haven’t seen or heard (or seen evidence of) a mouse since the incident last week.  Yes I have traps up (and yes they are baited with peanut butter), but I haven’t caught anything in them. Continue praying for me that it is gone (and they all stay gone)! If I can make it mouse free, I think our week and a half until we leave for Alabama will go smoothly by!

Some Would Say I’m Grumpy…

Monday: And I would have to agree with them! If this mouse isn’t caught soon, I’m going to go CRAZY! I have traps out, and I haven’t seen any evidence of the mouse now! It is seriously freaking me out.  I can’t eat; I can’t sleep.  I creep around my house, petrified that something is going to pop out on me or run past me.  And the no eating or sleeping thing is making me grumpy(er) than usual! Grr!!! I can’t stand this!!! And I’m pretty sure my kids can’t stand it either because I am so MEAN! I’m pretty sure my PMDD is also acting up! Two weeks until I’m packing it all up and going to Alabama, and I’m staying there until my husband gets home!!! I am over this single mom business!

Anyway, today is Halloween and unfortunately I’m not feeling too festive.  But here’s what we did today anyway:

This morning we went to our Play and Learn.  Today we continued on with our Reggie Nutrition by talking about turning off the TV and exercising.  We sung our songs… and then I don’t know what they did because I had to go out in the hall with Max! He wouldn’t stop whining and begging to be held (but I have agreed with Ms. LaDonn—Max is big enough now that he can do the activities without having to be held the entire time!). So he and I sat outside in the hall for about 15 minutes until he decided he was ready to go back inside the class!

When we came back inside, we did some move-around activities.  We played with scarves and then we played with bubbles.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to catch the bubbles!

She’s got one!

   

Next we played a memory matching game using the food cards from A Very Hungry Caterpillar. Makenna was GREAT at the game! Her crazy good memory came into play once again and she found tons of matches! (Max, unfortunately, wouldn’t play.  Since I sat down, I let him sit in my lap. And there he stayed! He wouldn’t do anything but sit in my lap!).

   

Our next activity was to make placemats.  The kids used dot paint, letter stickers (to make their name), and pictures of fruits and vegetables to make their placemats. 

Most of the time, Max didn’t participate.  He kept trying to take everyone else’s letter stickers, and I wouldn’t let him—so he got mad and went and sat on a beanbag in the corner of the room for most of the time.  Only after everyone else finished their placemats and were playing would he come back over and do his—but then after he finally worked on it, he did a great  job!

 

For our snack time today, we made smoothies! The kids had fun talking with Ms. LaDonn about the foods they put in the smoothie.

          

The blender was a little loud for them, though!

Eating goldfish crackers and drinking their yummy smoothie:

   

Max’s attempt at a smile:

Reading A Very Hungry Caterpillar:

After Play and Learn, I attempted to mow the grass, but the lawnmower started smoking and I couldn’t get it to start. : (

So instead, we came inside and did some laundry, had lunch, and had naps.  During nap time, I let Max wear his underwear to bed for the first time—let’s just say, bad mistake! We will stick with diapers or pull ups for nap time and bed time for a while longer! It doesn’t help my grumpy mood to have to scrub carpets!

After nap time, I tried the lawn mower again—success! So I got both the front and back yard mowed while the kids played outside. I finished up right at 4:30 and we were supposed to leave our house at 4:40.  So I quickly got the kids ready in their costumes and headed for the car—and we couldn’t find Max’s coat! The kid had just had it outside! So I searched the whole house—including the basement—and even searched outside.  Couldn’t find it anywhere! Finally, at 4:52, I found it—in the half bathroom by the kitchen.  No clue why it was there! But the point—I was running late.  So we hurry and get in the car and immediately get stuck in traffic! I guess 5 pm on Halloween night isn’t a good time to travel somewhere! But finally, about 45 minutes late, we arrived at our friend’s house.  Sorry for being so late Rachel!

We had such a fun time with our friends. We had dinner at their house, and then went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. My kids LOVED playing at their friend’s house—so much that they would have probably rather continued playing than go trick-or-treating! However, once we got outside, Makenna was off! She literally ran from house to house! She LOVES trick-or-treating! Max, on the other hand, would go and get his candy, and then turn to me and say, “My legs are broken—hold me!” : p The goober! We only went trick-or-treating for about half an hour, and by then my ARMS were broken! That kid is heavy! However, even after only such a short time, the kids had FULL buckets! It’s going to take us forever to eat all those treats!

Minnie Mouse all ready for Trick-or-Treating:

 

Both kids, bundled up, for Michigan night time!

I couldn’t get a good picture of Max! He either wouldn’t look at me, or closed his eyes when he tried to smile!

Trick-or-Treating with our friends.  We had six kids in our group! Four Makenna’s age and then Max and his cute little 1 1/2 year old friend Lily. Even with the large group, Makenna made sure she was first to the door each and every time!

She would be done before the other kids even made it up to the door! She is a speedy trick-or-treater!

However, I was pleased with both of my kids’ manners.  Each time they would say, “Trick or Treat!” and then after they got their candy they would say, “Thank you!” In fact, Max even threw a mini fit at a couple of houses after he realized he forgot to say thank you! He wanted to go back again to be sure to tell them! : )

After trick-or-treating, we headed back for some yummy dessert and some play time for the kids. Thanks again for having us over, friends! It was a great night! : ) And I’m sorry about Max screaming the whole time after the trick-or-treating (he was SO tired by then and he also had to go #2… and didn’t want to go at their house!).

On our way home, a werewolf (also known as a dumb high school kid in a werewolf costume) jumped out in front of our car! When I slammed on my brakes, he went back into the bushes laughing.  Honestly, how dumb are some people?!? Then, a few miles down the road, a deer ran out in front of our car! Scary! Makenna said, “Mom, that deer was SO big! If you had hit that deer, you would have smashed it! And then we wouldn’t have any more reindeer!” : )

Oh, and here is a cute picture of Makenna that I took yesterday:

She is reading from the illustrated Book of Mormon.  My kids LOVE scripture time! I hear more stories about “Lehi, Laman, and Lemuel” now than I could have ever imagined! They always want to know who is the “naughty” guy and who is the “good” guy. I guess the scriptures really do usually have a good guy and a bad guy! So many times during the day, one of the kids will pick up the book and start “reading” stories from it.  So cute! : )

Tuesday: Today our preschool house was about 30 minutes from our house, so we had to get a move on! Luckily, I woke up at 6:30! Seriously, it irritates me so much! Last night was the first night the kids didn’t wake me the whole night… and then I, on my own, wake up early! Grr!

While Makenna was at school, Max and I tagged along with our friends Jen and Lily as they went shopping at Target and Wal-Mart.  We didn’t have anything to get, but it was still fun to hang out with friends. : ) Max was VERY whiney today (I guess it’s the post-Halloween syndrome), so sorry about that Jen!

After lunch and ONE Halloween treat (and I ate left over apple pie from the party last night—thanks so much Kristen! Yum!), it was nap time. Today we ALL took naps because it makes me nervous to be up alone in the house because of the you-know-what. : )

The rest of the day was spent playing and hanging out at home! Then later in the evening, we watched some TV on Disney channel.  Makenna is getting very into these “real” shows like “Good Luck, Charlie” and “Jessie” and “Shake it Up.” I am loving it! I love those goofy little tween shows, and so I’m now excited I have an excuse for watching them all. : )

We were all in bed pretty early, so all in all, a very chill day!

On Wednesday I talked to my mom about my you-know-what problem.  She said if I haven’t seen or heard any evidence of it, there’s a good chance it’s not here anymore. So maybe when it ran up the fireplace, it really did run out of the house and that cat outside disposed of it for me!  So I still have my traps out, but I’m starting to breathe a LITTLE bit easier about it all. Still, keep knocking on wood and praying for me because I’m still REALLY nervous about the whole thing!

However, because I’ve been so frightened for so many days, our house was a mess! So today I had the kids help me get things back in order.  We premade some dinners and got them in the fridge, cleaned and organized the kids rooms, did laundry, brought outside toys inside to play with in the basement, vacuumed all the carpets, mopped the kitchen, cleaned the bathrooms, and scrubbed some more in the kitchen. The kids were GREAT helpers today, so they got another sticker on their chart AND a candy for helping! Usually, I just expect them to clean what I tell them to, but on days they do it without complaining and do such a great job, I think it’s fun to surprise them with a reward! : ) Seriously, the kids emptied out all of the garbages, picked up toys, sorted laundry, helped me put laundry in the dryer, etc.  Makenna even cleaned the bathtub, washed out the microwave, wiped down the shelves in the fridge, and washed the outside of the stove for me! And then Max scrubbed the outside of the dishwasher and the garbage can and was my “stuff mover” when I vacuumed. It feels great to get all of those chores finally taken care of, plus it was a fun time with the kids. : )

We also put away all of our Halloween decorations and put out the Fall decorations. I snapped a couple pictures of the kids while we did that.

After all our work, it was time for lunch and then nap time.  This afternoon, two members of the Relief Society Presidency are coming over for a little visit, and then this evening we are having the Jensen’s over for dinner.  Their Daddy is out of town all week, plus it finally motivated me to get over my fear and get in the kitchen to cook! Cereal and Chef Boyardee all week was beginning to get old!

Anyway, so those are our plans for the rest of the day—so I will go ahead and post! : )

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. : (