First Day of School 2012

Monday, August 27th was the first day of school this year. Allie is in first grade at Kuentz Elementary and Avery is in PreK at Scobee Elementary. Both were a little nervous. Meet the Teacher night helped ease those jitters though. Allie, initially, really didn't want to go back to school. After meeting her teacher she said that "her head was getting excited!" Her teacher is Mrs. Ratliff and it's her first year at Kuentz. Avery's teacher is Ms. Bellah, which Allie had her for PreK as well.

Both girls were easy to get up for the first day. The bus comes at 7 am.....it's still dark out! Right from there we have to load up in the car to head to PreK, which starts at 7:40. It takes us a good 20-25 minutes to get there with the crazy morning traffic. When I dropped Avery off she was trying to be so brave. I could tell she was nervous because she was holding on to me and didn't want me to leave her side. Once Ms. Bellah said it was time to go in the classroom she started crying.......hysterically! The aide grabbed her and told me to go. I could hear her crying all the way down the hallway. :( Once I picked her up she seemed okay. They said it took her a long time to join in with everyone. Day 2 - she walked right into the classroom and didn't look back, joined in groups but didn't talk. Day 3 - pretty much the same except she is warming up to the teachers a little bit more.
Back to Day 1 ---- with Allie her bus is supposed to drop off around 3:10. I decided to head over there early because the bus driver decided to switch the route up last year and make our bus stop the first drop off instead of the last. Well, it was like 3:20 when the bus finally came. Blake was very cranky by this time and I was SO hot. Kids kept piling off the bus but Allie never got off! I felt like I was having a heart attack. We went back to the house as quickly as possible. I found my phone and saw I had a message from the school. It was a teacher wanting to know where I was. I called them back, loaded up the kids and then couldn't find my keys. The house keys are on the keychain with the car keys so I had to run and find our spare key hidden outside. By the time we finally got to the school I was drenched (from waiting so long at the bus stop, running to find the key, and just from being so worked up). After I got Allie I broke down. I felt so horrible for her waiting there and not knowing what was going on. And, it ended up being my fault. With all of the craziness going on at home and having all the kids with me when I was filling out the TON of paperwork they have us fill out I had wrote down that Allie was going to be parent pick up?!? I don't even remember writing that! My only thought was that parent pick up was fresh in my mind from filling out Avery's paper work or something. I don't know. I'm just glad that she was okay and that she was at the school and not on the wrong bus.

Day 2

Lousy

The past several days have been pretty intense and stressful. Avery was up all night one night throwing up, the next day she had shots (which she was such a trooper and extremely brave), then the next day the girls had dentist appointments and Avery was running a fever from her shots, the following day she still wasn't feeling all that well and Blake was starting to get a snotty nose.......and then that night it got terrible. I was livid, extra stressed, didn't know what to do and the list goes on with everything that was running through my head. We were wasting time at Toys R Us while waiting to get a call for our friends to meet them for dinner........the girls had coupons & money from their birthdays so we thought we'd shop for a bit. We were leaving customer service with their birthday balloons and crowns and when I went to put on Avery's crown there was a bug crawling on her head. The first thing I think of is lice because someone we know recently had it. The bug was big enough and visible enough that I was able to grab it and throw it on the ground. We immediately left, called our friends and told them we wouldn't be making it to dinner and made a few other calls since I had no idea what to do. The advice I got was to go to the drugstore and ask the pharmacist what to do. So, that's what I did. I bought several things (shampoo, furniture spray, this gel stuff and a nit pick).
Once home I immediately stripped down the beds and started washing bed clothes right away. Then sprayed the mattresses with the furniture spray........then sprayed the rest of our furniture. I pretty much emptied closets and rewashed EVERYTHING! I put the girls baby dolls in a garbage sack and stuck it in the garage in hopes that if any lice or eggs are on them that they will suffocate in the heat and die. Then we started the long, tedious process of the shampooing. I decided to do Allie and I's hair too, just in case. I never saw anything else in anyone's hair but I wanted to be safe. The only concern I had afterwards was that an area behind Avery's ear was a little red and when I used the pick in that area I saw some very tiny black spots (which could be lice poop) and some dandruff (possibly eggs??). Like I said, I have no idea what I'm doing or what I'm really looking for.
In the mean time, I am vacuuming our sheets every morning and rewashing our blankets and clothes are going straight to the washing machine. I vacuum bedrooms every morning and night and the rest of the house every night. I did find a little bug of some sort in their sock bins that were under their bed so I obviously washed all of that stuff and sprayed their bins and vacuumed those out. Then I got all of their baby doll clothes and washed those since they were in a bin under their bed too. I Sprayed the bin and vacuumed that........then washed all of their dress ups and bagged the things that couldn't be washed and put in the garage. I did find a big bug in the bottom of their dress up chest too. It could have been a water bug by the looks of it but who really knows! So I killed it, sprayed the chest and vacuumed it out. I'm also vacuuming the furniture every night.
I bought some baby oil this morning because Derek read that if the oil is saturated on the head for 8 hours it kills lice and the eggs. So I'm going to do that at night on all of us for the rest of the week (better safe than sorry) and then Friday we are supposed to use the lice shampoo again. We're actually going out of town Friday after noon for 3 days so I'm also going to buy 8 or so bug bombs and set them off before we go. They aren't supposed to be able to live longer than a day or two off a human host so hopefully we'll be in the complete clear by then.
I continue to check everyone's hair every chance I get and thankfully haven't seen anything yet!!!

UPDATE: After all of that work, I really don't think it was lice to begin with. The initial bug I saw was probably too big to be a louse, unless it was a full grown adult, but if that were the case we should have seen more and we never did. It was a TON of work and I hope and pray that I never have to do that again! I felt like such a dirtball (even if we didn't have it). And, the baby oil was not a good idea......no matter how many times we washed our hair it still looked greasy and disgusting. It took over a week for it to start looking normal again!!

The Hinson's Visit!

I was so excited when I received a message from one of my good friends from Ohio saying that her and her family were coming to San Antonio for a week! It was kind of ironic because Derek was just getting ready to head to Alabama (where they live now) and I had thought about going there with him so we could see them. It was just too close to school getting ready to start and I didn't want that extra stress (or the 14 hour drive all by myself). So, Derek has been in their neck of the woods now for almost three weeks but hasn't been able to see them b/c they've been here (or traveling).
We spent pretty much every day, all day together. It was wonderful to catch up and have our girls get reacquainted.....they were around 7 months or so when we moved from Ohio........and have our boys meet (they are 4 months apart). It was a fun, busy week that went by way too fast! And..I'm sad that I didn't take very many pictures.

What's Happening?

It's been a busy, action packed few days since my last post, Avery's birthday party.

Her birthday was Tuesday. Her and Blake were up very early. We were sitting on the couch and I told Avery, "Happy Birthday!" She just smiled, got shy, sucked her tongue and sniffed her blanket. After a few minutes she got up and went over the the window, peeked through the blinds and then ran across the room to another window and did the same thing. Then she said, "It's still dark out." I just said, "yes, the sun is still coming up." I was trying to figure out why she was telling me this and I realized she was telling me that it wasn't her birthday yet (the night before I was telling her it would be around 8:20 in the morning because that is the time she was born 4 years ago.) When the sun was finally up she asked me to make her something special for breakfast. This was a big task for me because I'm not a breakfast person and whenever we do steer away from the usual cereal or oatmeal it's Derek that goes all out for breakfast.

Knowing Avery I figured my best shot for making an extra special breakfast was to go the sweet route. Here's what I came up with:

She loved them! Blake did too.......he had 3!

Avery also opened up her gifts from us.

and a Minnie & Daisy play set

Our birthday celebrations here actually are always about a week long because we get loads of coupons for free birthday meals/desserts. So we've been using those.......free kids meal & cookie at Fudruckers, BOGO ice cream creation at Cold Stone Creamery, free kids meal & sundae at Red Robin. I guess that's all we've used.......so far.

Red Robin

Blake's 'milk' mustache from Cold Stone

Yesterday I took the kids to the Kiddie Park. I had told Avery we would go there for her birthday but it was closed Tuesday hence the reason we went yesterday. I was worried that it would be too much with the heat and me with three kids by myself but it was super easy and we all had a great time.

Blake LOVED riding on the little quarter rides and he really liked riding the horse on the carousel. When I first put him on there he looked at me like 'you mean I get to ride a big kid ride'. It was really cute and he was just grinning from ear to ear and trying to figure out how everything worked.


In other news, Derek left Sunday for SOS in Montgomery, Alabama. He'll be there for 8 weeks! SOS is an officer training program that all Captains have to go through. It used to only be 5 weeks and they just changed it 8 weeks in January.......if only Derek had procrastinated in going.........

Since Derek has been gone of course a lot of things have gone wrong or have happened that he would usually take care of. 1) a baby lizard managed to sneak in the house.....looks like we'll have a little pet for a while b/c I can't catch the crazy thing.  2) his 55 pound box of ammo arrived the day after he left. I barely managed to roll it just inside the door and it's still sitting there. 3) the washing machine motor is now shot and I have no idea what is a good washing machine or how I'll get one loaded and hooked up on my own. I can tell you I will NOT go to a landromat to wash my clothes. 4) Allie and I both seem to have a little bug of some sort (not that Derek would take care of that stuff.......but with 2 of us sick and just me to take care of everything alone....hinders things.) 5..) this actually happened right before Derek left but Blake's finger got smashed. Long story short.......Allie was putting Avery's birthday cards up on the fireplace mantel and one got wedged under an African egg thing that Derek had brought back from his trip and we had displayed up there........since it's an egg shape it rolled right off and Blake happened to be there (he follows the girls around everywhere) and it landed right on his finger. We couldn't get a referral to go to Urgent care b/c our lovely insurance co. was closed. By Sunday night I knew he had to be seen, so I took him in Monday and was reassured that we were doing everything right as far as caring for it. They were a little concerned that it might be getting infected so he is on antibiotics. His nail is probably going to fall off. Other than that there is nothing else we can do.......and accidents happen. :(

first time riding like a big boy. LOVED it!

The week before Derek left we decided to go on a family bike ride. We only got one picture.

That is how Allie and I rode and Derek pulled Avery & Blake in the bike trailer. We rode to the Helotes Market (crafts, food, fun for kids). There and back is 4.5 miles........we did it twice that day, so 9 miles!

Avery is Turning FOUR!!!!

Avery's birthday is Tuesday. She'll be 4 years old! Since Derek is getting ready to leave for 2 months we decided to have her party this morning so he could be here for it. I didn't spend a lot of time planning this party and it's been our cheapest party thus far (by a long shot) with the total for EVERYTHING (food, supplies, games, favors, etc) coming in right under $30!

Here is the party in pictures:

Birthday Girl & Party Goers

my first ever home made bows. i think they turned out pretty well. :)

The Activities

decorating their goodie bags w/ markers and Minnie Mouse stickers

pin the bow on Minnie

home made pinata -- it ended up being a little too sturdy. Like my friend, Loren, said.....built to last "Made in the USA!"

Some of the "Decor"
not much, but we did it last night so it was a surprise for Avery this morning and she was grinning from ear to ear.

The Food

mini corn dogs, popcorn, strawberries & grapes. Fruit Punch for the drinks

Opening Presents

VIDEOS

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Also, a few days ago Avery got a package in the mail from Mony & Papa.........

look, no hands!

they have played with this every day.......and Avery has put the Minnie Mouse puzzle together at least 5 times. And as you can see in the pictures above and below, she has worn her skirt every day.

The grandparents sent cards that were almost exactly alike!

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And somehow Miss Dottie found out Avery was having a birthday.....................

Thank you Miss Dottie, You're the best!