Snowy Winter Weather, Snow Days, and Family Time

Samantha: 104 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 71 Months, Week 1
Owen: 28 Months, Week 3

Overnight on Saturday I pulled a muscle in my shoulder and upper back, and it hurt so much that I couldn't even move around much. I don't even know what I did to it, I just remember waking up and moving my arm into a different position, and it started hurting really bad. I could hardly get back to sleep after that because every position I laid in hurt. I was supposed to be a helper in one of the children's rooms at church, but I could hardly move, so I actually decided to stay home and just watch the service online. Ben filled in for me and took the kids to church by himself. It was challenging trying to shower and get dressed when I could hardly move my left arm, but I was able to use a heating pad and some ice back and forth, and I took ibuprofen, so it was feeling slightly better.

Here are some pictures I took outside that morning. We had lots of fluffy snow falling down, and it was really pretty to watch.

There was enough snow for the kids to play outside, so I went outside with our kids to let them play in the freshly fallen snow. They did a lot of sledding from up at the top of our hill in the back yard, and they were having a great time. I love Aedan's cackle laugh in the background when Samantha hits the boards at the bottom of the hill. It's fun to be able to have this time to play outside, and our backyard is perfect for sledding.

After sledding for awhile, the kids played on our play set for awhile, zipping down the slide, swinging, and spinning around on the tire swing. Samantha gets them going pretty fast, and she even told a story to go along with the ride, pretending that they were in a tornado.

The rest of our Sunday went on like normal with eating dinner and getting ready for a new week, part of that including meal planning and completing an order pick-up for Walmart so I could drive out to get it the next morning with the boys. However, as I waited for the message on Monday morning saying our order was ready, I realized I never actually submitted my order. The online cart was full, but I never finalized it, which made me feel really smart.  I wanted to just get our shopping out of the way, since we have plans other mornings of the week, so I decided to just go to Walmart anyways and do the shopping myself. Our new little boy is content sitting in the cart and hanging out, and Owen will either sit next to him or help me get items to put in the cart, so it is a pretty easy shopping trip, even with two two-year-olds. I took a few pictures of Owen playing with the little Frozen figures that they have in the aisle at Walmart. He likes to line them up on this little tray that pops out, and he was pointing to each one and saying their name. My favorite thing is that he calls Kristoff, "Tick-toff," which is super cute. So, we got our shopping done, even if it took a little longer and we got back later than normal.

The weather was beautiful that day, and I wanted to take advantage of time to be outside as much as possible. I had meatballs in the crock pot, so I suggested to Ben that we load the kids up in the car and go to a playground and let them play before dinner since the weather was so nice. We went to the playground at the kids' schools, and the kids had a blast climbing on the playground and swinging on the swings, getting a little taste of what it will be like when spring arrives.

I took this little video of our new little boy to show just how behind he is physically. He is very unsure on his feet, especially on uneven ground. He walks very hesitantly, almost like he is afraid he is going to fall over at any point. You can see him almost lose his balance at one point as well. He has come so far, but he still has a long way to go, especially when you compare his development to Owen is only one month older than him.

On Tuesday morning my neck felt mostly better, but I still couldn't bend my neck to the left much and it still hurt every time I rolled over at night, making my nights a lot less restful. 

We did our normal routine on Tuesdays of going to the play gym together. The boys always have a blast, and it's a good way to get out of the house in the winter. They particularly had fun in the ball pit that morning. I love the smile on our new little boy's face, especially because he was so expressionless when he first came to live at our home. I love to see his personality coming out more.

 

Here's Owen pushing the huge soccer ball across the gym floor. He liked it when I would push it back at him and make him fall down.

We had kind of a random lunch day of cereal and yogurt for the boys. Hey, they liked it and ate it well. Here are my two happy boys at lunch that afternoon with the warm sunshine streaming in through the patio doors.

After Samantha was sick all last week, she finally got to bring her second quarter report card home on Tuesday. As you can see by her grades, she is doing a wonderful job in school, and she was so happy to see her grades. She also got her winter scores for the DIBELS test, where it showed she is well above proficient in all the categories.

Here's a mid-chapter math quiz that Samantha did a great job on.

Here's some work that Aedan brought home: a certificate for the 100th day of school (for which he brought a little paper bag of 100 Legos), papers about the letter Ll, working with counting by 10s, sight words, and counting and writing up to 15.

Here's some more work from Samantha with making a grid map, practicing possessives, a Charlotte's Web quiz, and spelling practice papers.

Wednesday morning the boys and I spent the morning at home getting some things done. My first job was changing and washing all of our new little girl's bedding because apparently her pull-ups had been leaking at night. The sheets were a little wet and smelled like it had leaked some. Then, Owen and I made banana chocolate chip muffins for small group on Thursday night, made dinner for that night in the crock pot, and I vacuumed the kitchen floor. It felt like a productive morning, and I was happy that the boys allowed me to get all that work done.

Sadly, Owen wasn't napping well for me that afternoon. I had to go back in with him to get him to go back to sleep. He was passed out on me for fifteen minutes, so I thought I was good to try laying him down again, but he woke up crying as soon as I left the room. He has been falling asleep on his own and not waking up at night for a couple weeks now, which is really great because I was pretty tired of him waking up so much at night, but he has been waking up between 6:00-6:15 every morning and then is super tired by mid-morning. He ended up only napping for about forty-five minutes that afternoon, which definitely was not enough for him with how early he woke up and how late he would be up that night with AWANA.

Here is some work Aedan brought home from school on Wednesday: modeling and counting 16 and 17, matching color words, working with the letter Ll, a 98% on a reading assessment, and working with the letter Hh.

Here is the work Samantha brought home with her wonderful grades of 97% on her math test, a 101% on her spelling test, plus some spelling pages. School comes so easily to her, and she is such a focused, hard worker. I love seeing her excel in school!

We got some snow early Thursday morning, so all the kids had a two hour delay that morning. Since Ben doesn't teach on Thursday mornings, he volunteered to stay home longer with the kids to get them all off on the vans to school so that I could get down to Bible study on time. I felt a little frustrated because I was stuck behind traffic from construction on my way down, making us late anyways. Sometimes I feel like no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get places on time with the boys very often. Nevertheless, Bible study was really good, and it's a day of the week that I really look forward to, and I really enjoy talking with, getting to know, and studying the Bible with these ladies.

I had a win that day at lunch because I actually got our new little boy to willingly eat grapes at lunch time. He does not usually eat fruit and vegetables willingly. I can hide vegetables in meals and get him to eat them that way, but fruit is trickier, and it's so strange that we haven't found any fruit that he likes, not even bananas. I feel like most kids love fruit more than anything else, but not this little boy. However, I actually convinced him to try a grape that day, and he actually opened his mouth for it and ate it, and he ate several this way. Yay! We are making progress!

Our dryer had been making this loud rubbing sound for the first minute or so after turning it on. It seemed to have gotten worse and louder, so much so that I felt like I couldn't do laundry while the kids were sleeping because it was just so loud when I turned on the dryer. I was finally tired enough about it that I contacted someone to come and look at it, and the dryer repair man came to work on the dryer on Thursday afternoon. It didn't take him too long to turn the power off for the dryer, and fix and lubricate that parts that were rubbing together. I was glad it was a fairly simple solution for him, and it made it easier to just pay someone to do it then try to take apart the dryer and take a lot of time to figure it out ourselves.

Here is some work the kids brought home that day: a science quiz that Samantha got 100% on; and math fact practice, counting and writing 16 and 17, and practice with the letter Ll for Aedan.

Thursday after school and homework was all done, the kids decided to get all dressed up and play super heroes. We have Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, and Mickey Mouse! They were so cute running around the house together, saving the world from bad guys.

We ended up keeping Aedan home from small group that night because he was just not listening and was needing to go to bed early, especially since small group was all the way down at church and not up in Dallas. So Ben just took Samantha and Owen down to small group with him, while I stayed home with Aedan and our two new little ones. Both Aedan and the little girl spent most of the evening cleaning up messes they made with toys. Aedan got done earlier, so he and I played his super hero game in the basement while I supervised the little girl cleaning up the huge mess she had made of all the toys in the basement. When she was done, it was already time to get ready for bed, so our evening went by pretty quickly.

Friday was another crazy weather day as it was fine in the morning, but a pretty large snowstorm was coming through late morning into the afternoon. Because of that, all the kids were let out early due to the weather forecast. The little girl got home around 11:30, and I had to go pick our kids up from the van around 12:15. I didn't know what to do about picking them up because I knew that I wouldn't be able to get the van up and down our steep driveway, but I had our two new little ones and Owen as well, and I couldn't just leave them at home. So I decided to get the double stroller, get everyone bundled up, and walked down. It was not the easiest thing in the world pushing the stroller down and back up in the slushy snow, and I had to make the little girl hold on to the stroller so she would keep up with me. It worked, but it was not the best experience. However, I didn't really have another choice.

It was early enough when all the kids got home, that they were eager to have some fun together. Samantha and Aedan decided to get their art kits out, so we also got some markers and coloring books out for Owen and our new little girl as well. They were so happy drawing and making their pictures that I almost hated to break them up and make Owen and the little boy go take their afternoon naps.

I let the kids watch the second Star Wars (Episode V) movie and made popcorn for them so we could have a semi-quiet afternoon while the little boys slept. All the kids sat in the living room and even though the little girl didn't really watch or understand the movie, she at least stayed in the living room and looked at books or played quietly with toys. It was a pretty relaxing afternoon, and it was fun to watch Star Wars together, although I need to watch it again sometime because I have never seen them myself and wasn't able to actually just sit and watch the whole thing.

I had tortilla soup already in the crock pot so when Ben got home, I went outside to shovel the driveway. I wanted to take my turn at it, since Ben is the one that usually does it, and I didn't mind getting out of the house and getting some fresh air. We got several inches of snow that day, but it was quiet and peaceful outside so it was nice to get some fresh air and exercise.

Here is some work the kids brought home from school on Friday. Samantha drew this awesome picture for Aedan, copying pictures that she saw in a book, and then there is a spelling test that she got 101% on and a science quiz that she got 100% on.

Aedan did some work with modeling, counting, and writing to 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, a Unit 3 Benchmark Assessment that he just got one wrong on, work with the letter Hh, work with the letter Ll, cause and effect, and sight words. 

Saturday was a pretty busy day for us, as it started with Ben taking Samantha and Aedan to get registered for Little League. Registration started at 9:00, and they needed to be there to try on shirts so they could get the correct size. While he did that, I finished getting our two new little ones ready for their visit with their parents and had them buckled up and ready in the car for when Ben got back. He then took them down to their house and also dropped Samantha off at play practice.

We were debating what to do that day and decided to do something a little crazy and spontaneous so we could get out as a family. Ben and I ate an early lunch with the boys and loaded everyone up in the car to drive down and pick Samantha up from play practice. Then, we drove over to a place called Super Bounce to let the kids have a fun afternoon playing and bouncing. We had never been there before, and it was something I wanted the kids to try out. There were four inflatables and then a toddler play area, so it wasn't huge, but it was enough for the kids to enjoy running around and playing for about an hour and a half. Here are some videos of them playing at Super Bounce together.

Once they had their fill, we actually stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for a special little snack before heading back home. Owen ended up falling asleep in the car on our way home, and I was able to get him back to sleep for awhile once we got back home. While he slept a little longer, I played the Fairy Game with Samantha and Aedan, and it was nice to just spend this focused time playing with them. I don't get to do that very often, so I enjoyed that very much. Then, we woke Owen up a little before 5:00 so we could head to the McFarland's house for dinner and time to talk and hang out. They invited us over, and we were glad to be able to come when our two new little ones were with their parents so we had less kids to keep our eyes on. It was fun to get to know them, hear more about their foster care journey and our life stories, and watch our kids interact with each other. We enjoy inviting people into our home, so it makes us happy when other people do the same with us.

(Blog about February 2-8, 2020)