Nate joins the Cub Scouts

Tuesday Chris called me as I was leaving work that Nate brought home a cub scout flyer and he wanted to join. Well I took him to the scout meeting that night and he really enjoyed it. They made popcorn and water bottle rockets and while I was listening to the sales pitch (not really a sales pitch per se but more of a stressing a child will succeed in scouts if there parents are involved with them).

Nate's luck with leaders kept up with the scouts too (when he played football last year his coach was a professional football player!) The den leader was a military officer with five kids (all in scouts), former prison guard, juvenile probation officer, business owner. The only thing missing a big red S on the uniform :)

Well I really wanted to see if he was serious about joining scouts so I stressed that there was work involved too. There was fun things to be sure but he had to do work also and he said he still wanted to. So I signed him up on their show and sell popcorn drive. Now if you ever gone to a grocery store or Wal-Mart and seen girl scouts selling cookies or boy scouts selling popcorn - that was what Nate was doing. Saturday morning, in the rain, Nate and Conner (a second year cub scout) was on the first shift from 9-10 at Wal-Mart. Nate was a real trooper! I was really proud of him. Afterwards I told him that Scouts had to do that several times a year not really - just once a year and that was the last weekend of it) and was he willing to do that again and he said he was so I went and picked up Lexi, and then we went and picked up a uniform for Nate and then I took them to McDonalds for lunch.

I finally uploaded a bunch of old photos to the photo album. As well as Nate in his new uniform - enjoy.

"Fun" two weeks

Oh this has been a fun couple of weeks.

The best thing is that Nate lost his front tooth. It's been loose for over a month and came out when he was brushing his teeth. So Nate had another visit from the tooth fairy :)



Friday last week Chris' back went out on her. It was a double whammy because the pain was so great she did not realize she also had strep until Sunday. So I took Monday off so she could go to the doctor. For those who really don't know Chris that was a indicator of how bad she was - she called the doctor. They gave her some medicines for both her strep throat and her back. I worked from home Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because her back was still hurting her.

This weekend we had to face the consequence of Chris being sick. Every two or three days after Lexi's bath Chris would sit down with Lexi and comb out the tangles in her hair. Fast forward 9 days and Lexi had some tangles that would no longer comb out. So for the first time in over a year Lexi got a haircut.



I uploaded some pics of Nate and Lexi - enjoy.

Kids update

Well both the kids are sick again. I am not sure how it happened for Nate but he seems okay in the morning but by the afternoon he tires down and by night time he is running a fever. If this keeps up we will take him to the doctor soon - will have to because if he misses any more school he will need a doctors note to get back in.

Lexi just had a mild fever until we took her for her four year checkup where she got four shots plus they took three tries to draw blood. I was working from home Monday taking care of Nate when Chris came back with Lexi crying. Poor little girl cried in my arms until she fell asleep. Today though she went to school but was tired when she came back and crashed after we got her pajamas on.

Took the kids to see Santa today

I posted that picture in the photo album.

Thanksgiving down - Xmas to go

Well Chris' cough turned out to bronchitis so we canceled the large Thanksgiving and only had Carol and Christopher over. After Thanksgiving dinner Carol stayed with Chris and I took the kids over to see my parents and Bobby and Darlene.

Friday after Thanksgiving we tried to have a family photo at WalMart but that failed. Because they could not move their camera they have set templates on where people should be for a given number of people. For seven people they have all the tallest people stand while the shorter ones stand/sit in front. For us that did not work because Dad, the tallest at 6'4" had to sit and they were not able to make the picture work even though they tried for forty minutes! I have to say the children was awesome! They sit still through the whole forty minutes! I was very proud of them.

Well we came back Friday night because it was going to rain Saturday. Nate's fever came back and he had to miss school Monday-Wednesday so he could get enough rest. Lexi's sinus infection came back and we got some more antibiotics. At least these she is willing to tolerate.

On a positive note we just finished watching "Meet the Robinsons" and it was great! If you get a chance to watch it I would definitely recommend it.

I uploaded Lexi's fall school pictures on our photo album. Enjoy!

:)

The kids had a blast last week

Well last week was Nate's last football game, Tuesday was the football party where he got a nice trophy and dog tag. Wednesday I took him to out to eat with Grandmoo and Grandma Katie and Uncle Christopher (Chris and Lexi were too sick to go). Friday and Saturday Nate had birthday parties to go to and Sunday Uncle Bobby and Aunt Darlene dropped by. Needless to say Nate was pretty bored today!

:)

The joys of antibiotics

Nate and Lexi still had the wet cough a couple of weeks ago so we took them to the doctors and got them both some antibiotics (the doctor thinks its a sinus infection). Unfortunately neither the pharmacist or the instruction sheet told us the medicine had to be refrigerated after opening - it was on the bottle in the same font as everything else so we missed that one. So after four days of increasingly sour faces from the kids (Lexi hated the stuff from the get go and by the forth day it was just horrible the fits she was throwing) we rechecked the instruction sheet, then checked the bottle then threw them out. Nate was all better by that time and Lexi sounded a little better so we decided to see how they sounded after a week.

Well that weekend we got sick. Nate and I got sick Friday night, Nate could not keep anything down and I slept for about 30 hours between Friday night and Sunday morning. Sunday was Chris' turn and she spent most of the day in bed. Lexi did not catch anything but her cough got worse during the week. We were going to take her back to the doctors on Monday (today) but Saturday she was crying because her ears were hurting. I took her up to kids urgent care center that night and her right ear was infected. I got different antibiotic for her and confirmed it did NOT need to be refrigerated (but its in there anyway).

Week in review

Nate had another fun week of football. They had their first real game this Saturday and the one time I did not take spare batteries to a game/practice is the one time I load the camera with dead batteries. Alot of my batteries are getting near the end of their recharging lives so sorry - no pics of the last game.

Lexi started dance class this week too. She had her first class Wednesday. I have not figured out yet if its once a week or Monday and Wednesday. When I find that out I will let y'all know.

Grandmoo was up this weekend so Chris and I went up to my office and packed up my cube. No I have not quit or gotten laid off (yet - on both counts). They are rearranging the cubes in the building and going to a flex-space configuration. Basically they are cutting the cube space in half and there are no longer assigned cubes (though there is a hope in our group that we will have assigned cubes on a project by project basis). Basically all our stuff has to fit in one wheeled file-cabinet/locker which we are supposed to take and find a unoccupied cube each morning and set up then at the end of the day we are supposed to pack our stuff back in the locker and wheel it to a common area so we can retrieve it the next day. I really wonder if companies actively try and find ways of lowering employee morale. If so I give flex-space a gold star!

Nate's first football practice

Nate had his first flag football practice today. The team he is on is a Pre-K and Kindergarten team called the Bears. The exciting thing is the main coach for the team is a professional football player Devin Wyman. You can view his stats here.

Nate did really good on his first practice and afterwards we went to McDonalds for chicken nuggets.

His practices are on Tuesdays and Fridays and his first game will be this Saturday so be ready for lots of pictures!

Nate and Lexi - Superstars!

Nate and Lexi singing their favorite theme song.

Click here to watch

Enjoy :)

Getting ready for Bobby and Darlene

Oh man its been busy :)

I had to work this weekend (boo) but I was still able to get the lawn mowed. The weedeater started to crap out on me at the end but I hope its because the oil/gas mixture is wrong. I am not having any luck with gas powered lawn equipment this year! I have replaced both my lawn mower and weedeater. If I have to replace the weedeater again I am going high end and getting a four-stroke so I won't have to mix the oil and gas again.

We were also able to get the house cleaned up Sunday. We did not get to bed until after 1 - which was bad because I have to get up at 5am to go to work (still have not recovered from that). But most of the prep work for Bobby and Darlene to come over is done.

Yesterday I did some chores outside and put on a "Balance buddy" for his bicycle to help him learn how to ride his bicycle without training wheels. For those who have never seen one all it is is a handle on the back of the bike that I can hold on to while Nate pedals the bike. Sorry since I was Nate's balance buddy there are no pics.

May update

Well I took the kids to see my parents two weeks ago (first road trip in the minivan) and we got to Tyler when we got the call that Chris' aunt Gail passed away. I went ahead and spent a couple of days with my parent, and the kids got to see their great Grandmother and great, great Grandmother. Both the kids got sick afterwards so I stayed with them while Chris went to the funeral.

Nate had his pre-school graduation last week. All the age groups sang (Lexi was a laugh riot). I posted the videos on google and will try and get them linked with fotki today.

This week we had new floor reinstalled. I am still tired from being up until 2am unwiring all our computers. The good thing is that by starting over I was able to replace three power strips and two extension cords with three squids. The floor looks nice. The kids hated being cooped up for a couple of days and, of course, made us share their pain. but afterwards they liked running around on the new floor.

Kids are doing Better

After I did my last post Lexi got sick with a stomach virus and could not keep anything down for a day. Once she started to feel better Nate got sick and could not keep anything down for two days. Lesson learned: when you child has not had anything for a day and a half no matter how bad the cough - cough syrup is a bad idea! Poor Nate went instantly drunk.

Fortunately I was able to work from home to help out with the kids.

This weekend my mom and dad came up and Me and Chris went and got her a new computer: A 15" MacBook Pro. I am currently working on getting all of Chris information off of her old computer and on to her mac.

It has not been a stellar week for the wife's side of the family

Last week both Chris' mom and step mother had falls that resulted in broken bones and if that was not bad enough her Aunt Gail (who is undergoing treatment for cancer) had to be rushed back to the hospital with double pneumonia.

Everyone keep them in your prayers.

On a happier note we finally gave Nate a guitar that Grandmoo got for him last year. We figured he was old enough to take care of it now. I posted some pictures of him with the guitar in our photo album.